The Slayer and her Vampire

Chapter one

Rae’s Birthday Gift

It was an old piece of equipment; big and bulky and a tremendous pain in the arse. If only it had earmuffs so he could add deafness to his list of disabilities, then he could remain ignorant to the screams and grunts of ever-loving bliss pouring through the walls of the mansion.

Fucking bitch, sire. Complete fucking wanker of a grandsire. They sucked out all his patience. Made him wallow in his little hell on wheels until the moment he could make the move to prove he wasn’t quite yet out of the game.

They’d retired for the night, forgetting to provide him with some satisfying feed. He’d just have to go and find himself something; it was a bit of a chore when you got peckish while restrained in the chair and under their gloating eye.

A small bitter smile curled Spike’s lips as he pushed himself unsteadily to his feet. He’d had just about enough of it all. One grand moment had shown him that all women were fickle bitches, good for nothing but the blood they could dribble down his throat. Stuck in a body with weakened legs was beyond bloody extreme, and Spike decided to ignore the dangers known to him if he went a wandering on Slayer turf without the strength to protect himself.

Would almost be a blessing. And there’s a plan! Find the annoying little chit with shampoo commercial hair, make a bite at her and he’d be so much dust on the wind. Bloody perfect, it was.

With a far more chipper smile for one committed to allowing his existence to explode into a cloud of dust, he slowly made his way out of the mansion, legs rickety from disuse.

The night was young for all those vamps not yet fed and tucked up with someone else’s significant other. The continuing steps added a little zing in the swagger. He was convalescent, yet still had enough Big Bad to scare away any of the younger pups thinking of possibilities of one upmanship. It was no secret in such a disloyal bloody world of evil that he was weakened. A wreck at the hands of the Slayer. Well, Spike was determined to find her and have her finish off the job.

A loud altercation in the first graveyard he came to had him sniffing her out. The blunt thump of fists hitting faces suddenly went silent as a pouf of ash hit the air, and Spike couldn’t help but smirk in admiration. She’d been improving; was better even than when he’d last fought her in the church.

A moment of melancholy stayed his movement, sadness that he would be going out at less than his best.

Didn’t matter. He shrugged it off and reconciled himself to his end and continued to creep up behind her. He marvelled at her obliviousness as she kept her back to him. He stopped, tilted his head to the side and waited for her to calm and sense him.

Her turn was slow, but finding him within a step behind her had her jump half out of her skin. Instead of fuelling Spike’s humour, her sudden rush of fear disappointed him.

“What the hell do you want, Spike?”

He couldn’t help the direction of his eyes as he swept her from gorgeous hair to fashionably booted feet. No doubt about it this Slayer was a looker. Fists were still lethal, though. And whether he’d changed his mind or not was too late, his legs far too weak to get him back to the mansion let alone propel him through this fight and remain standing.

Time to take the bull by the balls, he thought as a fist swung and connected with her cheek. Her look of shock confused him enough that he didn’t see her kick as it effectively knocked him off his feet and to his back, a lump of warm slayer straddling his belly in the most inconvenient manner. She clung to the stake raised in her fist, poised for the down-stroke that would take him from this world and condemn him to one of continual torment.

He couldn’t close his eyes, kept them on her and took her in. The abruptly snubbed nose, the glittering shine of jade-coloured eyes, and the plush plumpness of lips he suddenly thought looked kind of interesting. He wanted to see her at his demise, not focus on the stake that was arrowed toward his heart.

The softening of his facial features as he soaked in her scrutiny stayed her hand. Her knees squeezed his ribs as she lowered her pointy stick and she watched him closely as his eyes glazed at the sight of her mouth.

‘What the hell?’

Buffy had been stumped by this vamp before, but now his altered look of hunger was mystifying. His focus hadn’t even once drifted to her neck, and for some reason that reassured her of his lack of danger. Not to mention he’d gone down like a…like a…like a vamp with crippled legs! They seemed kind of flimsy right now, and his colour was paler than usual. He looked like he was verging into starved territory and Buffy started to wonder what it would be like to feed him.

It was bad, bad, bad. Slayer as vamp cow, had surely never been done, but he’d come straight to her, willing to go up against her when he obviously hadn’t done much therapy outside his wheelchair.

“Slayer?”

His call shocked her back into taking notice of the loosening of her thighs around him. Yet he had made no attempt to throw her off his body, instead had snaked his hands up to her waist and was subtly moving her backwards over the surprise erection he’d sprung under her preoccupied consideration of his face.

What did she see when she looked at him? He felt washed up, used and useless to his own family while they rutted like wilderbeast to a captive audience. But to her? She was the killer of his kind and yet he found himself in such an astounding situation—one that should never have been possible.

She sat fully on him, her heat seeping through her outerwear to scorch him with her brand. He could scent such beautiful surprises from her body, ones that did nothing to cool his confusion.

His hands had spanned her waist and now were heading to her chest, brushing hesitant fingertips against the nipples not quite hidden by the skimpy fabric of her top.

“Sweetheart, I’m thinking that if we aren’t going to dance tonight I might need a bit of help getting home.”

The unconscious licking of her lips near did him in and his cock twitched against her sodden centre, inflaming him enough to consider discarding sense. An abrupt nod and she was back on her feet, leaving his throbbing body bereft and colder than any undead man should ever have to feel. He sat up and tried to push himself to his feet, but without help it was hopeless, he was left to flounder like a banked snapper.

Before he could say the words that would humiliate him beyond measure she had him in a hold and yanked him back to his feet. An arm wound around his waist as his own settled on her shoulders.

“You’re weak and you aren’t feeding well. What are those morons doing to you?”

He couldn’t help but gawk at her in pleased surprise. Her concern knocked him for six but it brought back that small seep of feeling that had drained when she took her body away from his.

“Yeah, well, can’t take time out of our busy shagging schedule to feed the invalid vamp now, can we.” His pained gaze caught hers and he felt a momentary sense of shame for bringing up the poof’s activities. Her hurt affected him in ways he could never have anticipated and he felt like an arse for doing it. Still, she wiped his mind with her gentle smile.

“Would some top shelf from Willie’s help?”

Stunned into immobility, despite the lack of movement as of yet.

His eyes softened; he could feel his own rising affection for her concern and felt a knot in his throat prevent his voice from working. He nodded his consent and they slowly set off into the night—a slayer and her vampire.

A/N...I would love to hear all your thoughts on this, suggestions are welcome. As i said, completely last minute, and while I could probably think of somewhere for this to go ;) I have 14 birthdays in April...gahhhh...so review...pretty please???

Chapter Two
For Ghostgirl13



By the time he collapsed on the stool at Willy’s bar, he was struggling to stay upright. The Slayer had kept her arm around him the whole walk and had even given a few demons the evil eye as they made moves toward Spike. What kind of moves she didn’t wait to confirm. The first one who got too close lost an arm. Literally. After that, they stayed back and just wondered at this strange pairing sitting at the bar. One with glass after glass of blood chased with several shots of the good stuff, the other with an uncorrupted can of soda.

Once upon a time—and not so long ago—he would have thought sitting in companionable silence at a demon bar with his mortal enemy would have been the stuff of nightmares. Rather it felt peaceful; calm. Almost natural. As if two supernatural creatures created to destroy one another were the perfect drinking buddies. Even if it was the aim of one to not get pissed—or even have the hard tasting liquor pass her lips.

Once the fire of alcohol seemed a permanent burn down his throat, Spike felt his muscles relax and his legs go numb. By then, it didn’t seem to make a lick of difference that the girl perched beside him had deadly stakes stashed all over her body. Spike squinted at a portion of said body, intent on locating just one of the little buggers, and found himself leaning over far and landing in her lap with only the slightest thump against the bar top.

Her lap was nice. Soft and comfy with the most tantalising aroma that went straight to his goolies. When he felt the velvet softness of her hand stoking his face and then her fingers tangling in his hair he knew he was in trouble.

“I think you might have had enough, Spike,” she said to him and for a second his sloshed brain tried to tell him she was singing. Singing god-awful poetry, sure, but something tinkling and lovely and gleaming.

And bloody hell was her lap the most comfy place he had ever rested his head. It led to thoughts of other soft bits that might be comfy and in the shock of that moment, he shot up and hit his nose on the bench in his upswing.

“Ow,” he whined.

“Poor baby,” she comforted as she leaned forward and kissed it.

Both sets of eyes became as huge as saucers and immediate freakage took place.

“That so did not happen,” she almost screeched into the dead silence of Willy’s, her voice cracking in sudden fright at her impulsive actions.

“Bloody right it didn’t.” His eyes bugged even as other parts of him tingled. Her lips had been nice, felt warm and slippery as if she’d just licked them. He was hard pressed to keep his hand from swiping her taste from the tip of his nose onto his finger so he could hold it against his lips and sample what he felt a great need to.

They stopped and stared, words lost as they scrambled for some foothold in territory that had suddenly become foreign.

“’M gonna still need that help gettin’ out of here, luv. Legs are all wonky.”

That concern shot through her once again, bringing forth slivers of gold mixed with her calm green that he’d not seen in her eyes before. Not that he’d ever been this close to her and bothered to look.

“Can you stand?”

She held her hand against his waist as he slipped forward on his stool to test his weight on one foot. His knee buckled before he could find purchase against the surface and her brows crinkled in worry. She seemed frantic to land on a plan, her eyes darting back and forth between Willy and the numerous evil patrons who would love to take Spike out of the picture. Something seemed to click and her gaze settled on the bar owner with a ferocity steeped deep in Slayer legend.

“Clear the place. Now.”

Willy jumped; the cold force of her voice sent anxiety tripping along his veins as his blood pounded through his body.

Within seconds his fear motivated his feet to scuttle around the bar and he very effectively convinced every patron to leave with only minor grumbling along the way. He fidgeted in the middle of the room, eyeing the odd blond couple still perched up at his bar.

“Gimme your keys.”

The objection was immediate and without caution.

“Oh no. I’ve heard about your driving skills—of the ‘don’t have any’ variety.”

“And I’ve heard how easy it is to crack your skull. Go pull your car around the front then give me the keys. And Willy?” The weedy little man stood perfectly still, heart pounding with fear and a little irritation at being forced to give up his belongings because he was weaker.

“Yeah?” he asked hesitantly, a tiny shiver taking possession of his limbs.

“Make sure none of your customers are waiting outside because I will kill them all. Might be kinda bad for business.” She finished on a smile, catching Spike’s fingers in a random show of affection that left him gasping a breath.

Willy wasted no time leaving and they almost immediately heard the roar of some presumably ugly old clunker. Buffy felt her belly clench in worry, knowing that Willy wasn’t that far wrong about her driving skills. Thoughts of wrapping some big tank around an electric pole gave her icy fingers of dread circling her neck.


When she returned to the present—by virtue of a very yummy squeeze on her fingers—it was to see Spike’s head tilted to the side and a question in his eye.

“Why haven’t you staked me, Slayer? It’s why I came looking for you.”

She cringed at the reminder, being quite comfortable in forgetting that she had had him sprawled beneath her body and a stake ready to be thrust between his ribs. The image was suddenly abhorrent, despite the cruel jibes and the frightening promises of death. Honestly, she couldn’t answer his question. Nothing was making sense—except that he couldn’t fight back, and that seemed more of a crime than she should be wanting to consider.

“The night is still young, Spike. Let’s move your ass outside and get you home before I change my mind.” And so she filled him up with some of her empty threats, unknowingly sparking a trend of forgiveness and tolerance that seemed unexplainable.

He gazed at her in wonder and she shuddered under the intensity of his consideration. Her tongue seemed suddenly incapable of words and instead she grabbed his arm, slung it round her shoulders and bared the majority of his weight as she half-dragged him to the doorway.

Willy practically threw her the keys, caught in the graceful hand of the evil vampire she had hanging bare centimetres from her exposed neck.

Their eyes clashed in uncertainty, steps fumbling a little confusion. Buffy could feel her own body reacting—completely without her permission. Her fingers gently massaged the wrist of his arm slung around her neck as if he were someone special—if not her boyfriend. Her other arm gripped him around the waist, catching on his jutting hipbone. His thinness and pale colour did little in making her happy to take him back amongst the monster pit.

“You have to, pet,” his voice soothed her secret worry. “They don’t know I’ve gone an’ besides, I’ve nowhere else to go.”

It was on the tip of her tongue to refute that, to offer her own basement as a nice dark cubbyhole in which to heal—and be available for whatever reason Slayer’s needed evil soulless vamps free in their homes.

Instead she nodded, bundled him far too carefully into the passenger seat, and contemplated the controls in the car for a full ten minutes before jerking and sputtering to a laughable roll into the street.

Finally confident she had it worked out, she chanced a quick glance to the side and nearly screamed at how corpselike Spike looked.

“Jesus, Slayer. Who in the fuck taught you to drive?”

The Slayer just smiled and drove on.


A/N...this idea apparently got some people excited, so I am trying to spin it out while rewarding the wonderful people on my flist. Thanks go firstt wo the brave ones that reviewed last time--some of which have been awesome in support with my recent breakdown! Thanks Tara, bloodshedbaby, Bridget, blondiebear, Allison and Patti. You're enthusiasm really gave me a kick in the pants this week.

It was no surprise when they rolled to a stop about half a metre over the curb outside the mansion. The entire trip had been fraught with terrifyingly sharp corners, stalled intersections—at least those where the stop sign hadn’t been completely ignored—and the parking half-on half-off the road. Even Buffy was gripping the steering wheel in a clasp a crowbar would have trouble prying loose.

Neither moved as she turned off the engine, eyes filled with fear staring straight ahead.

“Bloody…hell!” Burst past Spike lips, the panic finally finding release in the expulsion of his breath. “You won’t be done in by one of us, pet. You’re destined for a car wreck. I’m tellin’ you now, drop me off and bleeding well walk home. You won’t be lucky attemptin’ to get this thing back to Willy’s.”

Ordinarily Buffy would have shredded him with her tongue, challenged him with perfectly thought out barbs. Not this time though. This time her knuckles were white and she was still seeing the strange blue colour of that car she had almost slammed into.

An emphatic nod indicated she thoroughly agreed with him, hair all springy as it bounced around her shoulders. She found the prospect of walking home past a multitude of cemeteries bursting with vamps infinitely safer than climbing behind the wheel of this ridiculously powerful engine again.

“Stupid dumb car,” she mumbled, the words barely squeezing past her pout.

It was captivating, Spike found. That lush lip distracting him from the reality of being back ‘home’, despite the front door being in plain view. And much bloody closer than any other car could have gotten him without the Slayer being behind the wheel—barely even stopping for the footpath.

The tension was released as he barked a laugh. They’d made it, all in one piece and only a couple of bruises to show for it. He could feel the stirring tingle in his gut as she joined his mirth with a reluctant giggle.

“Don’t think it was the car, luv. Get the impression that puttin’ you behind any kind of machinery just might be askin’ far too damn much of the Slayer.”

Her eyes sparkled when she finally looked away from the windscreen, her glance falling on his face and watching the interesting shadows cast by the street lamp.

“Was the widdle vampire scared of the Big Bad Slayer?”

“Who are you callin’ little?” His voice was filled with so much inadequacy that it made Buffy wince.

Completely impulse driven she slid across the seat, lifting a gentle hand to rest against his cheek, her palm feeling so warm she was afraid of chafing the skin of his gorgeous face.

“Don’t let them win, Spike. You aren’t unimportant, or even weak. She’s stupid. He’s stupid. And right now, you have me.” Her lips slipped over his in the most gentle caress he’d ever experienced. Warm moving sensitive flesh rubbed sensually over his and he was silent, allowing his own to fall apart so as to receive her fully. His tongue brushed lightly against the inside of her bottom lip and he felt the first stirring of personal esteem since he’d found himself confined to a wheelchair.

The kiss stirred him from his near slumberous participation and he couldn’t help but move his hand to tangle in the length of her hair. Another arm snaked around her waist and quite by accident he found her abruptly in his lap. Her tongue was stroking his now, his body feeling alive and pumping blood more forcefully than when he had most recently fed—life leaking from one failing body to the animated one.

Her lips slipped and slid against his, her tongue seeking out the coolness of his mouth and he could feel the heated imprint of her hands as they weakly braced against his chest. Her fingers were curled; he could feel the sharp edge of her nails as she clutched at the t-shirt covering his flesh, and he couldn’t hold back the little hungry growl deep in his throat.

It worked better than mere memory that she was in the lap of a vampire who had been hellbent on depriving the world of her existence a few short months ago.

“Was that an ‘I want to eat you’ kind of growl, or an ‘I want to eat you’ kind?” Buffy asked him nervously, her hands already strengthening against his chest for the possibility of having to get away from him fast. The cheeky smirk of his lips was enough to relax Buffy’s guard, but only a little.

“Definitely the second one, pet. Your lips are some very fine cuisine. Give ‘em back.”

Buffy watched his eagerness for her in wonder, not even thinking of the weirdness for a second. But already her fingers had relaxed and as her brain ticked over an answer her hands had taken on a mind of their own by tracing a repetitive pattern over his heart.

“You know this is wrong, don’t you? Me Slayer, you Vampire,” she emphasised with a jab to each of their chests, her own obviously lacking the oomph she stacked behind the finger that connected with Spike’s person.

“It’s naughty, Slayer. Not wrong. You helpin’ me ‘cause I’m weakened shows what a caring and fair girl you are. An’ if you didn’t know it, I appreciate it. Now, you on my lap, the kissing, feels all sorts of good to me, and that is something life has been more than bloody short on lately. So, yeah. Got the titles down right, luv. Jus’ can’t help thinkin’ how fun it would be to play.” He emphasised his hope of play with a sultry heat to his voice and roaming fingers that teased at the buttons of her shirt. His lips curved in a smile when she started to squirm, broadening when he sniffed the reason out as one other than an urgency to remove herself from his evil clutches.

The night surrounded them, hiding them within the loaner car as he continued to fiddle with the buttons that kept her protected from his eyes. Slowly she covered his persistent fingers, halting his action before he could succeed and the burning in her belly got in the way of her stopping him before he could touch her warming skin underneath.

“Spike,” she warned, her voice husky with unwanted repression. “We can’t. We have to get you back inside before it gets much lighter.”

Both of them were drawn back to look across the front wall to the door of the mansion. With a resigned sigh, Buffy released the catch and pushed the car door open, stumbling gracelessly from Spike’s lap into the road. He caught her just as her knees were about to hit the tar.

“Careful, Slayer,” he growled low, the deep reverberation lodging in her lower body and making her itch.

Quietly she helped him from the seat, the proud set of his straight lips the only sign of how very much he hated being at her mercy and whim for help. By rights she should have dusted him. He’d stumbled his way into her path so there would finally be an end to his struggles. He should have bloody known that all his plans went arse backwards. Particularly the ones where the Slayer had a starring role. The infuriating chit was too unpredictable.

Yet he made sure his arms drew her warm body closer as she helped him up the small step and through the gate. She bore the majority of his weight, and for that alone he felt less of a man.

Gone was the anger and furious desire for retribution towards her. It might be her fault he was in this chair, but her generous heart had helped him home. He should have been left defenceless out there to the other demons—if she hadn’t planned on taking him out. Instead, she’d brought him back.

The grunting he’d been attempting to escape still bounced around the stone walls of the mansion, making him grit his teeth in disgust. The hurt had faded just a little, and again he found himself being grateful for the Slayer.

She half-dragged him across the room until he finally fell soundlessly into the hated chair. The expression on his face immediately hardened to one of stoic bravery. The subtle shift of his head as his chin nudged her shoulder was the only indication of how much this situation hurt him and Buffy wondered again if this was the best place for her to be helping him settle in.

“You better go, pet. They won’t be happy if they see you here. They’ll be too strong for you on your own and I’m too gammied up to help you.”

The sweet sincerity of his desire to help her despite his frailty made her gasp, so unexpected it threw her whole worldview out the window. But she nodded, knowing he was right and had to face the monsters in the other room without her still present. If she were caught, it could only lead to worlds of bad.

Feeling newly brazen, Buffy kissed the corner of his mouth and sighed against his soft lips.

“Good luck,” she whispered sadly, and then the Slayer was gone.

And Spike was an invalid once more.


A/N... I am so blown away by the response to this fic. I hope you enjoyed this one...if so, take the time to let me know. I greatly appreciate all your encouragment. Thanks for comments last time : Allison, Demonica Mills, bloodshedbaby, Bynee, chatcaro, Blazing Fire, ilpopi, Cordykitten, Juanita, Amanda, Bridget, Sue, dreamgirl4eva and steph. Your support has been awesome and made me decide to continue this. Thank you all.

A/N...your support for this fic that was originally meant as a one shot is awesome. I hope you like this chapter.

She couldn’t leave. The changes in mood and attitude Spike had displayed over the hours she had spent with him were so lightning fast that she could feel a steady thump at the base of her skull. Yay, she was in for a headache. Staring at Willy’s tank disguised as a car didn’t help to dim any of the tension either. So, casting her eyes around, she found herself searching for a window that would help her to spy on Spike. For no other reason than to make sure he didn’t wheel himself into a fire or something. That the grate was free of flame was so not the point, Buffy conceded with a humph.

It looked like she’d left him alone in the chair just in time, as he was soon set upon by his vampiric claim to family. It was funny how those few hours watching him get drunk, watching him slowly accept that she wasn’t about to stake him while he couldn’t even stand, gave her an alarming ability to read him. Know the nuances of his lips and the glitter of his eyes when he was in pain but masked by sarcastic bravado.

She wasn’t sure what she had expected the treatment had been for him to be so resolute in seeking his death. Sure, losing his love to his long lost grandsire wouldn’t have made him want to do wheelies while singing in the street. But even if Drusilla was a fickle bitch, she couldn’t see that the woman who had previously enjoyed the loving devotion of William the Bloody would be intentionally unkind to him. But the callous acts being performed in front of Spike would be more than enough to make the blonde vamp decide to end his torment. Seek a permanent release from his pain.

It was horrific. It was awful and so deliberately cruel. Not to mention gross and disgusting. No way was she putting up with this.

Without questioning why she felt so strongly about taking Spike away from this kind of daily life, Buffy spun away from the window and headed for back-up. And a plan. And a shred of commonsense.

She didn’t even give Willy’s car a second glance as she blurred down the street.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

He wasn’t ready. Not bloody ready to return to the persona that belonged in this chair. Become the beaten down childe that didn’t deserve anything but the stalest crumbs tossed his way.

Before he’d prepared his heart for it, before he’d resolved the kiss with the Slayer in his head, they bombarded him with their carnal scent. Skipped around his chair with cruel delight as they resumed their play with each other. The only thing he was grateful for was that the distraction kept them from smelling danger on him. Smelling small traces of betrayal and discontent.

Dru’s voice was a nasty trill as she giggled and sung the praises of her most special Daddy and his meaty schlong of terror. Spike hurt his eyes by rolling them back so hard at the waggling appendage of his grandsire and wondered if he could chip his teeth with a superhuman jaw clench. Good thing for vampire healing her of Spike’s nice shape or that little thing would fall right out of Dru’s slippy tunnel of love. But if Dru’s new thing were to throw hotdogs down her hallway, he’d find blonder pastures to stretch out in.

She slunk over his lap, her head swaying and body nude as they sung a serpent’s song, her eyes far away and dreamy and in no way focusing on him as she writhed her pussy against his jeans.

For the first time, the hedonistic act made him feel ill. Made him wish he hadn’t wasted the strength in his legs earlier in seeking the Slayer out. Made him wish he had waited for this repulsive moment to grow a set and seek some comforts instead of eternal damnation.

It wasn’t even that the sojourn into the Slayer’s lap had his mind casting for alternatives to take his mind off his current humiliation. Wasn’t that her lips had whispered a promise of other ways to exist. Wasn’t even that her maniacal driving scared the shit out of him and the life back into him.

For some fucked up reason, it was her hair. Shining gold that he would love to just fold in his hand; let his fingers smooth with a gentle touch while perhaps curled up in front of the telly.

The image brought a smile to his lips, and as out of it as Dru was, she took the sign as intended for her and slipped all over him some more. Her clammy skin made him colder and he found his mind wandering to warmer places, seeing other horizons.

Dru’s hands wandered to his pants, despite the lack of solid behind the zipper. Before she connected with metal, however, Angelus had torn her off Spike’s lap with a fist twisted roughly in the woman’s hair. She whimpered a little before her usual insane cackle grated in Spike’s ears.

A little shake of his head may have released him from the images of the blond out of his reach—‘and with bloody good reason’ he thought with a confused frown—but even the intricacies of his long-time lover had his teeth on edge. For the first time in over a hundred years she failed to captivate him. Just plain out failed, and that set a more desperate fear in his heart than the thought of meeting the business end of the Slayer’s stake should have.

Angelus shoved his conquest face forward across Spike’s lap and he cringed back in his chair in the face of understanding. Once upon a time he would have had his dick in her mouth, being sucked to a blissful place while she was pleasured from behind. But this act was designed to hurt, designed to keep him in his place by an Angelus with a point to prove. Her hair brushed against his crotch as she moaned and writhed above him, Angelus pounding into her sopping hole with all the vengeance of a hundred year craving for freedom.

What could he do but zone out? So Spike put himself back there, returned in his head to the role of invalid wishing for a savior.

Wishing for Buffy.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

It wasn’t until she got to her Watcher’s door—pounding on it like the hounds of hell were after her brand new Jimmy Choo knock-offs—that she realised that Giles was going to look at her like she’d been turned. The thought of it nearly made her giggle, and probably would have if she’d not remembered the scene she had just run from.

A groggy middle-aged Watcher opened the door to her and at once Buffy was inside. He closed the door in a haze of confusion.

“Sorry for the early wake-up call, Giles. I forgot that not everyone else is up killing demon’s like me,” she told him, the small shot of sarcasm for once not intended but established nonetheless with his grimace.

She looked impatient as he retrieved a pair of glasses from the pocket of his robe and gingerly placed them upon his nose. He squinted at her, his eyes still in the land of nod even if his brain was ticking over slowly.

“I kinda need the gang’s help. But yours most of all, ‘cause… you know…you’re the man with the car.”

Giles’s brows hit his hairline in a sudden premonition that he was in for something he wasn’t going to like.

“Indeed,” was his reply as he snapped his glasses from his face and began to rub them nervously. “What happened, Buffy? I will try and help you if you need it. Of course I will.”

“Okay,” she started, her mind finally catching up with her motive and wondering if he would think she had gone around some shaky bend and crashed into a pesky hidden wall. “I kinda need your help in rescuing someone.”

The blank expression on his face immediately was replaced with active concern and he was racing for his room to get dressed. “Of course,” he tossed over his shoulder as he retreated into his loft. “Just let me throw on some clothes and get the keys. You can explain along the way. Will you need anyone else?”

Buffy nervously eyed the lightening sky—freezing out the image of Giles’s inevitably incredulous expression when they arrived and she explained her purpose—and smiled. It would be much easier to rescue Spike with a big stake, a bigger cross, and a confused but loyal watcher watching her back. That made her giggle quietly, not wanting Giles to hear and suddenly slow and not see any urgency in the sitch if she was laughing in the midst of apparent disaster.

“Nah, we should be able to do it on our own.”

He returned, scruffy but covered a little in tweed. Buffy grabbed his small bag of stakes, holy water bottles and cross and headed for the door.

“Oh, and Giles? Grab a thick blanket, too.”

His expression puckered as he contemplated the blanket, an uneasy feeling settling over his shoulders as he followed her into the approaching morning. As he unlocked his car—noticing Buffy’s flinch as the key lodged in the ignition—he asked for directions, wondering at her street by street by-play as he rumbled closer and closer to the mansion.

Once he realised the final address, he groaned and waited patiently for the reason he was sitting parked outside the home of their latest worry. One look at Buffy’s determined face told him he wasn’t going to get one that was rational, and instead of questioning her, instead of doing anything that might prolong his return to his bed, he crept along behind her.

Ready with resigned breath to watch the latest folly unfold.

Chapter Five
For Oracleholly

They waited at the front door of the mansion, the sun rising in a hurry over their shoulders. The perverted sexual act had progressed and it grossed Buffy out enough to make her stop and check Spike’s expression. He looked as repulsed as she did, which was so of the good. If he had been enjoying this little activity he was so going to be kidnapped with a stake in his chest.

“Oh Buffy, really. I don’t think this is such a good idea. Angel would appear to be…rather…busy just now. Couldn’t you kidnap him at some other, less exposed moment?”

“Ssh,” she hissed over her shoulder, snatching the large bulky cross from Giles’s bag and grabbing the thick blanket in her other hand. “Okay, this is the plan. You hold the cross against the naked couple while I throw the blanket over Spike. You push him out while I guard our backs. Got it?”

She blinked as Giles’s spluttered indignant.

“Are you bloody well mad? What are you thinking, Buffy?”

“He’s crippled, Giles. Look, I’ll explain it all later, but right now we have to get him out of there.” Her annoyed whisper lacked the impact of her usual hands on hips, normal tenor as she outlined and expected agreement to her plans.

Giles couldn’t decide if he should laugh or cry. “I have always thought you a strange girl, Buffy, but if this doesn’t take the cake.”

“I’ll bloody well buy you cake. Lot’s of cake. British cake, even. If we can just get in there and get him out. And Giles, make sure he’s covered. I don’t want him to get crispy.”

He just mumbled about her ‘atrocious’ accent as he grabbed a stake.

Waiting for no more argument, Buffy was off, bounding into the mansion with a hesitant Watcher wielding his dangerous cross and hitting out and causing some singed skin just for the sake of his twisted satisfaction. A shocked Angelus fell back and out of his cold lover’s passage, feeling a burning rage as the elder Brit covered his mouth and snickered. He caught Spike’s eye—in a bizarre moment of male solidarity—and both turned to Buffy. Before she could complete the swing of the blanket, she pouted.

“Hey, it was dark,” she defended despite the flush of embarrassment that heated her cheeks. “And virgin here. How was I supposed to know?”

The shrouding blanket cut the gaffaw short as it was replaced by an annoyed shout and a struggling set of arms. He was shifting the blanket and would definitely get burned if he didn’t stop it. So, in typical Buffy fashion, she hit him over the head with a heavy statue and knocked him out. Which was more than good for the whole kidnap scenario. Arranging the blanket quickly and safely over his head, she rolled him to Giles and took the cross, rolling her eyes at the hissing and spitting vampires that tried to crowd her to the door. Giles swung it open and at last they were in the light.

With a smile tossed their way, Buffy went to help Giles. She put a bundled Spike into the back seat while Giles collapsed the chair and stowed it in the trunk. As the blanket seemed to slip and Spike’s leg began to steam, Buffy smiled at the ingenuous reason to stay close to him in the back. Quickly getting into the seat, she was ready for everything as she nursed the heavy booted feet in her lap, a satisfied smile making her feel all warm and tingly. It was a feeling similar to the one where she’d reacted to Spike’s head falling into her lap, his nose brushing against her crotch.

Giles got back in the driver’s seat, shooting her an irritated glare before setting off.

“And where exactly were you planning to keep Spike?” he asked in his watchery huffy voice.

She pouted. Her frantic plan hadn’t gone past tearing him away from Dru’s evil hair.

“Um, your place?” she asked hopefully, knowing by the way his foot slammed down on the brake and they skidded to a scary halt that that idea wasn’t so much of a goer. She was really going to thank God for keeping her safe in cars when her head finally hit a pillow tonight.

“Not bloody likely,” he confirmed, his voice at least one octave higher than normal when she’d hit him with something hard to swallow. Oops, needed to extend the plan.

“I guess I could put him in our basement.”

“Buffy,” he nearly shouted at her, concern getting the better of his propriety. “You can’t put your mother in danger like that.”

“Oh, no problem,” she told him, her voice filled with a happiness and good humour that had been sorely missing since the whole return of Angelus, which admittedly had so far only been two weeks.

“She’s gone on one of her buying trips. So, I’m all curfew-free Buffy. All good with the vamp-sitting.” She could feel it rising within her, her body tingling with an excitement that had her wanting to bounce in her seat, wanting to explore the hidden gift under the blanket.

Her hand found a spot underneath the cover right at his ankle. She jimmied his tight jeans up a little and allowed her fingers to find the skin at his knobbly bone. It apparently tickled as he moved slightly. Skin seemed to be a no-go due to the tightness of his jeans and instead she ran her palm lightly over his shin and up to his thigh, stopped only when her hand was covered by a cooler one and she was deliberately placed over the stretched denim of his hardened cock. She let it rest for a blinding second, snatching her hand back out from the blanket to the tune of his low growly laugh and flushed so hot her hair felt on fire.

“Oh God,” she panicked under her breath, yet that funny persistent smile stretched her cheek muscles as she felt all slick and uncomfortable in her seat. She felt a rising burn between her legs and she couldn’t stop the squirm that had Spike’s legs rubbing over her lap. Nor could she hold back the moan that built in her throat at the exquisite pain of having some of him touch her. She had an awful feeling she was in mega trouble and that she hadn’t saved him to get him away from the others at all. Right now she was a horny Slayer, who should really have known better after her last vampire sexual experience.

Giles pulled up in her driveway just as Buffy was contemplating parting her legs and finding a way to deal with the white hot itch that was making thoughts flash at painful rates in her head.

With a swift bump of her forehead against the warming glass of her side window, she reasserted some form of control and moved out from Spike’s legs and raced up and through her bedroom window to open her front door from the inside. Giles was already there with the compacted wheelchair and without speaking or handing it to her, he dropped it against the wall and walked further inside to retrieve a glass before becoming ensconced at the cabinet where he knew Joyce kept her alcohol.

Buffy eyed him warily before being diverted by a shout from the car.

“Bit bloody heat sensitive, you bint. Get me the hell out of the sauna.”

Buffy hurried to the car, flung open the door closest to Spike’s head and dragged him—mindless of the positioning of the blanket—out of the car and over her shoulder.

She cringed at his pained cries as she hurried to her front door, hopefully moving fast enough that none of her early riser neighbours could see anything and wonder how she could carry a grown man—smoking at an alarming rate—across her front yard and into her house.

Once inside she practically threw him on the couch, thankful that her mother kept the curtains closed over night and grateful that she herself was too busy to have opened them the day before.

Fortified with strong spirits, Giles took one look at the cursing punk-looking vampire and his fussing Slayer, shook his head and left.

Whatever was going on this time, he was more than happy for it to go on without him. His bed was the only thing that could comfort him after this very strange end to the night. He only hoped that, again, Buffy knew what she was doing.

Because only God could help them all if she was doing what he thought she was doing.


A/N...many thanks go to these great reviewers: Tam, sue, demonica mills, Bridget, dreamgirl4eva, Katie and Mariana. Here is to hoping you enjoy this chapter.

Chapter Six
For Demonicamills

“You vamp-napped me.”

They’d been staring at each other for the full five minutes since Giles had burned rubber in his haste to get away from an unexplainable topic.

“Uh, yeah. Didn’t mean to.”

Spike couldn’t get over how adorable her pout was; couldn’t work out if the Slayer had banged her head in one of her driving mishaps and gone loopy, or if she’d enacted the kidnap scene for the purpose of some as yet secret plan.

“Huh.” There just didn’t seem to be words.

“You know I’m a vampire, luv. Don’t you?”

His confusion caused a deep furrow as he tried to sort it all out in his head. For sure they’d been the bitterest of enemies, which seemed kind of personal now that he actually knew her. Sort of jumped a few steps to that. Mortal enemies for sure, was all in the job. Vampire. Slayer. They were supposed to hate one another. Yet without having a clue how it happened, their little spot of togetherness seemed to have changed the focus of what they were. Seemed to strip away the titles with a uselessness borne of sensitivity.

“Of course I know you’re a vamp. I might be blond, but I’m not stupid.”

His smirk so got on her nerves.

“Look, I saw that skank fawning all over you and I just thought what they were doing was too cruel, even for you.”

“Sure you weren’t jealous of her tight figure and thought you’d—”

“Thought I’d what? Flash mine at you so you’d see who has the perkier boobs? You so wish,” she huffed, going bright red even at the sarcastic suggestion of something she’d once thought would only happen if she’d received a brick to the skull. But Spike kept inspiring these things in her. These weird little tingles that even first love flush with Angel hadn’t. Not this intense, which made her feel better. No love so it wasn’t important. Must just be a vampire thing. He was old, but younger than Angel, so maybe these little trickles of intense yearning had to do with her Slayer desire to dust him.

Except her hand hadn’t gone near a stake since she’d taken him to Willie’s.

Buffy frowned.

Then she noticed Spike’s intent focus on the front of her top.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Her lip was curled in embarrassed fury, hands going straight to her hips until she saw his eyes cross.

Then he moaned. Buffy hit him with her confused glance and waited.

“Oh baby, do it again!”

“Huh,” she asked, completely stumped.

“Show me,” he croaked, holding out his hand to her while completely mesmerised by the pert push of her breasts against the skimpy white top she was wearing.

“Sh-show you?” Buffy squeaked, her hands already at the hem of her top as her feet brought her closer to his unmoving form on the couch. She got close enough that his hand could stroke her belly, curl around her waist and pull her to straddle his lap.

“Wh-what are you doing to me?” she asked, her body and mind in conflict.

The fabric of the top scratched her skin, stroked it to a mad fever as it ascended over her belly, finally clearing her breasts with a tortured scrape against her diamond hard nipples. The top was tossed to the floor and as she brought her arms down, ending her stretch over his lap. She nearly screamed as his hands spanned her waist. Her relaxed posture brought her right nipple to close to his lips. His sharp teeth latched around it and she did scream, falling backwards off his lap in such an intense bolt of need that it hurt her all the way to her pussy.

“Oh my God,” she panted, her body tingling and burning. Suddenly her eyes were blinded by hot salty goodness and she rushed back to his lap, seizing his mouth with a hard kiss, urgent need of possession making her crazy for him. Whatever had happened tonight was so in the running for research, but now? Playtime was beyond the order of the day. Thinking had gone to bed. The place she had not managed to embrace for the day. Maybe fatigue had short-circuited her brain cells, but nothing seemed to be telling her that this moment needed to be stopped.

Nothing told her that the cool tongue tenderly stroking and licking her was wrong. That the hand that had taken one nipple and twisted it till she was a writhing wanton on his lap was out of her normal boundaries. When her fingers found the muscles under his t-shirt she became desperate for the feel of him against her. One smooth move and he was as topless as she was, his arms in an unfortunate mess of twisted shirt and duster. His mouth reattached itself to her as he leaned forward, desperation guiding his frantic moves to rid himself of both from his arms.

Whatever impulse had her crushing the damp crotch of her jeans against his thick erection was getting a medal. Damn he felt hard, and thick, and soo good. Then thought totally went on the fritz as her breasts finally came into contact with cold skin, the clash of temperature driving her heat up even higher. He undulated against her, hard planes stroking her soft flesh until her nipples became so over-sensitised she felt tears getting cold on her cheeks.

“Slayer,” he murmured against her neck, licking circles against her throbbing vein while his hands explored her belly. He was so hard for her, so desperate for her he felt the urge was beyond calming. “Baby,” he moaned as his hand unsnapped her jeans. She lifted her hips and sucked in her belly just as his fingers ventured inside. The little cooperative jut upwards moved his hand lower than he expected and he felt hot Slayer juices spreading their fire over his fingers. Then he found it. She threw back her head and he had double treasure, one finger on the pulse of her pussy and a hardened nipple between his teeth.

He could smell her tears, could feel the swell of tension in her body. She was the most responsive woman he had ever heard of. Despite being a vampire, he’d always been monogamous. Trying out human girls would be cheating just as much as demons, and he wasn’t part of that scene. Until now. Dru had shown what she thought of him by fucking her sire right in front of him, right on top of him, and this hot little blond was taking his mind completely off his miserable existence.

As his fingers stroked her wet pussy lips, his mind completely blanked on anything not blond. His fingers slid easily inside her and he couldn’t believe how hot her moisture was. He forgot names, forgot history as the Slayer fucked herself on his fingers. It was too much, the pain of his jeans and he growled against her delicious flesh.

Then nothing else mattered as they both tore at jeans, baring themselves completely. Buffy was off his lap for seconds as she tugged the denim from his motionless legs and down to pool at his boots. Her own flew over her shoulder as the intensity escalated almost beyond understanding. She was back, hot and slippery against the bell of his cock and he thrashed desperately against her. His chest scratched at her nipples and she moaned in song as his heart soared. Never had anyone lost their mind with wanting anything from him.


He roared as she sunk down smooth on his rigid flesh, feeling the slippery slide of her walls as they clenched him every millimetre down. Her descent was slow, and he agonised over every little bit of stretching his cock caused her passage. He knew she was new to this, knew she was inexperienced, and he’d be dust before he would ever let anyone else even attempt to go where he now was.

“Spike,” she cried, and he couldn’t help but lick her face, capturing every tear she shed for him, cherishing her ability to show the impact this joining was having on her. Every little bit of her flesh was touching him, was stroking him. Her slide against his cock was driving him out of his mind; he could feel the travelling cum through his glands, scorching him for the first time ever. It had never felt like this, never affected him like this, never moulded him like this.

And then his fangs descended, burying deep in her neck as her nails cut deep gouges in his shoulders. The frantic thrust and parry making her lose her breath, robbing her of everything but the feel of him in every part of her. It was so much, too much yet not enough.

“Spike, Spike,” she implored him and he began to drink, sucking her essence until he felt himself explode against her twitching walls, his ears blocking the sound of her ecstatic screams. Even coming down she pumped him. Up, down, up, down, until slowly reaching the end of the euphoria and collapsing against each other in exhausted satisfaction.

“Slayer,” he hissed through almost pained teeth. “Your boobs are much perkier.” And he collapsed against them in defeat, a happy purr reverberating against Buffy’s flesh.

“Good,” she answered. And lost herself in a gleeful and satisfied smile.

A/N...I am beyond stunned at the suppot I received for the last chapter. I would go get the list but God I'm tired. Thank you all for making me feel so good and I hope you liked this one.

Chapter Seven
For Bittenandstaked





“What jus’ happened here, pet?” Spike didn’t even raise his head, feeling nothing but comforted by the steady beat of her heart against his resting cheek on her pillowy breast.

“Mmm, something wonderful?” she answered, her voice all sleepy and sticky like caramello. The sexiness of it clung to him like a vine, tangling him so close to her that he thought perhaps whatever had just taken place between them was a culmination of months of erotic yet violent foreplay.

“Hmmm,” he conferred sleepily, wanting nothing better than to fall asleep with her scorching heat still around him so he could wake up and know she was still there. And as he drifted he slid to the side, his head falling in the direction of the comfy chair beneath him, the Slayer curled around him and clenching hold of his hardening length. He left it there, lengthening and stretching within her and yet in no hurry to turn her into a rushing mess of limbs so soon. For a crippled sod, he just got the exercise of his unlife. Now, he needed a break.

He rolled to his back and found her following, clinging to his cock with muscles that should be outlawed. Or at least whacked with a warning. Lying on top of him, she bestowed a sleepy kiss into the crook of his neck, encouraging his erection to stand strong and straining. Then she pushed against his chest, looked around the floor beside them and grabbed his coat.

She looked a little sheepish as she bit her lip, watching him as she attempted to drape the coat over her back.

“It was chilly,” she defended herself, her eyes unable to escape the raw intensity of his emotion, shining brightly in the dimmed room.

He palmed her cheek, feeling himself consumed with a softness he’d only ever used with Dru, and his mother. “You plannin’ on stayin’ down here then, luv?”

She couldn’t hide the sudden trepidation that maybe he was asking because now he’d seen her, now he’d done her, he didn’t want her to stay. That he was caressing her face with heart-clenching affection didn’t stop the onslaught of insecurities that she wasn’t worth the one time.

“I-I’m s-sorry. I shouldn’t have, I mean of course you don’t…”

“Hey,” he interrupted with a finger softly pressed against her lips. The crease between his eyes was troubled, worried that he’d said something that would have her bouncing off his lap and running away. “None of that, pet. Jus’ breathe,” he suggested, an encouraging smile locked in hope.

They were at a crossroads. Two mortal enemies that should never have found themselves in such a position. Two people who had shared something not many could possibly ever find. If he hurt her now he just knew he would suffer the acerbic lash of her tongue before he could ever get another taste of her. And more of the various tastes were what he wanted. He’d never felt so sure, even the night he’d welcomed Drusilla’s siren call to his death. While then he’d been seduced with words, pretty and hitting hard at his insecurities, this was a moment of pure sensation. It was a Higher Power directing them to each other.

He didn’t want to muck it up.

And she hadn’t been able to tear her frightened eyes away from his, clinging to the dusky promise as he actually thought about actions to take that would keep her against him. Made no plans but listened to his heart, listened to his cock as it pulsed within her heat.

“I want you to stay,” he affirmed, his voice pulled from somewhere down deep that had put it through the ringer before stripping it of polish. Rough, like his persona. Like his need for her.

He could feel the shaking start in her body as her tears once again formed wet trails down her cheeks.

“You want me to stay?” she asked, her voice breaking against her need for him to be honest.

He swiped at the tears, found his fingers slipping through silken strands of her hair and knowing he was falling. Falling into a pool of jade and swirling spun honey gold and he couldn’t stop himself from drowning if he tried. He’d sought his end this night, wanted it in the form of a dusty exit with the Slayer’s face the last image burned into his brain. Instead he’d stumbled across a beginning.

His hand was hard against her skull as he pulled her forward, her lips barely a promise away from his own. His cold exhalation stirred her to further shivers, reverberating through her and so to him with a depth of meaning he was unable to deny, even if he’d wanted to do it.

“I want you to stay,” he repeated before claiming her lips in the softest kiss. A kiss only taught by Angels.

“Spike,” she said around her sniffles and surrendered to the shaking, the tingling and the stretching that was changing her from the Slayer who released a monster on the world, to the Slayer who was releasing a man.

It wasn’t passionate; there was no further movement of their hips against the other, though the agony of his swell kept things interesting. It was a kiss of the sweetest nature, the exploration a hello that maybe had been missed earlier in the fight to surrender.

Buffy lay poised over him, her nipples barely hovering over the sensitive skin of his chest as her hands gripped his shoulders. But then her tongue grew bolder and she sipped his, bit it lightly as something hot burst in her head. It was like that romantic novel jargon of fireworks, great bursting lights of dragons and sparkles that took her away to a different world. Angel’s lips had never given her this. Never brought her this peace along with a building need to move. To want, to cherish, to own.

And then it was as if instinct had taken her over and she was no longer Buffy. No longer the rational Slayer who slayed vampires for comfort, for release. Only this vampire would mean that for her now, and not so much with his dustiness. She had to move, had to raise her hips over him and moan at the sucking feel of him gliding from her. She was poised over him, his tip gently teasing her opening with a rotund fullness that made her want to weep. His hand was raised to stroke her face and she switched paths so that her lips caught his palm.

“You are so beautiful,” he gasped against the pulling sensation as his cock strained up toward her, desperate to feel himself buried deep again within her.

“Oh,” she breathed out in wonder, totally in sync with her acceptance of him back inside, squeezing her eyes tightly closed against the pleasure of him expanding her. “So are you,” she said stupidly, wondering if it was okay to tell a man that. Even if he was the most beautiful hunk of man-flesh her fevered brain had ever lusted after.

And then it was too late to sustain slow and steady, the driving need to stir the sensations of her wet passage against the solidness of him. He cupped her breasts, weak pinches on her hardened tips stirring the bonfire in her belly and sweeping away the barriers as the burning flashed through every limb of her body. Every muscle was stretched taut, taunting her brain that despite the shutdown, they could rely on instinct. She moved above him, speechless as the sensation crawled over every inch of her skin and left her hot and moaning. He slid in and out of her and she didn’t know how she was prolonging it, her break for the final line being on the brink of her consciousness for far too long.

As it built harder she sobbed, completely wrung out by the intensity of such a joining. It was there, so very close and yet she couldn’t reach it. Didn’t know in her head what it was that would bring her over, lift the caps off her fuse and allow her to ascend into sensorial heaven.

“Please,” she begged him, not for one moment resenting him that power. In one night she had transferred her loyalty, transferred her knowledge of love from one callous and cruel monster to one with more compassion and care in his little finger than almost anyone she knew.

“Do you want me to bite you?” he asked, knowing that last time he hadn’t asked but knowing that this time, he should.

Buffy was unprepared for the blunt question, shuddering to an agonising halt on his cock as she tried to calm the thundering of her heart. Her fingers ghosted over the marks he had left the last time, knowing with some inherent confidence that she could trust him, that he wanted her dead as little as she wanted to see his dust. So with blurred vision she tried to see his expression as she nodded yes. It was what she wanted from him, what she needed from him.

“Yes,” she breathed in sultry supplication, arching her neck to him as she bent over and allowed him to begin the second penetration of her body.

And then the cut stung her flesh, but only for seconds before his lips latched around and strengthened his grip, pulling on the flesh, sucking her blood to the surface and into his mouth. The gate was released low in her belly and she could feel the rush of lava-like heat shoot through to her pussy, slathering him with her essence and gripping him with everything she had.

“Yes, yes, yes,” was her rhythm as she pumped him determinedly, cradling his head to her throat like her life depended on it. Her breasts were crushed against him, his jerking thrusts hard and punishing, but God it felt so good. And then she was screaming its end, releasing everything into the quiet house as she began to slip into the mind-frame of love.

Because surely perfect sensation like this could only come from one bound to your heart.

Panting heavily against Spike’s chest, she rejoiced again as she felt the pressured spurts deep in her core, wanting so much to taste and feel everything about him.

“Time,” she mumbled against his chest before pushing her slack and exhausted body up to look into his sparkling eyes. “We have time to figure it out.” And at his surprise, she could see it was the same for him. Something had bound them together and it would all come out in time.

“Sleepy Buffy now,” she told him even as her eyes closed and she slumped back against him, asleep before he had even dragged back the duster to give them cover.

“Yeah,” he agreed against her hair. “Plenty of time.” And he followed her into the land where dreams could in no way match the perfection of reality.

A/N..this is seriously late for bitten. Hopefully better late than never! Thanks go to my amazing reviewers: Addie Logan, gypsey_jin, sue, Bernadette, Steph, ProphecyGirl, Allison, Bridget, BuffyandSpikeForever, samica, dreamgirl4eva, Niamh, Mariana and Tasha. You guys mean so much to this fic. Hope you like this chap too.

Chapter Eight


His recent exertions had apparently taken everything out of him. Even with Buffy lying slack on top of his body he should have been able to wiggle his toes. But there was nothing. Apparently plucking up the gumption to go walkabout and then engaging in enthusiastic if not energetic sex just was not recommended for those vamps recovering from severed spinal cords.

But he was comfy, or as comfy as a self-respecting vamp with a Slayer cosying into his chest and under his chin could be. He got a whiff of her sweet hair, the tang of fruit wafting like some pheromone that caught him in her spell forever.

She wriggled as she surfaced from sleep, her heartbeat becoming irregular as she acclimatised herself. She didn’t move. Instead he felt her warm lips brush against his chest and her hand searching for his at his side, linking their fingers together. He’d expected outraged desertion, her jumping angrily to her feet before she attempted to stake him.

He couldn’t do anything but hold his body still, staring at the ceiling while he hoped that she felt everything as he had. Hoped that she wouldn’t leave him as he began to swell inside her. It was the sweetest torture, this wait. Not knowing what would happen. What he hoped would happen. In what direction she would accept for them to go in.

“Mmmmm,” she whispered against his skin. Skin that had taken on her warmth as she lay sleeping. Skin that would never thrive with anything but her touch. He knew it for a certainty, knew he wasn’t the type of vamp who could easily experience this kind of emotion with more than one woman at a time.

He’d rocked up to Sunnydale, plowing down the ‘welcome’ sign in an act of childish rebellion, and wondered what it was he’d really come for. Sure, on the surface it was to awaken his dark beauty to her health, release her back to full potential. But so much had gotten in the way; so much had changed his focus.

And now he had her in his arms.

“Spike?” Buffy lifted her head, her eyes shy and veiled as she sat up. Her hands fluttered upward to cover her breasts, and she looked away from him in embarrassment. And yet she still sat astride him, his cock buried deep inside and thickening more every second she sat there and looked beautiful.

“Ssh,” he hushed her, sitting up with a determined push of his hands into the cushions. “Buffy, don’t hide, sweetheart. You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.” The change in angle pressed his length to a new spot and she moaned deep in her throat, her eyes almost drifting closed. And then he peeled her hands from her breasts so he could look his fill. “So bloody beautiful, love.”

And she met the risk, entwined her arms around his neck and kissed him goodmorning. Or goodlunch, or something.

“Don’t hurry out on this, yeah? It meant somethin’ and I want to see where it could go. I want us to feel it again and again.”

She answered with a hesitant nod, her teeth scraping over her bottom lip in nervousness.

“’M feelin’ a bit peckish, pet.”

“Oh,” she said in surprise before immediately offering her throat to him. She lifted the length of her hair away from her flesh, leaving her skin pale and creamy and vibrating with her pulse. He swallowed hard. “Not what I meant, sweetling.”

Her look of confusion spoke volumes. He kissed her softly while nudging her off his cock with a miserable moan, and moved her up to his abdomen.

“Spike? What are you…oh…”

He positioned her on his chest and pushed her back to rest against knees that were wonderfully cooperative for the moment, leaving her open to him like a succulent flower as he stretched out with his eager tongue and lapped at her silky moist pussy lips. She tasted like pure manna from the Gods, something he’d thought lost to him forever as a walker of the night. Her nervousness crumbled around her into erotic bliss and she quickly used her hands to hold his face against her, her eyes rolling back in her head at how much the burning itch spread through her with the questing depths of his tongue. He buried it inside her, exploring between the walls and allowing the roughness on the surface to scratch in blissful irritation until she couldn’t stay still. And then he stroked her most sensitive nub, rolling it and flicking it with the edge of his tongue and she was panting, moaning as she fixed on the white head consuming her between her thighs. As he bobbed a little up and down she pushed herself a little more forward, climbing some haphazard incline as a flush stole over her body and left it tingling and hot. Her writhing increased as the bolts of pleasure surged and receded with the depth and desire of his tongue until finally she couldn’t hold it anymore. Her own fingers reached up to pinch her nipples hard, pulling them with excruciating pleasure as he released her energy with the rapid but rhythmic rubbing of his tongue.

It was too much, sensation bounding through her until all she could see was blinding light—something she at first had mistaken for the blurring outline of his head. But it was a plain she had never visited, a place that told her of higher things totally unexpected.

And then she heard whispers, a hand wiping her face as she sobbed her relief and scooted far enough down his body to bury her face in the crook of his neck. Held him tight against her before she had to face the likelihood of losing this too, despite the promise of his kiss and that of the Powers that guided her life.

Her ability to be coherent escaped somewhere unknown, showing her nothing but images of how he’d loved her through the day until now. Even so young and relatively naïve to the ways of passion, she felt no sense of modesty or regret now. Nothing had ever felt so inevitable as being in this vampire’s arms, and nothing would make her surrender the hope she felt from being there. And so she surrendered to the thinking rather than the expressing, knowing more than anyone that Buffy and words were not the mixiest of things in such a situation.

His hands felt warm and so right as he rubbed her gently, sharing her body heat and recycling it back to her. And she smiled, quite willing as she had more than enough warmth to give. Glad that her heart was allowing her to share when she had thought it irreparably broken.

She was interrupted from her hazy study of his neck—the skin feeling so silky and right against her possessive lips—when she came across the scar of a bite and knew instinctively that it was the mark of his sire, Drusilla. Buffy’s eyes widened as a bolt of fear ran through her and she realised anew where she was, who she was with and what it would mean. This vampire she had given herself so wholly to had no loyalty to her, had no feeling for her. He was evil, prevented from the hunt and kill through her own directed attempt to kill. He was crippled and lying naked on her mother’s couch, his ready fangs so very close to her neck. And then it came to her that he had already been buried deep inside her—in numerous and equally satisfying ways—and the sudden burst of fear erupted into a nervous giggle.

Spike’s body tensed beneath her, his hands holding her in a steady brace against his body.

“Baby, please don’t be scared.” His voice was filled with that soft worry that Buffy had first flinched at during that time he had panicked as she held a stake to his lover’s chest. And yet, now she was his lover. She was the woman he held in his arms. But for how long? Would he discard her once his legs gained strength and he could move away from her? Leave her behind with a second crushed heart, and one she didn’t think would be so easily distracted? Images of a naked Drusilla and Angelus as they fucked each other over the top of Spike’s useless legs flooded her in misery, bringing the pain she had pushed away at the evil and cruel nature of her first lover. But now her heart heard Spike, felt his hurt from his sire’s betrayal and his uncertainty about Buffy’s own loyalty.

And he’d called her baby. It brought an inner warmth to her body and she expressed it with a smile into his neck and a lick of the hated marks. He groaned deeply, a very sexy growl rumbling underneath her and making her vibrate against his body. God, that was so hot and so she did it again. Slayer teeth latching onto the mark that made him who he was, the mark that brought him through the world and the ages until he tangled limbs with this Slayer.

And this time his feral nature broke out, growling for possession at her ear even as his cock pushed thick and strong against the centre of her ass cheeks. Intense energy surged through her pussy again and she wondered if he’d turned her into a nympho just by getting her naked. All sparked from a simple request to show herself to him in a lewd moment of lust. And she’d fallen, almost like she had been lured with her mind shutdown and floundering. Except she was now back with herself, unbearably aware that she wanted him again, craved his lips and his hands and his penis as all of him stroked her into a blazing fury of passion.

She nibbled at his chin, working her way to his lips and losing herself in the taste of master vampire, not even tasting the blood that dripped from her cut lips as he seduced her totally.

“Not scared,” she told him as she wriggled backwards, crying in agonised pleasure when she dropped down onto him again, the hard surface of his proportions gliding into her with the smooth slickness of her desire for him.

“Oh pet,” he moaned and moaned again as she whispered ‘Buffy’ against his lips, feeling overcome with this new feeling and uttering unintelligible words of devotion as her body rode him slowly. He could call her Buffy. In his heart she was the girl of power, the one who was strong enough to step back away from her destiny and seek truth in that surrounding her. She saw him and took a risk with him like no other. Dru had seen him in the beginning, but even now he wondered if she was guided by some strange power that she might have better ignored. She’d seen something, brought him into a world that he’d never fit into though he forced his awkward dimensions into every shaped hole possible, never finding one that fit him like a glove—until now.

And evil fled his heart for that moment; fled his memory for ones that were more pure, more profound than all those filled with bloodshed and death. He could sort it all out some other time; berate himself for being a fucking wanker and prissyboy about it much later. Later when the scent of the Slayer wasn’t drugging his mind with words of beauty, ones of description that were more sensation than English. He wanted to write on her skin, etch effulgent in the softened flesh of her breasts while he licked her nipples hard.

Wanted to write his names on her thighs, mark her forever as his so that no other filthy bastard could get anywhere near her, and yet his fangs were still there, still near her neck as she collapsed against his chest, her pelvis moving in hypnotic circles around his cock. She was exhausted with feeling, he could sense it. Resembled the same and yet all he did was lie back. Feel the grasping pain in his balls and knew it was the time, quickly grabbing a fistful of her hair as he dragged her neck before his mouth, sinking his teeth deep into her throat and pumping her wildly with another bruising grip at her thigh. She moaned and bucked, her back arching off him as far as his fangs allowed as she reached back and squeezed his balls and shuddered against his rigid flesh.

His heart was involved in the showdown, momentarily pumping frantically as his seed found its place inside her down deep and he could feel the magic begin its woven net around her, binding her to him and making her unreachable for anyone else. No one could touch her now but him. She could never return to the Poof with the fucking ridiculous poofy hair, and in return Spike was thoroughly banished from the snatch of his previous love. And he didn’t want it any other way.

Buffy felt the swell of change around her, felt the expansion of her heart and the tingle of something new as it twisted and then settled within her. She didn’t understand, didn’t ask or yell for explanations, just snuggled into the chest she wanted to be hers forever. Nothing could possibly be like this. That plain of white had told her, promised her that this wasn’t to be her punishment. Had smiled when they forgave her the release of a monster by commending her progress in changing another back to something good.

Spike.

How could this be anything but Love with a capital L?

A smile stayed stubbornly on his lips as he watched her sleep, wondering if they would ever get beyond the shagging to just say hello. Not that he was complaining. Bloody unbelievable she was, attached to his body like he imagined a persistent, sticky lolly to a kiddy with an overly exuberant tongue. But now the lust had subsided somewhat, left him lagging stupidly with the consequences of what he’d just done.

He’d claimed the bloody Slayer—and not through the weakness of human words, but with the depth and sincerity of his demon’s heart. And Spike could do nothing but lie back happily as his bright smile threatened to crack his face.

Buffy’s slumber seemed to falter and she rubbed the tip of her nose against his chest, a crazy itch that had dragged her from some of the sweetest dreams she’d ever had. “Mmmmmm,” she hummed into his skin and her eyes shot open at Spike’s rumbling laugh. It sounded so startling—probably because she’d never heard it before. Not without the taint of evil glee. And the being right under her ear was kind of confronting, too.

“You sound happy,” she mumbled sleepily as she lifted her head and kissed his lower lip, accidentally missing his whole mouth in her laziness.

Her back slammed into the floor with an ‘oomph’ as he rolled them off the couch. He cringed a little in apology as he took his turn to nip at her lip.

“Sorry ‘bout that. All m’blood was beginning to settle like I was a corpse.” He grinned at her, even as she scrunched up her face with the little ‘ewwww’ that she favoured when her attention was forced to disgusting images.

“You just wanted to be on top. Admit it,” she demanded, her eyes soft and bright with some kind of feeling he was so hopeful was the beginnings of love. He knew he was lost. Completely buggered if the truth be known, and absolutely chuffed with that result. He’d left pure bloody terror way back at the other bend.

He rolled his eyes, mock glaring at her as his gaze settled on her plump, abused lips.

“I’ll admit it,” he told her huskily, but didn’t take it further. His kiss was brief before pushing back to just soak up her spirit. “So, I think last we were talking you’d admitted to vamp-napping me. What are you gonna do with me now, love?” His voice was hushed, divided with the need to tell her what he had done and yet keep it quiet; protecting himself from her anger should she not accept that she was now his. And all the while he hoped she could hear his alteration of the pet name, grasp the sentiment that was now infused in the once meaningless endearment.

“I think you turned the tables,” she told him affectionately while running her knuckles over the sharp angles of his face. “And I am so not complaining. I’m all Satisfied Girl, and Happy-With-The-Situation Girl.”

He stopped and wondered, piecing together the night until he was so confused he had tied himself into knots.

“Why’d you do it? I was ready to end my torment last night, and instead you’ve brought me into your home, an’ against your Watcher’s advice. What’s that all about, pet?”

He drew unneeded breath deep into his lungs, just so it could sit heavily while he held it and drove himself out of his mind with waiting. With wanting romantic declarations that were far from making sense. Were too soon to be believable, even if he was verging on that revelation himself.

“I couldn’t bear seeing them treat you like that. And I could see the defeat on your face, like you could do nothing about it. Except you could. I told you, you had me.”

Yeah, he had her and he couldn’t dull his grin even if he tried.

“You do know I’m a bad, evil vampire? Could take you in your sleep any time I…”

He was interrupted with light, tinkling giggles. “Yeah, cause you haven’t had the opportunity yet. I’ve only been sleeping all over you.”

“You’re right tasty, Slayer. Thought I’d draw out the pleasure a bit. Save a nibble for later.” His cocky self-satisfied smirk knocked her sideways, had her mouth flapping uselessly as her face burned hot with remembered shivers of exactly that. Pleasure like she’d never known before.

The minutes drew out as they suddenly seemed lost, drinking in their reflected expressions of mixed desire and confusion. Buffy was the first to shake it off.

“Okay, so now that I have you, I’m not entirely sure what to do with you. I kinda didn’t plan that far ahead.”

Spike’s smirk was predictable of course, and Buffy could have kicked herself for giving him such an easy opportunity. But then she was left stunned when he kept all crude sentiments to himself, merely brushing a very soft, very loving kiss across her lips.

“They’ll come back for me, o’course. ‘M their pet cripple and they aren’t gonna be happy the Slayer pulled one over right in front of them.”

Buffy was nodding, knowing the truth of it by just remembering the vengeful flicker in Angelus’s eye when he’d gone out of his way to destroy her after their night together. Before that thought could even begin to hurt her, Buffy blinked, bringing back into focus the naked form of the most gorgeous man she had ever seen.

“Can I just ask what…um…kinda happened here between us? Then I can sort out the ‘what to do with you’ bit, maybe?”

He smirked at her, but it immediately shifted into a heart melting, glowy kind of smile.

“Do you really need to ask, luv?”

Buffy watched him thoughtfully, could see the vulnerability in his eyes even as he was hiding behind the bravado of Big Bad.

“You’re right. I guess I don’t.” And she stood up, grabbed a blanket that had fallen from the sofa and wrapped herself up in it. She didn’t look at him as she turned and took her first step to the staircase that would lead her to some privacy, hiding a smile as she almost felt his frantic efforts to stop her.

“Don’t be a bloody bitch. You know I was trying to get you to tell me what you feel. But how typical, make Spike put himself out there for the Slayer to laugh at.”

Buffy was quick to spin back and fall to her knees in front of him, pulling his head to her chest as she tried to reassure him.

“Spike, I think I just made you mine somehow, and I think I’m never letting you go. So we have to work on your legs and get your strength back so you can protect yourself against them. And so you can walk up my stairs.”

When he lifted his head he encountered a very cheeky, yet somehow also hopeful grin.

And he felt courage and confidence settle in his heart.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Angelus had so far been unable to quell his fury enough to unshrivel his dick. Being laughed at, by mortals as well as a girl he’d fucked and dumped, was beyond a point he could deal with any kind of sense. His rage knew no bounds as, instead of pounding Dru into a mattress or a stone wall, he’d become impotent in that other than his fists.

And he was still to calm down his furious pacing, ideas spinning through his head at how best to pay the bitch back. She’d mocked him, she’d gotten over him, and worst of all, she’d vampnapped his favourite pet of the moment. Spike didn’t get a reprieve, an escape until the day Angelus sanctioned it. He was head of the line and he’d be fucked if he’d let some scrawny-assed, bad fuck bitch Slayer waltz into his home and override his rule.

So, he’d make them pay for making fun of the head of the clan. Make little roller Billy-boy think twice for allowing himself to be at the mercy of his natural enemy.

Dru came slinking into the hall, her body clothed with velvets of another era and singing sadly to herself. She’d apparently dealt with the loss of her pleasure, knew that with the disappearance of Spike, Daddy would be too preoccupied and angry to get his courage back. It was a shame, because every little bit of pussy boosted his confidence immeasurably. Still, that’s what good girls were for, and all she needed was a little tip to badness, a small suggestion that would get him back on track, and he’d swell inside her again.

“Bad Slayer, taking our Spike. She’s taken him dancing and the dancehall is all white. But while she’s happy and floating, mummy is all alone. We can take from her too, Daddy. Make her cry and want to give my Spike back.” Her eyes gleamed with a madness tainted with evil clarity.

Angelus saw and smirked at her brilliance. Of course, mamma Summers was the perfect catch of the day. Not so bad looking in a more middle-aged way, but then she’d have something fundamental to bring to the family. Knowledge, familiarity and a second pussy to demoralize. He could see poor sad Buffy’s face now, having to choose to stake her own mother or let her go and wreak bloodshed on all her ex-friends. It was a delicious concept and apparently just the thought he needed as his cock began to harden and he jumped at Dru, shocking her enough to get her chained to the wall.

She hung like a prize painting, her dress hanging in ribbons within seconds as Angelus shoved his cock deep inside her. He frowned. There was never enough tightness. Even virgin Buffy hadn’t squeezed him like she should. He pumped in vain, knowing it would take close to twenty minutes for his cock to be stimulated enough by Dru’s loose channel to blow and it just wasn’t good enough now he had a plan.

Paying little mind to the awkward cross of her arms and the pained cry of his childe, he spun Dru around and found another treasure, thrusting viciously into a tighter hole and groaning in satisfaction. This one was a treat—not a passage he explored too often for fear of loosening it up too much. The laughing faces of Giles and Spike had him pumping furiously, his balls swinging in a rapid need for activity. He felt the anger surge, wanting to squeeze Dru’s neck so hard her head popped off but knowing she didn’t deserve it.

She’d never laughed. Never gave credence to the taunts that disparaged the size of his dick. She was such a good girl, his Dru. She worked hard to make sure Daddy was happy, that Daddy was rigid and good to go, and if she couldn’t satisfy him with her loose hole, she sucked him into release, or tortured him there. Yeah, he couldn’t dust Dru. Without her loyalty, what did he have?

Close to nothing.

And THAT was something he couldn’t deal with, because Angelus was everything. Had everything.

Just because he’d lost Spike? Meant nothing, because he’d get him back. And then he’d thrash the bravado right out of him. He had centuries of time. He might have failed in the twenty years he’d had before the curse, but now he had all he’d need.

Spike was going to be put in his place. Even if it killed the good fine citizens of Sunnydale.

Chapter Ten

His Slayer was all muddled.

Spike sprawled out in an armchair, beyond grateful to have something more comfy to lounge about in than his trusty wheelchair, and watched the Slayer interact with her friends. The look on all their faces—but particularly the whelp’s—was priceless. The little redhead was shaking, letting one leg jig nervously as she almost sat in the other’s lap. The boy had grasped a stake and was staring at Spike, even as words were aimed at his friend.

“Are you okay, Buffster?” Mahogany eyes never left their surveillance of the bleached vamp, the one that had made no sudden moves since they’d gaily entered the Summer’s house and plonked down for a friendly get together. None since they’d both screamed and sat clinging to each other on recognising the vampire threat they’d been wary of before Angel departed the group.

“Good as gold. Why wouldn’t I be, Xan?” Buffy had a confused smile fluttering at her lips and it apparently did nothing to stop the pounding of the brunette’s heart.

“Holy Frijoles, you’ve a murderous rampaging vampire sitting in your mom’s favourite chair. I’m thinking there has to be something just a little wrong with this picture.”

Spike licked his lips and contemplated the boy, liking the way he shuddered in fear and the rapid pulse at his neck. Truth be told the steady rhythm of his blood was making Spike feel a tad peckish and he couldn’t tear his gaze away. He gulped even as he sat forward, watching the other one as he seemed to jump back and cover his throat with his hand.

“Make him stop looking at me like that, Buffy. Have you been turned? Have you tricked us here as vamp chow?”

Buffy looked horrified, finally noticing the rather severe attention Spike was paying to Xander’s neck.

“Hey, stop that!” She threw a couch cushion at his face and when he’d spluttered back to awareness it was to find a disappointed look on her face.

“I can’t bloody help it if the git’s fear is intoxicating. Get him to tone it down a notch or two.” His lip was pouty as he slumped back in the chair, his fingers stabbing at the stuffing of the cushion even as he felt himself fall into a sulk.

“You’re a vampire that’s threatened to kill us a number of times. Did you expect my friends to throw you a ‘get well soon’ party?” Buffy took incredulity to whole new levels.

“Well, no,” he admitted grudgingly. “But they could bloody wait and let you explain before assuming I’d turned you.”

He sounded offended, like it actually hurt him to have others think he’d be stupid or selfish enough to turn the Slayer. He may have killed a couple of them in his time—and that was out of sheer warrior equality—but to turn one, that was just playing unfair and with less braincells than Dru on a good day.

There was a ruckus at the door and in came an annoyed looking Giles, looking warily—but not even slightly surprised—at Spike before he found himself situated in another chair and waiting expectantly for the explanation he’d bailed on in the morning.

“I’ve thought about it hard, Buffy, and I feel quite certain that you can make this…situation have some sense about it. While I am completely thrown as to what it could be, I feel sure there must have been something to encourage your folly in kidnapping a vicious vampire that you’ve been trying to dust for months.”

Xander turned freaked out eyes from his more sober father-figure to the friend who’d saved his butt more often than not.

“You vampnapped Captain Peroxide?” He jumped to his feet, waving the stake haphazardly through the air. “Only one explanation for this kind of weirdness, G-man. She’s been seduced to the Dark Side.”

“And please let that be the only reference to obscenely tacky pop culture,” Giles muttered dryly, his hand seizing a hanky while the other plucked the glasses from his face and dimmed his view of the murderous cripple across from him.

Buffy seemed to just collapse on a vacant chair and sigh loudly. Some days it just wasn’t worth tearing yourself away from your newly gained vampire lover.

“Xander, sit. Put the stake down. While I’m sitting right here, Spike won’t be lunging for anyone’s throat. Will you, Spike?” The narrow-eyed look she gave him was enough of a warning and Spike rolled his eyes and slouched back in his chair.

“Yeah, ‘cause that wouldn’t be embarrassing. Try a launch and my legs’d buckle before I got one step from the chair. Boy probably tastes sour, anyway.”

Buffy leaned over and patted his hand happily, approval obvious in the ease of her muscles.

“As for the making sense of this action, ahh, not so much. Seriously, Giles, I even slept on it, and all I can say is, I went with gut instinct. Besides, what they were doing to him was way with the grossness. I wouldn’t want my worst enemy being treated like that.” Buffy looked at her friends and watcher and almost giggled at their look of astonishment.

“Hate to break it to ya, Buff, but he is your worst enemy.” Xander sat back, clearly confused about what was going on and who was sitting in his buddy’s living room. “What the frilly heck is going on here? We pluck random vamps out of cruel homes to show them a better life now? I am NO girl scout.”

“Whelp, you’re not even a boy scout.”

Xander spluttered and waved his hands wildly in the direction of Spike. “See? And now with the insults.”

“Ooh, scared are we?” Spike sneered and then suddenly looked abashed as Buffy’s seriously pissed off face broke through his preoccupation with ribbing the boy.

You so won’t be getting any if you don’t stop threatening my friends.

Spike jumped and stared wide-eyed as Buffy’s voice ripped through his head.

“You say something, pet?” He looked closely at the slight flush of her cheeks and wondered when he’d suddenly become a mind reader.

“No,” she said out loud and then suddenly looked scared as images of the both of them writhing around naked on her bed flashed behind her eyes.

Like what you see, luv? Spike smirked as her cheeks reddened further and locked away this new discovery. It certainly wasn’t a phenomena that he’d ever heard of between vamps, but then he’d never heard of a vampire being joined with a slayer before, either. No doubt about it, Spike loved being unique. He’d always suspected he wasn’t your average vampire, but this—as far as he was concerned—cemented him in the category of the Unusual Vampyre Hall of Fame.

It was almost funny—considering all the years he’d spent trying to live up to the shadow of Angelus and fulfil Dru’s expectations of the perfect vamp. Until this slayer had come along and completely taken over his mind.

When he finally managed to water down his thoughts a bit and looked up, it was to find four sets of eyes staring at him in horrified fascination.

“Y-you see yourself as an anomaly to your species?” Giles asked, watcherly interest already writing this strange encounter up in his mind.

“Did you knock his head a few times on the door when you brought him in, Buff?” Xander was staring at his friend with his mouth hanging open, finding it hard to reconcile the obscene statements from el weirdo vamp, and the fact that Buffy had invited death into her house.

“How long have you been thinking about me?” Buffy couldn’t quell the grin that was splashed all over her face. It was so weird, this thing that had happened between her and Spike. But it was so with the flattering that he’d thought of her. Though, now she thought about it, it was kinda creepy that he’d been so preoccupied with her.

“Well, yeah. Wanted to take out my third slayer, didn’t I?” Spike looked at them all like they’d been on a trip and left him behind. It was a good way to cover his embarrassment over opening his mouth and revealing things he hadn’t had the time to sort through yet.

It really shouldn’t have been a surprise to watch Buffy’s face drop, her hurt a wound he would never have expected to strike him so hard. He really was a git when he didn’t think things out first. Here he was, newly connected to this girl in a fundamental and supernatural way, and he was already pissing her off with not quite accurate tales of his pursuit. Sure, killing her had been the top of his list—it didn’t rule out the fact that every little aspect of her had intrigued him.

“Er, quite. Perhaps we should start thinking of the repercussions of this…rather foolhardy act. I know you probably don’t want to think of this right now, Buffy, but I believe we can expect Angelus to be rather resentful of our…poking amusement at his…hmmm—“

“Pecker?” Spike supplied and the three of them shared a short moment of amused solidarity as Angel’s short and puny appendage flashed through all their minds.

“Angel has a small penis?” Willow asked in confusion. “How did you manage to see that?”

“I don’t care. That is one sight I wish I’d been in on.”

They all stopped to stare at Xander, his friends at least hoping that he hadn’t quite caught the implication of what he’d just said. Indecision contorted his face before it completely screwed up in disgust. “Ewwww, so with the no freaking way, people. I just meant in the humiliation stakes. I mean, being dead would probably cramp the lifestyle a bit. For all we know, being vamped and all with the undead is just an unfortunate side effect.”

“That is so not true.” And Buffy was back to being the centre of attention to a very intrigued group of friends.

“Really?” Willow grinned as she struck upon some as yet unshared piece of best friend worthy information and decided that biding her time would only get her so far. Before she left this house, she’d be packing Buffy gossip like nobody’s business.

Buffy flushed crimson and turned frantically to Spike. He leered and looked her up and down, a sparkle of passion already warming his cold blue eyes.

“I’d say the Slayer has a pretty accurate idea of the package.”

“Oh dear Lord.” Giles slouched in his chair in escalating levels of despair and decided that as long as they implied no more, he could quite hopefully get through his day. “Please, let’s keep our minds on the danger at hand.”

Buffy finally looked worried and she moved to sit closer to her watcher.

“What do you think he’ll do, Giles?

Giles looked uncertain, opening his mouth and shutting it before words could pass his lips. “I suspect Spike might be able to enlighten us on that score.”

“Well, I am the Poof’s pet project. Without me there’s no one to torture and call anti-pc terms. Wanker likes to be able to one up others, and having me in a wheelchair didn’t do me any favours.”

“Oh, so that’s how you saw his…thing. You were helping him with the—“ Xander waved his hand around distastefully, almost glaring at Buffy. “Essentials.”

“What? Don’t be a git. I don’t need to get help for the ‘essentials’. Girl saw my bits in a much more satisfying way. If you’re needing instruction, just let me know.”

“For the love of—“ Giles was staring hard at the liquor cabinet and everyone was suddenly silent.

Spike resumed, sneering at the boy all the while. Stupid little whelp making him put his foot in it again and probably making Buffy more than reluctant to be near his ‘bits’ again any time in the near future. Anger leant him strength and he could feel a returning prickle through the nerves of his legs. Thoughts of Buffy lovin’ always kept his cock alive and throbbing, but the returning sting in his legs gave him hope that he might be able to drag himself upstairs. That positive image was enough to have him move this meeting along. It was beyond time the Slayer’s friends buggered off so he could get back to the things that concerned him.

“Right. Angelus is a bloody vindictive sod. He’ll find your weakness and play on it. Knowing how his mind works, my guess is he’ll come after one of you lot. Whoever is the closest to the Slayer.”

“Oh.” Buffy shuddered and glanced at Spike, fear reflected momentarily in her beautiful green eyes. “I am so glad my mom isn’t here.”

Something struck Spike, some kind of warning, but the meaning was obscure and he wasn’t quite up to deciphering this new propensity toward helping the Whitehats.

“So, I guess we should all stay indoors at night or make with the sleepovers,” Willow suggested hopefully.

“Not bloody likely,” Spike exploded, thoughts of naked slayer predominate in his mind.

Glares from all four of the other occupants made him wilt a little and he sat back with a pout.

“Right. Guess it’s a bloody party then.”

Chapter Eleven

She was so going to kick vampire ass. All the way to the top of her stairs. She hadn’t been planning on offering her empty motherless home to her friends for an impromptu get together. Even if it was to save her friends from Angelus. She’d had her eyes on some Spike booty, and damn if this meant she’d have to be all evasive and Alone Girl. It was enough to make her pout. Well, she had the day, right? She could shoo them all home and just tell them to be back before dark and she could get her thing on with Spike for the time they were away.

Perfect. She loved a good plan.

“Okay then. Let’s get rolling. Everyone go and pack what they’ll need tonight and meet back here before it gets dark. Any questions? Good. We’ll see you then.”

“Ooh, sleepover,” squealed Willow as she was herded out the door, unaware that Giles and Xander were shooting glares of venom at Spike as he continued to lounge in the chair, completely relaxed with hands crossed behind his head.

Buffy nearly pushed them the final step through the door, almost slamming it in her haste to be alone with Spike. She collapsed against the hard wood, almost panting her relief that they were gone with less fight than she’d expected. When she lifted her eyes, Spike was stretching suggestively, one hand wandering over his thinly covered abs as the other stayed behind his neck.

“Luv, think I need a bit of a wash. Can you help me up the stairs?”

Wet Spike.

Buffy made a conscious effort to not run to his side, quickly helping him to his unsteady feet and almost giggled when he took a tentative first step.

“Don’t overdo it,” she warned and Spike felt himself warm inside.

“Feels a lot stronger. Think another sip of your sweet blood and I might feel a lot more like my nimble self.” He grinned cheekily at his woman, feeling his crotch ache as he thought about her naked and slippery.

“Spike! Stop it.” Her voice seemed all croaky and heated as her eyes swept over his zipper. She settled the hand hanging over her shoulder much closer to her breast than it had been before, and felt the air rush from her lungs. He gave her a little squeeze, but when Buffy turned to reprimand him, his eyes were focused hard on the stairs. His mouth was hardened in determination to put one foot in front of the other to get to the first step.

Buffy grinned secretly and jiggled a little so more of her aching breast could press into his lax palm. And then she steadily aimed them for the stairs.

The ascent took ten minutes, and by the time Spike’s foot took purchase against the landing, they both could feel the thrumming power that was slowly building in his lower limbs.

Still, they opted to fill the bath rather than leave him standing under the water spray. Buffy watched the rush of water from the faucet and felt a flicker of desire while imagining the disrobing of her vampire and his slow immersion into the depths of her bath.

When the water reached a reasonable level, Buffy flicked off the taps and turned to find Spike, naked, hard and proud staring at her with nothing less than heated lust.

“Way I see it, pet, you have two options.” He tilted his head and took courage from the blush that stained her cheeks and the heartbeat that raced as her eyes fell and stayed on his protruding cock. He felt it necessary to of course curl his palm around his shape, feeling a surge of pride at her gasp and slow movement closer to him. “One, you could go and let me have a wash in private, not knowing what vile, evil things I could get into. Or, you could help me reach the ‘out of the way’ places and keep an eye on all my bits so I don’t get out of control.” He looked at her with a mixture of hopeful longing and intense desire. Far too many hours had gone by since he’d been inside her, been able to taste her.

“I can’t possibly—“ She trailed off uncertainly as Spike’s bare shoulders dropped and his gaze hit the floor. “Stay clothed when my man is all with the naked.”

Before her last word settled in the air, she was clutched firmly in Spike’s embrace, his lips brushing softly over his marks even as his hands delved under layers of cloth and found smooth skin.

“We have three hours before they come back. Think we can make it?” Buffy whispered against the silky lobe of his ear, her teeth gently nibbling as her own hands found bareness.

“It’s bloody miserable, is what it is. We’ll just have to make do.”

His nose nudged her chin and Buffy shivered, her need increasing every second that the steam rose from the tub and enclosed them within a warm heady mist. And then she felt his hands on her flesh, stripping all her clothing away until she could feel the hardness of him against her as his lips claimed hers in wild need. He lifted a knee and Buffy felt the inside of her thigh brush against the hairy surface of Spike; felt the hard thickness of him as he settled just a whisper away from her aching pussy lips.

While he sucked away her breath, Buffy began a slow sway back and forth, wanting to cry every time he brushed against her. He propelled her hips closer and groaned as malleable flesh spread around the length of his cock, hot liquid spilling around him as he thrust back and forth.

Spike dived on her throat, fangs bursting from his gums as he sunk them into the flesh of her neck, his cock redirecting and finding her dark, wet channel. He settled as he sucked in mouthfuls of her blood, the power flooding through him as Buffy moaned and writhed around on his cock like a desperate fish for water. He withdrew his fangs, sealed the mark, and with one hard thrust knocked them so off balance Buffy tumbled backwards and they ended head over arse in the tub full of water.

Spike let loose a roar of laughter, watching Buffy splutter and frantically try to get the stringy clumps of her honeyed hair out of her eyes before she pounced, pushing Spike back as she remounted his cock and started a rhythm that rocked their watery world.

“You think drowning me is funny, huh?” And with some kind of wily slide, Spike found his back on the base of the tub, his mouth filling with water as he struggled to stop laughing, and Buffy bouncing on his prick like the woman meant business.

Spike sat up choking and spitting water in amidst a grip of humour that had been absent from his existence for years. She was a right firecracker, this one, and he was going to enjoy exploding along with her on a regular basis. He pulled her closer, lifting her slightly so his mouth could catch a swollen nipple and suck it hard into his mouth. And then he tipped her backwards, relishing the swish of water as it smacked the inside of the other end of the tub.

Buffy’s neck was arched, her hair being lulled under water as she felt the slow caress of her receptive walls with Spike’s cock. She could feel him so deep, barely touching that spot inside that sent her high off an invisible top. Eager nipples sought his touch, and then the squeeze that made Buffy hold her breath, made her pant as she began to pulse and shudder around him. This peak wasn’t hard, wasn’t fast, but slipped sweetly over her like a favoured dessert.

When she came back down, it was with a smile that told of her affection and satisfaction with her current choices. Buffy curled her arms around Spike’s neck and hugged him tight; hugged him happy. So he got her underlying message, she pressed the softest kiss against his lips, hoping to convey all that she was feeling.

“You know, you kinda make everything about this sex thing hot.”

A scarred brow lifted in amazement. “It’s meant to be pleasurable, pet. Wasn’t your big go with the Poof all you’d imagined?”

Spike couldn’t work out if her embarrassment made him confident or insecure. He waited almost in pain for what kind of stamp she’d put on that experience of her life.

“It wasn’t exactly Harlequin,” she revealed with a blush and then was kissing him again with that innocence and wholesomeness that meshed beautifully with her lusty siren-like persona.

Yeah, he was completely caught. And he only had two and three quarter hours to make his own brand as deep as it could be before her friends came back armed with arguments about why being with him was wrong.

He just hoped she saw their claim to each other as much more than an argument—and much more of a destiny.

“Yes. God…more…please—” Buffy was almost beside herself as Spike pumped her to another mini volcanic-like explosion, waiting less than calmly as it gathered enough power to erupt from the coil deep inside her body. Her leg was stretched over his shoulder, his mouth suckling at her marks as his hands rubbed through the sweat that had left a heavy layer over her body. She collapsed back against the stairs, finding her voice hoarse as Spike kept thrusting, her orgasm gone but another building even faster. With one almost painfully held breath, Buffy screamed, letting it out at last what a continuous three hours of erotic exercise did for her mental stability. Angelus might have tortured Dru free of hers, but Spike had without a doubt fucked her raw and left her sanity somewhere upstairs. Quite possibly on the living room floor right in front of her mother’s favourite chair.

Her panting breath was raspy and over the desperate gasps for oxygen, Buffy thought she could hear a knock somewhere above her. Spike had collapsed, completely exhausted on top of her, the rough basement steps making their mark deep in her back. And she’d never felt better or happier in her whole life.

Spike lifted his head from the comfy pillow of her breasts with a long leisurely lick.

“Think your mates might be back.” As reluctant as they both were to move, he levered himself up on strong arms, Buffy following tiredly after. She watched in fascination as Spike slowly pulled his cock back, feeling as well as seeing the blatant run of their combined fluids as it flowed out of her.

Buffy felt so bad. She’d been literally screwed into the ground and was covered in sweat and come as her friends waited for her fresh, wholesome presence to let them into her house. She was meant to be protecting them and yet she was still thinking of the places she could be pressed naked with Spike pounding into her.

She was so wet and slippery that it wasn’t possible to put on pants. She could feel semen dripping down the insides of her thighs and she was extra glad that she’d worn a long skirt and light top when she’d come to the basement under the pretence of setting up Spike’s bed. At least she could be dressed while she let everyone in and then she could escape for a quick shower.

“Mmmmm,” she moaned as Spike bit at her neck gently. His human teeth were even more erotic than the primal feel of joining she felt with his fangs lodged inside her body. She giggled as he continued to taste her, nibble on her as she struggled back into her clothing. “Maybe you should stay down here while I let everyone in and then have a quick shower. You know, so you don’t end up scaring anyone.”

Spike looked at her through hooded eyelids and agreed without argument. He’d never been so shagged into the ground in his unlife. Even Drusilla hadn’t been interested in a marathon like this. And Spike was fast realising the woman he’d thought was his partner for life was far from compatible with him for the long term.

A quick peck on the lips and Buffy was thumping back up the stairs, running through the house and opening the front door, and all the while, Spike lay back on the basic cot bed with a sappy grin on his face. Almost absently he tested his legs, bending his knees and straightening out his legs while suspended a little in the air. That was it. Feeling. He finally had it back and all it had taken was a complete switch in his attitude, in his lifestyle, and in his diet. He should have been wiser and known that staying forever with Dru would get him killed. She gave him life, after all. As daft as she was, she probably thought she could wipe him out with the fickle turn of her mind.

Spike considered the Slayer, the woman who had taken him from that and changed him to something he didn’t yet understand. Well, not completely, anyway. But for reasons he wasn’t privy to, it didn’t matter. This was a new place—one where he wasn’t expected to be anything but who he was. There had been no games—except those the Slayer was inclined to initiate when she was in the right kind of mood—no head tricks to alter the way he felt or acted. Buffy knew he was a murderer, a killer, a monster that had fed and bled thousands in his time, and yet she seemed to discard his history as something to be faced at another time.

This time was for them, to learn who the other was down deep. Not the killer of his kind, and not the beast she was formed to save the world from. Just Spike and Buffy on a journey to work out why they meant so much to each other—and so fast. It sent a trickle of fear through him, knowing that more than likely the brown sludgy stuff was bound to hit the fan sooner than later—especially once they faced the reality of her friends being upstairs. As much of a party it seemed to be, even with the snack foods—and no he wasn’t referring to Harris’s neck though it gave him plenty of cravings—they were there in need of protection. And now that Buffy was his, and he was hers, he was part of that protection. That it was from his own family—the ones who’d taunted and tortured him throughout his unlife—was neither here nor there. They could play like it was all normal, but Spike knew better. He knew if not tonight, then next week his sire would have her vengeance, and he knew more than likely one of these people his Slayer was attached to would be gone from her life.

He never had known this kind of sadness, and that was enough to make him stand firm in this joining. In this relationship that defied time and reason. Losing any one of those now plonked in front of the telly would be too much for her. Her pain was his to bear now. His to absorb, and it was an uncomfortable knowledge.

Still, they were playing at normal tonight. A time off from all the scary thoughts and deeds. A time off from the reality of what they were in the dark—natural enemies who were raised to take the other out. Tonight, he just wanted her to be his girl.

He could hear the jollility of her friends and the dry curses of her watcher as they settled in for a night of telly, no doubt arguing over a pile of movies. Buffy didn’t take long to rejoin them and Spike salivated at how fresh and clean she must be. He wanted little more than to go and touch her, kiss her, and make sure that what he’d experienced with her since he decided to be dusted by the Slayer was real.

By the time he made it half way up the basement stairs, he was convinced the first flick would be in credits before he made it. His recovery was absolutely in motion, but the progress was bloody slow. Hardly a surprise when he’d managed to shag his girl for hours at a time. Tended to take a bit out of a bloke’s stamina.

The second half of the ascent was achieved with a locked jaw. Determination was nothing as the sweat began to break out on his skin. But once he’d cleared the last, the vision of Buffy stood in the kitchen doorway, a soft expression and a smile his reward. He felt so absurdly pleased to have made the effort to go to her—to spend the night amongst her group of friends—that he felt a sappy grin settle on his lips.

The strain of getting up the stairs was pure hell on his muscles, however, so the satisfaction almost died a humiliating death as he swayed at the basement door. Before he could give in—could accept his limits for the night—Buffy was at his side. She wordlessly curled an arm around his ribs, encouraging his own arm to hold her shoulders, and she led him to a vacant spot for two on the couch.

Buffy had come for him, wanted to share her night with him, and he felt himself fall a little faster to a place he knew he wasn’t coming back from.

And for some completely non-evil reason, he was fine with that. His demon was fine with that. And not even one of the heartbeats in the room, not one of the racing pulses made him want to feed and wreak carnage in her living room. What he wanted was to curl up with her and be a part of her life. And if that meant watching bloody awful teenage flicks on the telly, then so be it. Not like he wouldn’t enjoy the looks of exasperation the watcher wouldn’t be able to repress.

No. For tonight, he was free to be something other than what he’d been for the last century. He was free to let the hungry part of his humanity out and grasp hold of something new.

And hopefully something permanent.

Buffy.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Other than a little flush of her cheeks, Buffy didn’t feel even the slightest embarrassment that she’d kept her friends and watcher waiting at the door while she and Spike had finished off with the wild sex. No siree. Not even an incy bit.

So what if she dumped them at the TV and then bolted for upstairs?

They’d managed to start settling in without her. There were sleeping bags all over the floor, a half-hearted pillow fight between Willow and Xander as they waited for her to get comfy and they could press play on whatever they’d chosen to make the night appear like a normal one.

Except, how could it be? With a healing vamp in her basement—one that she knew she would rather die than give up kissing—and a demented vampire just waiting for any one of them to slip up and give him an easy snack.

Buffy was thoughtful as she looked at the as yet blank screen, knowing that all this angst would come to a crashing anti-climax if they could just get Angel back together with his soul.

And what would that mean for you, Buffy? She didn’t like that getting relative peace back in her life would rely on the return of Angel. And she didn’t like the concept of her having to choose between vampires. As much in love as she’d thought she’d been with him, nothing like what had happened with Spike had even come close to rocking her Angel world. So maybe that was her answer? Returning him back to the land of the brooding wouldn’t mean anything to her. Angel would be back on his redemptive path, and Buffy could concentrate on what yellow brick road she was leading Spike down.

“Giles? Isn’t there…I don’t know…some kind of way to give Angel his soul back? I know Ms. Calendar said that her people lost the curse, but wouldn’t there be some other way? I mean, gypsies can’t be the only ones who have that kind of magic or knowledge, right? What about the Council? Couldn’t they get their big magic guys on it and make up a spell? How hard could it be?”

By the time she’d finished, everyone was staring at her, Giles sans glasses and so his eyes looked a little unfocussed.

“Or hey, what about some kind of contact with those whacky Powers that like to pull the Buffster’s strings? Is there some way to contact them? Because I’m sure they don’t like losing a vamp with a conscience.” Xander continued munching on his snacks, fully expecting to be told off for his stupid suggestion, even though just once he’d like to be the brainy one. The guy with the solutions.

“A-as ridiculous as that, er, sounds, I think Xander might be onto something.”

Giles’s bare face was right in the path of an exploding mouthful of chips.

“I am?” the brunette spluttered, eyes darting around to look at his friends to see if they were just as impressed as he was for coming up with something viable.

“Go, Xan,” confirmed Buffy, a huge confident smile on her face that did wonders for the upbeat nature of the room as Giles wiped mulch off his face, disgust warring with admiration.

“I’ll investigate our options further when I am at home and near my books. I am certain there is a way to converse with, if not the Powers themselves, then surely some kind of intermediary.”

That was enough for Buffy. She’d started something off that could save them all, could save half of Sunnydale, and now they could settle down to munchy goodness and some nice, muscular Spike as her headrest.

Those thoughts had brought her to the kitchen just as he yanked open the basement door and dragged himself through it. The strain on his face was enough of an indication of the strength he’d used to get himself there, and Buffy felt herself burst with pride. She knew he was a fighter. Something between them had altered on a major scale, and now she felt almost like her equal was standing right in front of her.

In one wildly strange night, Buffy had brought herself home a vampire. One that had wanted to rip her heart out and tear apart her neck for months. One who had chosen her to be the marker of his death. And instead, she’d looked at him and seen so much more. Potential.

And she’d fight the world not only to keep him, but to see it through.

And she’d win. It’s what Slayers did.

She was trying to kill him—of that Spike had no doubt. Plonking him down on the couch and then sitting almost completely over his lap before covering them with a blanket—and then forcing him to watch Blade, of all things. True, he got to view Harris’s overactive vein throb in his neck, got to see how truly tragic the teenager was. But still, and more importantly, Buffy was in a skirt, snuggling up to him in front of her friends while she tickled the skin over his ribs and parted her knees just a little.

The little minx was teasing him right out of his pants.

The lights were out, talking low as the movie flickered and cast glowy shadows over the faces in the room. Three faces that were turned determinedly to the television screen as soon as the low moans and sucking sounds commenced.

Giles, Willow and Xander moved closer to the set, relishing the discomfort of the floor as long as it kept them away from the overactivity on the couch. And then, as all people who wish to remain in that special place that sees and hears nothing, they became thoroughly absorbed in the movie and promptly fell into blissful slumber.

Buffy wriggled slightly as heat shot through her, cool fingers drifting over the flesh of her leg and finding a path under her skirt. Spike was slow with his caress, his lips distracting Buffy from her mates as his shaking hand found the little sneaky treasure she’d left for him to find. Bare pussy lips, dripping with her want of him. He let the tips of his fingers settle in her juice, rubbing the wetness slowly and softly around the opening, pushing the lips apart so his middle finger could teasingly poke and slide a fraction inside.

Buffy held his head, her fingers combing through his softened curls as she shifted her body, straddling now and gyrating agonisingly slowly over his teasing fingers. When Spike’s free hand began a slow walk under her top, finding a hard and straining nipple unencumbered by lingerie, Buffy whimpered and pushed herself harder against his fingers. Spike resisted sinking further into her, continuing to barely touch and driving her insane.

“Spike,” she mouthed against his swollen lips, feeling a tremendous surge of courage at the mingled sounds of snoring behind her. Buffy’s eyes were suddenly too heavy and they fell closed, her hips adopting a steady rhythm against the pressure of Spike’s fingers while she searched desperately for something to end the ache.

Her body felt too hot to keep on clothes, yet she was making out with her boyfriend—vampire—while her friends watched cheesy TV and fell asleep in subconscious protection.

And she couldn’t drag up the energy to care.

Buffy’s hand wandered to Spike’s belt as she breathed hot kisses down the side of his face and neck, her teeth finding the impulse to nibble now and then simply irresistible. The little metallic clink of the buckle releasing and then the urgent slide of the zipper didn’t even register. The only thing Buffy was focused on was the freedom of Spike’s cock and her desperation to slide him inside and find the release she needed.

He felt so solid in her hand, the looseness of his skin becoming taut so rapidly that she felt the feminine thrill of success even as her fingers lightly stroked the smoothness of his length. When his lips touched hers again, rubbing so softly back and forth before his tongue darted out to lick her top lip, Buffy felt her attention slip further. The room was mostly dark and she had no idea, nor did she care about the shadows that flickered on the walls around her, or the strange buzz of words and snores behind her. They were things that she felt weren’t important—not in this scheme of things that directed her to urgently be filled and thrilled.

Buffy curled her palm around Spike’s cock, moaning into his mouth in reverence. Sure, the day had allowed her to become familiar with him, to know a depth to her new lover that she’d never had with any other, but the tingle of each sensual moment with him was like experiencing it again for the first time. Was like taking him into the depths of her heart and soul anew. And when she looked into the shining devotion in his eyes, she knew it was the same for him.

They couldn’t get enough of each other, even at the sake of loving in the presence of her friends. It was so naughty, and yet, it made her feel unbearably hot. One hand stroking leisurely strokes up and down his cock, the other took to tugging the blanket further up her body until it was draped over her shoulders. That was the last moment of coherence, and the rest of the night was pleasure.

She popped the buttons of her shirt almost in a daze, allowing her shirt to fall open and bare her desire heavy breasts to his sight and his touch. Her nipples ached for eons before he got there, rolling them gently between a cooling grasp and building that tease in her belly to an unbearable ache. A sudden pinch and she was so totally his, now and as far as she was concerned, forever.

Buffy felt the warmth spread through her leisurely as Spike sensually loved her with his mouth. He kissed her slowly, eyes closed, giving in to the inevitable rightness that being with each other entailed. He kissed her like a man, and a man in love at that. A burst of joy spread from Buffy’s heart and she could feel the stinging rush of tears, even as she caressed his cock and led it to the place she needed for him to be. The place that would fill her up and make her bursting with him.

Their lips rested against each other’s as the spongy head of his cock separated her folds, held them steady as if waiting to breathe, and then hands on her hips helped to guide her slowly, agonisingly, down the full length. Buffy gasped against his soft lips, drawing into her mouth the sudden little growl that erupted from his throat as she wept against him. Wept for the beauty she’d found—in a cemetery of all places.

As soon as she’d settled, Buffy stopped. Instead of making their union obvious—despite the lack of conscious eavesdroppers—Buffy halted the pumping progression that would have led them to the end. She tensed her muscles instead, used them as a barometer to measure Spike’s captivation.

By the look of awe, it worked. She concentrated on massaging him, an excruciatingly slow sweep of her muscles that squeezed and released as his open palms stroked over her nipples. The lack of movement from their bodies was far from restful, far from relaxed as goose pimples erupted over every inch of her skin.

Buffy shook, her body knowing this song of pleasure even though her mind had no clue. She was helpless to everything but to watch Spike as he stared at her, something in his eyes making her heart melt even further and knowing that not only was he hers, but he was hers forever. What they had wasn’t planned, but it was written. Recorded in a place that no one on earth had access to and no one could stop. She was that confident as the burning came too close, singed the outer layer of her skin and erupted as she felt Spike’s sticky fluids gush inside her.

The tingle inside her continued, the muscles she’d been so severely controlling now jerking her in erratic spasms. Spike’s hands gripped her, handfuls of her breasts feeling so right as she collapsed against his chest and panted against his neck.

“I can’t ever let you go,” she realised in a small voice, finally admitting to the slayer within that this demon was fast becoming her everything. She’d known it before of course, but knowing it in her heart and accepting it in her head were different things. This time when they’d made love, they gave each other pleasure for the sake of expression rather than feeling, and the realisation had been set in cement. They belonged to and with each other. It led them to one shared path. One shared future.

Spike was stroking the skin of her belly when she finally found the courage to let it all go. All the Angel angst and mistaken feelings, all the fear of what a future without her souled vampire could hold. All that confusion and hurt was completely washed away the moment she’d decided to help Spike exist.

With determined yet uncertain eyes, she took him in, lifting herself up straight and arching against his familiar and comforting touch. And then she said it, changing their lives forever.

Her voice was husky with emotion, with meaning, and she could see the attention he gave her even from her first word. It stumbled passed her lips and then she knew by the slow blink of his eyes and the blossoming smile on his lips.

“I’m falling in love with you.”

And by the way he crushed her to his chest, she knew she wasn’t alone.

Chapter Fourteen

Bloody buggering hell.

Spike stared, his jaw slack as he soaked in a Slayer on the brink of awareness. He was positive he looked like an awestruck idiot, a wet behind the ears teenager getting hard at the thought of the first girl he’d fallen for. And the way his heart swelled at the words, at the tone she’d used to relay them, he felt like it was the very first time. Something solid settled over him, his cock thick and warm inside her body, and he recognised the truth of what he had in this to the infatuation that was his past with Cecily and Drusilla. The difference was so startling that he couldn’t get over it—how more sincere it made him feel, and how much his body tingled.

The vampire slayer was falling for a previously deluded wanker with visions of his own importance.

It made Spike shudder to think what possibilities she saw in him now to believe in him enough to feel things for him. Heavy things. Things with great emotional impact, and hopefully lasting effects. It was no matter, though. It may have been a night that shifted reality, but it was a night that he’d found and made love, and he wasn’t letting anything spoil it. He couldn’t lose it now, so with a whispered plea, Buffy stirred and helped him move back to the basement.

She stayed with him for a while, waiting till he slept with a smile on his face before sneaking away. His subconscious followed her to her bedroom, and he rested knowing she was safe from harm. She didn’t need him to protect her within her own home—now that Angelus was banished from her soul.

The house was silent as the hours ticked away and darkness faded from the sky. A rattle of keys at the door heralded a new arrival, but the visitors persisted in slumber. Joyce Summers let herself into her home just as the morning sun broke out and chased down her shadow. She firmly clicked the door shut, exhaustion making her body lax and her eyelids droop. Dropping her overnight bag, she kicked off her shoes and wandered into her house, stopping short at the sleepover that was apparently taking place in her living room—and, why was the school librarian curled up and snoring alongside a bunch of kids?

The rumbling from the only other adult’s throat was irritating, but it was comforting in its service of breaking the silence. There was always something a little daunting in returning to an empty house. The sunny morning outside was making her tired, so before she slept Joyce decided to take her suitcase straight to the machine downstairs and then crawl up the stairs to bed. Buffy won’t mind, she thought with a smile. Besides, her clothes definitely needed a going over. Some stains were going to require real elbow grease to shift them.

As much as she felt drawn toward the sleepover guests, Joyce felt the very strong pull of sleep. She’d never felt so tired before and was far from the top of her game to entertain so many people at once. With a secret smile on her lips, Joyce walked by the bodies and crept through the kitchen.

Preoccupied with the thought of her much anticipated homecoming with her daughter, Joyce didn’t concentrate on the stairs going down into the basement until she stumbled on the very last one, scrabbling for the hand rail. Looking up in relief, she released a shocked gasp as an extremely pale face topped with white hair loomed right in front of her face.

“Oh God, don’t kill me,” she pleaded, taking a desperate step back away from the imposing figure dressed head to toe in black.

Spike tilted his head, a sad smile on his lips. “Bit late for that aren’t I, Joyce?”

She’d been told it would be impossible to trick them all. Still, she’d had so much fun thinking of possible ways it could be done, and then returning to the house exactly the way she’d left it. She’d wondered how long it would take Buffy to figure it out, and then contemplated exactly which expression Buffy would finally adopt. But of course, Spike had to be seen to first, and now through a woman’s eyes, she could really see the potential in seeing to this vamp.

A feral snarl tore from her throat as she launched herself off the bottom step, hands finding and gripping Spike around the throat and staring hatefully into matching yellow eyes. “Is that any way to say hello to your sister?” she asked around gleaming fangs and snapped at the bare skin of his throat. “I must have smacked the manners right out of that head of yours on Parent Teacher night.”

The kick that sent him flying to the opposite wall wasn’t lucky so much as Spike had no idea of how to handle his girl’s newly demonic mum. The shovel that was suddenly in her hands made him consider using a bit more force behind his attack, however, and he made a move to tackle her at the ankles. Her stockinged feet lost a lot of impact as she tried to kick him in the throat, Spike rolling just as her big toe made contact with his Adam’s apple. He coughed compulsively before quickly springing to his feet, circling now but never taking his eyes off the spade. He didn’t think Buffy would appreciate him slapping her mum around—newly vamped or not—but neither did he think she’d want to take him out with a suspiciously spade-flattened face.

“What’s this all about, Joyce?” He knew she would have been sent by Angelus to exact his small-minded revenge. It just threw him for a loop that the vengeance had already been enacted.

“You know what it’s about. You’re a brute, seducing my daughter like that.” Only she grinned, betraying the implied concern around a malicious snarl and nudging at memories long buried and yet with the power to topple his commonsense. “I bet she was tasty, too. Was she tasty, Spike? Was my not-so-pure little Buffy worth all the pain you’re going to feel?”

He saw red—mother or no mother—and pinned her with a back-breaking crunch to the stairs. “You do NOT talk about Buffy that way.” His word was final, absolute and his expression deadly—yet she laughed in his face and with more power than expected from a newbie fledge, she bucked him off and sent him careening back into the far wall.

Spike staggered to his feet to watch Buffy’s mother dust off her hands as she stood contemplating him, her demon-side blatant in the perusal.

“I can see what she sees in you, and I have to admit, she’s showing far more taste than I ever anticipated. I can just imagine what it must feel like to have that long thick cock sliding into—”

“Oi! Watch your mouth, you filthy hag. She’s too good for the likes of you.” Spike blinked at the tinkling laughter, feeling the older woman’s amusement striking a chord of familiarity that made him want to cringe.

“Oh, that is too cute. Angelus warned me you were a sap. Pity I can’t let you leave this basement. Can’t have you warning the others now, can I?” The mature-looking vampire nearly sparkled in her excitement, taking to evil like a duck to water.

“I see the old man turned you and trained you to feel too confident. Master vamp here, luv. You haven’t got a chance of winning against me. ‘Specially not now Buffy’s welfare is in my hands.”

Her cold cynical laugh stopped him dead in his tracks and for the first time he doubted his own prowess. Remembered that even master’s have to crawl their way back from being crippled and it was only last night he felt good on his legs again. He watched in realised horror when her eyes went glassy and she began to sway. He barely had two seconds to think ‘oh, fuck’ before he was sucked into his sire’s favourite game and he knew he was screwed.

His body was frozen and his mind slipped into a vision of his once favourite things—depravities that should have made his blood curdle and rebel in his veins. But he was helpless against the control, knowing full well how strong Dru’s penchant for the dramatic was with her little parlour tricks.

“Ahhh, now it’s sinking in. You missed the vital clue…brother!” And she bestowed a kiss by his ear as she took out a stake from her slacks and raised it in a clear path for his heart. “Anything you want me to tell Buffy before I rip my darling girl’s throat out?”

He was gone, seeing stars and pixies and blood from floor to ceiling, but his senses didn’t lie. There was still hope.

“Why don’t you tell me why Spike would tell you anything?” And Buffy’s hand shot out and gripped her mother’s wrist, squeezing hard until a bone snapped and the stake slipped to the floor. “And Mom, it’s so not nice to threaten my boyfriend—not when he could become your son-in-law and you’ll be stuck with him for eternity. Oh, already there. Guess you didn’t think of that one, huh?”

Buffy tipped her head to the side, looked at the unrepentant expression on her mother’s face and slammed her elbow in her face. Spike cringed as he broke from the thrall and shunted the offensive spade and stake across the floor before lunging for Joyce’s arms and held them burning behind her back. In what appeared to be a blur, Buffy won the round and hauled the woman who gave her life to the cot Spike had been sleeping on and roughly shackled her arms to the wall, ignoring each scream as her mother spat and insulted her the entire way.

One huge step back and Buffy slumped against a suddenly present Spike, allowing his strength to hold her on her feet while she looked upon the demonised remains of her mom.

“I cannot tell you how sorry I am,” she whispered, the emotion breaking free now that no one else in the house was in danger.

“Oh don’t be sorry, sweetie. This is the greatest feeling in the world. No cares, no responsibilities. And the food! Oh god, such ambrosia. Why, my employees themselves tasted like fine wine. I believe I’m completely drunk from them alone. And really, Angelus is a superiorly attractive demon when he’s bathing in the blood of the innocent.”

Buffy fell back, barely holding onto her stomach contents as she envisioned her mother’s completely clueless workmates and studied the vile expression on her face as she related the horrific tale of their casual slaughter.

“Though that’s a singularly misleading argument now, isn’t it? Humans as innocents? I’m astounded how that one is used to differentiate between good and evil,” Joyce mocked.

Buffy stood tall, emotions locked down and hidden for a time in the future when she had the luxury of giving in. Right now, Sunnydale needed her, and the adversary just lost the familiarity of connection as the Slayer surged to the fore. An entity that her mother had no knowledge of about her.

“We need to get on that plan for the soul thingy. Let’s go tell Giles.” She turned her back on a snarling monster—her mother long gone—and together they sought out an answer.

One that would ease the devastation of a heart too young to survive it.

The Scooby gang and additional aging librarian were waiting for them in a huddle of fear in the kitchen.

“Oh God, Buffy. I am so sorry. We should have taken better precautions—” Giles floundered in the dark, not knowing what they could have done to have prevented this horrible event, but feeling sure there should have been some way if they’d but thought upon the problem a little more in urgently. If they’d thought harder on all the possible fronts Angelus could have made an impact.

“It’s not your fault, Giles. We couldn’t have predicted Angelus would track her down and do this. Yeah, we knew it was a possibility, but how could we have known he’d hunt her down in LA and abduct her from her trip? I thought she was safe until she came home.” Tears stuttered on the brim of Buffy’s eyes before she turned and allowed her body to be fully enveloped by the only vampire that she’d known to have a heart. And he loved her. Despite what was going on—despite the thoughts running through her head that this was her fault for interfering in vampire politics and kidnapping Spike in the first place—she felt immensely grateful for that. Like she’d gained something important—and possibly greater than what she’d lost.

“I don’t get it. How’d she get in here anyway?” piped in Xander, ever the voice of confusion.

“Ordinarily I would say that is exactly true. However, this house is owned by Joyce. Therefore, with her dead, the house is rendered vacant. No vampire will need an invitation. I suggest we find somewhere else to stay before dark.” Giles looked off into nothingness thoughtfully and missing the identical masks of horror on Xander and Willow’s faces.

“You mean Angelus could have been in here anytime and we’d all be dead before we could wake up and know he was there?” Xander’s high pitch was most unbecoming and Giles awarded him the predictable grimace.

“It would certainly appear so,” he confirmed, his own reactive shiver rattling his veins.

“Yeah, ‘cept for the wanker being too thick to work that part out before he sent Joyce off to do his dirty work.” Spike squeezed Buffy reassuringly as she shook in his arms, marvelling at how tightly she was holding onto her grief by the absence of a wet shirt sopping up expected tears. She seemed to gather some inner reserve and pulled away to look him deeply in the eyes, concern the uppermost emotion as she asked the one thing he wished she’d not noticed.

“What did she do to you anyway? When I got there you were as all with the statue impersonating while she was preparing to stake you. You can’t tell me that you’re suddenly Suicidal Vamp.” A sudden attack of nerves caused her confidence to slip and Spike could see her growing belief that she wasn’t enough for him shadow her eyes. “Unless you are? Oh God, would you rather be dust than—”

The quickest way to stop that thought derailment was with a kiss, and Spike took great delight in seizing her lips in a hot kiss right in front of her friends, hoping she could feel with his inappropriately bulging jeans that dust was the last thing on his mind when she was in his arms.

Buffy pulled away breathlessly, her body shaking for a whole different reason as she licked her lips and fought against the glaze of lust that had sized him up as sexy vamp needing to be taken now. A sudden scream of irritation shattered the moment and Buffy was jolted back into the real world—the one that had taken away her mother. That and the memory of her previous question.

“Okay, so not wanting of the dusty end. So what gives?” Buffy stepped back, arms crossed and foot tapping as she waited for Spike to admit how he’d been caught out.

He stood stubborn, his jaw ticking as he looked into her determined gaze and then released a great gushing breath of humiliated defeat.

“Right then. She bloody thralled me, all right? She called herself my sister, so Dru is her sire and the barmy bint must have taught her how to do it. Normally I can resist it, but I wasn’t expecting her to try and so I wasn’t ready. Give a bloke some slack, Slayer.” And in what could only be an embarrassed shuffle, Spike spun on his black Doc Martin heel and stomped into the living room. Buffy followed slowly after him to the doorway, watching as he slumped angrily into a sofa chair and flicked on the television.

Buffy turned back to the impromptu group meeting in the kitchen, finding that she had absolutely no clue what to say about all of this. She could have potentially killed everyone she loved last night—simply because she felt like saving an evil vampire from what she saw as unjust treatment. And because he’d stirred something inside of her that she’d been too eager to hold onto rather than let it go. It had cost her a mother and almost her friends. As a slayer, right now she totally sucked.

“So, what’s the plan? We have a plan, right?” Willow looked eagerly around at the saddened faces and gulped her fear down.

“E-essentially, we need to relocate and then decide what to do about J…Buffy’s mother. We have to do something in regard to contacting someone about ensouling Joyce and then things can go relatively back to normal.”

Buffy glared at Giles, the bile rising in her throat. “Relatively? Relative to what exactly? ‘Cause from what I remember, the gallery was kinda open during the day. And can you see her with a nice shiny soul re-hiring? Oh, and can you see the steady supply of blood around here? What do I say to Dad?” The questions were all just bubbling to come out of her mouth, righteous anger taking the place of grief that would weaken her at a time when strength was sorely needed.

“Of course, that was a rather insensitive choice of words. I’m sorry, Buffy. I wasn’t thinking. I can’t hope to even guess how you must be feeling right now.” Giles observed the girl he received daily miracles from and felt like slapping himself for his unreasonable expectations. A situation had presented itself and really they had no way of knowing how to resolve it successfully. Righting Buffy’s world would require a hit and miss method that was going to be immensely emotional for a time, and Giles could feel his sympathy for her increase tenfold. That Spike was around and so strong a presence in her life seemed to actually be an advantage and Giles just felt grateful she had some kind of distraction to get her through the initial trauma of this moment.

Before Buffy could reply, the basement door flew open and cracked against the kitchen wall, Joyce standing triumphant at the top of the stairs with the chains dangling from the cuff at her wrists and cement dust coating her clothes and hair.

“You have no idea the kind of damage pulling bolts out of brickwork can do. Thank God I’m dead and I don’t have to pay for fixing that.” Joyce Summers grinned maliciously around her fangs, eyeing each and every one of them as some kind of meal on legs. Her gaze landed on Xander and she just watched him silently as he squirmed, his fear highly pungent in the air.

“Might want to tone the terror down a notch, Whelp,” came an amused holler from the living room, breaking Xander’s concentration for a doomed second. He turned back to the woman he’d considered a second mother and found her almost snarling and ready to pounce.

Joyce’s body leaned forward, her knees preparing to spring when she loudly said “boo.”

Xander warbled his panic and sprang immediately into action. He snagged an apple and an orange in each hand from the bowl on the kitchen island and pelted them weakly, watching the colourful fruit arc in the air before Joyce caught them easily and laughed.

“You throw like a girl,” she taunted, just as a garlic bulb landed in her hands. Superstition had obviously not been bred out of her yet and she startled, dropping the clove with a terrified yelp.

“Oh yeah,” he called in challenge. “How ‘bout this?” And he threw the wooden bowl like a frisbee, bonking Joyce brutally on the forehead and knocking her backwards off her feet. They all stood back in shock as she screamed and windmilled her arms before tumbling fast down the stairs to the basement floor. She thumped every step hard, Xander and Willow flinching every time they heard her impact with each step. She hit the bottom with a pained moan and before they could blink, Buffy was back down there doing something to restrain her own mother.

“See those lovely big holes you put in the wall?” The Slayer’s voice easily carried up the stairs. “You wanna hope the sunlight doesn’t come in there in the morning or you’ll be one very sorry pile of vamp dust.”

“Oh Buffy,” hissed Joyce in false saccharine concern. “Sweetheart, I didn’t know you cared.”

“Yeah, I totally care. I’ll show you how much I care.” And without seeing any of the basement action, the gathering in the kitchen heard a sickening crunch and the newest vampire houseguest was silent. Buffy stomped back up the stairs a few minutes later, a mission obviously on her mind as she avoided everyone’s eyes. She turned, shut the door and bolted it closed.

“Okay, so about that plan…”

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Never in a million years could Spike have guessed he’d be bunked down at the Watcher’s comfy digs with a slayer curled provocatively around his bits. They’d scored the couch and with the aid of a warm blanket, Buffy had positioned him almost fully beneath her and was now blowing warm air on his neck while her hand stroked his heat-seeking missile of a cock. As she got cosier and licked a heavenly line up the side of his neck, Spike used all his strength to tamp down his desire to growl. And then she was at his ear, nibbling at the lobe while her hand ran a mind-boggling expedition up the iron hard slant of his cock. The tips of her fingers brushed erotically over his belly and Spike felt the swell increase to almost painful proportions.

“Are they asleep?” she whispered right before she dived into the shell of his ear with her slippery tongue. There was no holding back the compulsive arch of his hips that slipped his length further up her stroke. His brain was having trouble processing her question, but when he finally did he switched on the vamp radar to find three relaxed heartbeats and two quite disturbing sinus blockages.

Spike felt concerned that Buffy might be repressing the horror of her mother’s new identity, but who was he to tell her that using his body as a distraction was a bad thing? The need to worry completely fled as his hand found the soft swell of her bared breast and he gave it a gentle squeeze, his eager thumb rubbing over the diamond point repetitively in sync with her raspy breath.

“What do you want, baby? Tell your Spike?”

She kissed him, apparently dying to have his lips upon hers while she continued to map out every vein protruding from the smooth surface of his cock. He smiled devilishly against her lips, wanting to give into the impulse to laugh—not in fun but for the pure blissful happiness that washed over him every time he was in contact with such a miracle. He felt playful, besotted and just so unbelievably lucky for a vamp.

And then she wiggled her hips and was straddling him, her unbearably hot centre pressing against him but with a layer of cotton in between. It was torture. It was exhilarating. He could feel her lips separate around his cock, and then she was moving, letting him gouge a sodden path over her cleft while he died a second death from her inferno. The friction from her panties was enormously frustrating and Spike felt his control snapping and snarling in his head to be free, to pound into her like a vampire that meant business.

When his hands reached the silky skin low on her back and pressed onto the slim slip of fabric, he felt ebullient at how easy it was. With an unrepentant snap they were gone and he almost howled at the molten juice that slicked his muscle all the way around and over again. Grasping her hips hard, Spike changed her trajectory and he was finally aiming in the right direction, a deep rumbling roar coming out as a twisted garbled kitty mewl as her hot mouth devoured him whole and he submerged completely into the tight depths of her body.

He could really get used to this risqué fucking in front of her friends. Had to admit the prim and proper image of his little love child had completely misled him. And God, he was beyond grateful for that surprise.

“Spike?” Buffy looked him in the eye before darting a quick glance at her snoozing friends on the floor and sat up on him, her face revealing the ecstasy she felt at this decision as his cock stretched her and nudged further at her womb.

“Yeah, luv?” he gasped before just giving into it all. He was beyond questioning why this was happening—how it could feel so right when he’d been happy with a hundred years of mediocrity.

“Fast or slow?” And to back up the question, Buffy alternated slow glides up his throbbing length with a jarring descent.

He answered with his hands, gripping her hips in a desperate attempt to control his thrusts before she blew his mind. He nudged her loose shirt up her body and while his hands altered the speed of her gyrations, his lips and teeth teased the hell out of her. That desire for happy laughter returned with a vengeance as Buffy shook above him, as her eyes rolled back in her head and he bumped repeatedly against her little circle of nerves. His tongue tickled her nipple while his fingers gave her a splayed bruise on her hips, but by the enormous grin on her face, Spike felt secure in her satisfaction.

Under her shirt he could see the concave turn of her belly, the small spread of pubic hair that brushed against the base of his cock and he felt so much joy that he saw, he felt, he belonged.

He could feel her muscles tightening haphazardly around him, milking him for a reciprocal response, and as Buffy leaned forward and neatly licked his ear, she whispered ‘I love you’ and won it. He spurted hard up inside her, feeling the energy of the explosion all the way to his ears. Spike gripped her hips and slammed her down hard on his cock, over and over as his essence splashed her walls.

He didn’t stop exactly, even when he was spent. Gentle soothing motion kept him inside her as they both calmed, Buffy relearning how to breathe and Spike trying to blink out the haze of red that had burst behind his eyes.

“You won’t need a stake, Buffy. Your pussy is all the fire I need to dust.” His chuckle came to an abrupt halt at the look of horrified fear that stood out on her face.

“Don’t say that,” she hissed, her eyes flashing green and wild.

And just like that the future of Joyce Summers was back in play.

It wasn’t grief that made Buffy avoid eye contact with Willow the next morning. It was the big grin the redhead had aimed at the two blonde’s entangled on the couch when they woke and Buffy realised Spike was still buried deep and wet inside her. The sensation of him swelling up and she stretching accommodatingly around him was enough to make the humiliation kick in tenfold, knowing that there was no way she could gracefully let him slide out and she could stand as if nothing happened and go take a morning shower. Wash away the ravages of make-up sex after Spike’s blunder about her mother.

Willow had persistently sat staring, that grin never faltering as Buffy felt several moans cut off in her throat before they could be released. Spike slept on, but apparently consciousness wasn’t a requirement when a dick needed seeing to and Buffy was stuck impaled on him while he gently thrust himself to another orgasm. And Buffy buried her head in his chest and tried her best to ignore Willow’s mounting hysterical giggles.

“Oh God,” she muttered into his tee and wondered how the hell she was going to fix this. How was she going to get Spike awake and decently tucked in before Xander worked out what was going on?

The dilemma was solved when Giles let out an ear-splitting shriek and came half tumbling down the stairs. “I thought you Americans were too civilised for vermin?”

Xander jumped to his feet, stumbling as he struggled to wake, his manly heroics ready to be displayed. “Where is the dastardly pest, G-man?”

Giles pointed toward his room at the top of the stairs, spluttering his outrage. “It’s a bloody mouse, of all things horrid.” He shuddered, then jumped a foot in the air as Willow shrieked, and turned just in time to see the creature run down the stairs and do a terrified, galloping circuit around the living room.

The distraction was enough, Buffy now standing awkwardly and Spike rubbing his abused ears with his jeans pulled up and properly zippered. Buffy’s face, however, went an extreme shade of red as she felt two times worth of goo slowly slide down her inner thigh. With a pretend squeal of fear, she dove for the bathroom, slamming the door behind her and vowing to not return until the mouse was caught. And then they heard the bathroom pipes groan and shudder and knew that Buffy was waking happily with the aid of soothing hot water. Willow eyed Spike suspiciously, only realising this was the first time they’d been left alone in a room with a fully operational master vampire when he sneered and cupped his now flaccid appendage.

“See something you like, Pet?” he smirked as Willow eeped and ran as far from him as she could go, which wasn’t as far as she might have liked with her flannel pj’s altering the number of places she could respectably visit.

Forty minutes later, the pandemonium was at an end. Stomachs had been filled courtesy of a butcher and baker drop, and the research had begun. It continued in that fashion—for once in blessed silence due to the gravity of their subject and the uncertainty of how Buffy would take a jovial approach—until belly’s began a rumbling order for lunch.

Instead of announcing a break like any normal head researcher would, Giles slammed his book closed in irritation and jumped to his feet. "Blast it! How bloody hard can it be to ensoul a vampire?"

The Scoobies stared at him, bleak and sad at the lack of the progress with dealing with their problem, until Spike laughed and broke the spell.

“Oh, not bleeding hard at all. That’s why there was only one, you git!”

“Your sarcasm is duly noted,” Giles informed dryly, feeling a little the fool that he’d left himself open to such a comment from a—possibly former—evil vampire. “As much as it is unnecessary,” he felt churlish enough to add.

Spike snorted and then stomped his way to the bathroom, not even looking over his shoulder at the gaping onlookers as he broke the lock and let himself into a room bursting with very embarrassed slayer.

Xander stared after him with obvious envy. “There are moments when you’ve got to love vampire abilities. Pity the blood diet doesn’t quite mix with Twinkies. I so couldn’t get into that even for wet, naked Buffy.” The wistful expression dived headlong into embarrassment as Willow choked in shock and Giles pinned him with a disgusted look.

The awkwardness was solved by a frantic swan dive into the books, each of them trying their best to ignore the noises that every so often bounced down the hall from the bathroom.

Buffy’s cheeks were slightly tinged pink when she at last reappeared in the living room, squeaky clean and hair damp from a second impromptu shower. “How goes the research?” she ventured, her voice weak of emotion as she flopped down in the armchair and deftly avoided inquiring eyes.

Giles quickly looked at his crack research team and sighed. He did his best to ignore the strutting demon that slunk up to Buffy and perched easily on the arm of the sofa, her hand dropping to massage his thigh.

“There’s no luck, I’m afraid. It perhaps would have been useful to know the name of the clan that originally cursed him, but as it is, there is no mention at all of any gypsy clan even having this fascinating ability.” Giles paused, contemplating what kind of weapon such a thing could be. His eyes suddenly bulged and his gaze rested on the only other vampire he’d been forced into contact with; new options of security started to flow like seductive whispers along thought synapses and only after the damage was done did he notice the pressure of his teeth in the plastic coated temple of his reading glasses.

Spike bounced to his feet, feeling very defensive at that look that made the Watcher’s eyes shine with planning and corruption.

“You can go wash your mind out with soap, Rupert. There is no way you’re shoving a soul in me. I’m not going to hurt any of you. Wouldn’t want to, anyway. Been right decent to me, an’ all. Wouldn’t be right.” He hoped it was enough. It was true, but Spike could still understand why Buffy’s mates might not be willing to trust him. A week ago he’d still hated them all—would gladly have sucked them dry even if it meant facing the fury of his ponce of a grandsire. “Look, whether you believe me or not, m’loyalties have switched sides. Buffy helped me where my own sire couldn’t be bothered. I’ll admit pig’s blood isn’t much a step up from dog, but beggars are grateful for the smallest of things. And the Slayer isn’t small.” He aimed a sultry leer at Buffy and felt gratified at her mixed look of lust and reproach.

“Let’s just concentrate on souling up the one vamp.” Buffy paused uncertainly, sadness evident no matter how much she tried to repress. “And Mom. I don’t know if I could handle more than one broody ex-Big Bad. Let’s leave Spike just how he is for the moment and work out how to save my mom and the world.”

Giles flushed before lowering his eyes. “Indeed.”

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

He just appeared, like a bruise with no clue to its origin. Right in the middle of Giles’s apartment, complete with quirky accent and totally ratty out-of-date hat. He grinned expectantly while the crowd around him stared stunned at the mystical intrusion.

“Evenin’ all.”

Nobody uttered a word in response, confused eyes tracing a repetitive trail from the still closed door to where the little man with the atrocious dress sense stood in the middle of them—Spike standing, Giles at his table surrounded by his beloved mystery solving books, and Willow and Buffy snickering on the couch at the final one of their group: Xander. His silent Giles impersonation came to an abrupt and guilty stop now that there were more witnesses.

“Er, if you don’t mind my asking,” said Giles as he stood from the table, glasses dangling from tired fingers, “where exactly did you come from?”

The intruder pointed seemingly to the heavens, tapped his nose and winked like he was hiding a big secret. Two quick beats and they learned secrets and this guy just weren’t on the same wavelength. “Nah, just playing with you. The Power’s sent me. Seems you’ve been allowed a hint or two with your little problem because the rate you lot are going, Angelus would manage to take over the world and you guys would still be left scratching your heads.”

“And yet, that so doesn’t answer the question. And who the hell are you?” Buffy had fluidly found her feet, standing in preparation of defending her friends if this weirdo got even a little bit more cryptic with the explanation.

“Whoa! Stand down, Slayer. Name’s Whistler. I’m here to point you guys in the right direction. Not my fault you all need to be guided toward the obvious. Still, Angel was supposed to be your guide though this Chosen gig—and look how that turned out. Really not what the big guys upstairs planned.” He stood in front of them expectantly and he grinned as Buffy met the challenge.

“You can really stop with the loving the sound of your own voice any minute now and tell us what the hell you’re talking about. What is so obvious that we’ve missed it?” Her arms crossed, Buffy Summers stared down this unknown quantity and felt fire whip through her veins at the presumption that Angel was any kind of guide.

“You don’t need to bury your heads in the books. You would have found exactly the one that could tell you about the curse if you’d not gone into hiding. Called into work recently, Watcher?” He raised an eyebrow as he looked to the elder, more responsible and supposedly switched on member of the troupe. “Anyone at the school that might have missed your absence? Or anyone you wish would notice you not being around?”

Giles whipped his glasses off again and tried hard to push down the blush that would betray him to a bunch of opportunistic children. “P-perhaps. What of it?”

“Well, there’s your answer. Jenny Calendar has been trying to translate the original soul curse since The Gelled One went and lost it. Now, she’s just about got it cracked, and turning the Slayer’s mother gave her enough time while the evil duo were otherwise occupied. But now Spike here’s mad ex has worked it out. Your teacher is the answer, but she’s on borrowed time.” A sudden grin split his face and he tipped his hat in farewell. “Good luck to you.” As unexplained as his original appearance was, the disappearance was just as confounding.

The clock on Giles’ wall ticked ominously the hour and as one, Giles and Buffy looked out the window at the rapidly darkening sky.

“Bloody hell,” Giles blustered. “The little prat could have told us where she is.”

Spike stood, his face thoughtful. “What’s she like? How’s she likely to do the research?”

“Oh oh,” Willow shouted frantically, her voice too high and excited as she alerted them all to her increasing fear. “She’d be doing it on the school’s computer. She does all her research there.”

“Oh come on. She’s researching how to put the trap back on Angelus. She can’t possibly be stupid enough to stay at the school once it’s getting dark,” Spike scoffed. Even the annoying whelp couldn’t be that daft.

The human contingent exchanged worried glances, the vampire now restrained in Buffy’s basement uppermost on their minds. Without consultation, without confirmation, they all ran to the door and bolted to Giles’s car. It was soon obvious that not all of them would fit—particularly if they had to bring back a foolish, risk-taking teacher and her work.

“Willow, Xander, you stay here at Giles’s. We’ll bring back Miss Calendar.” Steely determination gleamed brightly in Buffy’s eyes and they nodded and stepped back, retreading their path back to the apartment and locking themselves behind the closed door.

Buffy, Giles and Spike piled into the car and it was soon apparent that frustration was going to make things ugly.

“Take your bloody foot off the brake, pops. You want to save this bint or not?”

Buffy and Spike were flung back as the misleading chunk of metal picked it up a notch and clunked as it sped around the town. Streetlights were flickering to life as the little car blurred down streets and finally screeched to a stop outside the school. The two superheros practically flew into the school to do the rescuing while Giles fought to keep himself behind the wheel. He could understand the need to have a quick getaway, and to have his eye open for vampiric threats in the vicinity, but everything inside him screamed at his need to go to the woman he’d been neglecting for no good reason the past few days.

He could feel the anticipation on the night as it squeezed all rational thought from his mind. Just as he was about to damn them all with his idiotic need to be in it to his neck, Buffy ran like lightening back to the car, dragging a terrified and tear-stained Jenny along beside her. Spike kept up with what looked like a computer tower under his arm, his black coat flapping wildly behind him.

They hit the car and slid inside hardly without stopping, bunched up grunts of pain groaned around desperate calls to get the car moving. The blurred form of Angelus fast approaching brought focus back to his mind and Giles slammed his foot on the accelerator, nearly peeing himself as the car fishtailed before straightening and rocking out of the street like a bullet. A hard bump hit the back and he grinned in unrestrained glee as he felt the great thumping pillock slide off and hit the asphalt hard. He wanted to shout insults out the window, but the frightening swerve of his car even as he started winding down the window put paid to that idea and Giles just concentrated on pointing his car toward safety.

Childish retribution could wait.

They spent an inordinate amount of time sitting around being puzzled. While it had taken some time under the safety of Giles’ roof for the panicked hearts to resume a normal beat, there had yet to be anything as productive as explanations. Spike, having gotten used to near miss heart thumping events long ago, sat impatiently waiting for them all to get some kind of action about them.

“Not that I want to point out the urgency at all, but don’t you lot think you should at least talk to the chit and find out what all the potential grizzly death was about?” Spike suffered the Watcher’s glare good-naturedly and flung a casual arm across Buffy’s shoulders.

“Would it kill you to not be so embarrassingly blunt on occasion?” Giles narrowed his eyes, knowing that he wasn’t going to win any argument with a conscienceless vampire and wondered, not for the first time, what on earth Buffy saw in him.

“Already dead,” Spike taunted, then looked immediately chastened as Buffy’s elbow made crunching contact with his ribs. “But I’ll try and tone down the seductive need to make fun of you lot.” A pause. “For Buffy.”

The Slayer hit him with a watery, but grateful smile and Spike felt himself melt into vampire goo.

“Right,” Giles stuttered, feeling completely wrong-footed now that his enormous potential for putting Spike in his place was all but promised at an end. He was almost saddened, and then the next instant buoyed up again with the knowledge that someone with so much automatic snark could unlikely just turn it off like tap water. With the essentials now seemingly sorted, Giles caught sight of the newcomer to their group and blushed under her dark-eyed stare. Quite inconveniently his brain chose then to catch up with his adrenaline and the significance of what was happening finally sorted itself from the blind panic to make sure Jenny made it away from Angelus safely.

“Forgive me if I’m being rather forward, Jenny, but what pray tell were you doing in the school so late at night?” Giles felt a sinking sensation in his stomach as the dots began to connect and the teacher’s face flushed.

She looked cornered, scared almost, but then took a deep fortifying breath and revealed her secrets.

“I’ve been working on translating the soul curse so that I might be able to return it to Angel.” She looked nervously between each of those she already knew and then stopped on Spike, her eyes widening in wonder as he grinned encouragingly at her. A vampire in their midst—and one absent a soul. She had a long history of knowing exactly how rare it was for Angel to have one. Well, not so much rare as unique and yet here sat a vampire who had been almost central in helping her escape Angelus’s attack with her life and limb very much intact. And not once had he tried to snack on her. “Do I know you?” she finally directed at a thoroughly amused Spike and he tilted his head to the side to better study her.

“Nope,” he answered, though with a glint of recognition in his eye. “But I suspect your ancestors would have.”

Understanding came over Jenny and her body posture went rigid in the chair. “You’re William the Bloody? And you’re sitting here next to the Slayer? Oh God, what’s going on?” Jenny didn’t bother to hide her agitation, her gaze flickering back and forth between them uneasily, wondering if they’d been vamped in the two days they’d been missing.

“The one and only,” Spike answered, interested in the way her heart rate went through the roof. It was somewhat gratifying to find new people he could scare without even trying. Have them sitting in a wet patch derived from his name only.

“The situation with Spike is rather…unusual,” Giles conceded as he cut in. There was a tickle of urgency he was unable to ignore—and not so much for finding out about the progress of the translation. He felt betrayed, wondering what the link here was that he should have known about. Apparently it would be the first time something went on within the Council’s sphere of far reaching vision and they’d failed to make the obvious leap and put him in the know. Unless they’d intentionally kept Ms. Calendar’s involvement in this side of the business close to the chest.

“How is it that you not only have an interest in Angelus’s curse, but also possess the knowledge and means to decipher it?” He couldn’t hold back the glare, challenging himself to rein in the full extent of his frustration and anger as he waited for the final shoe to drop. There was no denying that Jenny had been somewhat involved since Angel had changed to his more evil side, but to what extent, they’d had no idea. No possible chance of knowing that she could be so embroiled in the situation as to come across a solution so potent.

“I was sent here,” she admitted slowly, “to keep track of Angelus, and to make sure he didn’t stop feeling the effects of the misery he enforced on my people.”

Shock settled on the group and Willow and Xander aimed identical expressions of uncertain concern to Buffy as she jumped from the sofa and glared at her teacher.

“You knew he could lose his soul and what? Sat back and waited for the entertainment?” Buffy was a picture of repressed rage wrapped convincingly in hurt and she was so caught up in it she didn’t even notice Spike’s eyes as they narrowed angrily.

“Of course not. But I was bound by my people to keep my mission a secret. It was not allowed for Angel to find out who I was—what I meant to him and his existence. There has been no joy in seeing what that monster did to you, Buffy. I had no way of knowing that sharing that kind of moment with you would be what would break the curse.” The teacher’s eyes were sad, the irises darker as she accepted the extent of her betrayal in keeping silent and the effect on these new people she cared about.

“Wha?” Shell-shocked Buffy stood totally still, soaking up that addition to the knowledge having. “It was me? I mean, I know it was me. But—”

“You gave him a singular moment of happiness,” the gypsy confided, despite the churning in her gut.

“Way to go, Buff. A hundred years and he gets the happy with—” Xander’s expression darkened as his mind caught up to his mouth and he realised what he was congratulating Buffy on. “Really, forget I opened my mouth. So not something to be proud of!” He turned away and slumped dejectedly back in his chair, comfy for the rest of the disturbing unfolding of the many truths.

“How could you keep such an important thing secret, Jenny? I-I thought we were…friends.” Giles implored her for answers that made sense to him and all she could offer was a wobbly smile of penance.

“Friends, Rupert? I thought we were more than that?” She was only human, and a vulnerable one emotionally at that. “If I’d betrayed my people, they would have cast me out. This is my family. What would you have had me do?”

“Warn us that a bloody homicidal maniac could well be a consequence of my Slayer’s involvement with him, for starters. And then possibly some intelligence on how to reassert the former state of affairs.” There was no forgiveness or understanding in his tone, and he felt justified with his harshness as tears began to run down Buffy’s cheeks. That he had no clue if it was in mourning that she herself had caused this current disaster, or the fact that her mother had become such a tragic casualty of that action was not important. She’d been ignorant of both possibilities and that was enough to have his sympathy.

“Oh this is bleeding priceless. You bunch of hypocritical wankers. You’re gonna be down on teach here just because she stuck by her clan and carried out her duty? Yeah, ‘cause none of you are sworn to secrecy on life-saving missions and all with the mysterious actions. I can see shattered glass houses everywhere. I’m off, don’t wait up kiddies.” And Spike huffed out of the flat, irritation adding an extra energetic burst to his step. As much as he loved Buffy, her getting all cut up over that wanker was more than he wanted to watch or deal with. Now that he had his strength back and had half a chance of defending himself, he wanted to be anywhere but here.

“Spike?” Her heartbroken voice held just the right note of fear as his back taunted her.

“Later, Slayer.” And he was gone, his coat just barely flapping through the door frame before he slammed the door shut behind him.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

“Would you shut the hell up?” Face almost frightening in its fury, Angelus paced and ended up riling himself up more than he was calming himself down.

Drusilla whimpered, and then moaned as she desperately clutched her head. “Daddy’s angry,” she stated confidently and it was enough to stop Angelus mid-stride. He turned incredulous eyes on her and almost choked on his sarcastic burst of laughter.

“Gee Dru, you think?” He wanted to hit something, he wanted to make somebody hurt. He looked longingly at Dru and flinched at her high-pitched warbling of danger and the stars and wondered what the fuck Spike had been thinking to claim her as his destiny. The little try-hard must have been desperate if he had to cling to Dru’s pussy hairs for over a century. Just one day and he’d wanted to stake her. If he hadn’t trained her so well on how to please him he might well have resolved that situation. Might have been funny to see Roller Boy cry.

Just like that his mood had improved. Nothing like a good plan to knock the wind right out of Spike’s sails to make him feel better.

“You know, I’m really getting sick of my every plan being fucked up by that annoying slayer and her ridiculous crippled side-kick…and the humans…God, why won’t they just die?” Angelus resumed his pacing, desperately trying to piece together another plan that might take out the teacher and any inkling she had of crossing him and jamming him full of soul again. He felt a horrible sense of foreboding that that window of opportunity had whistled as it passed him by. Now that she knew not to be somewhere unprotected after dark, she’d be holed up somewhere safe. His every thwarted attempt to take down the Slayer and make her cry right up to the final event was pissing him off. The only shining moment had been his abduction, torment and final turning of her mother. He was positive that that kind of thing a girl could never recover from.

“Where is Joyce, anyway? She was gone when I got up tonight.”

Dru looked suddenly terrified and her whimpering calls for forgiveness as usual made absolutely no sense to him. He was blazingly angry just the same, because this was Dru and if Dru was twittering this bad and beginning to cry, she knew exactly what was going on and furthermore that he would be furious about it. So what could he do but satisfy her expectations.

“What did you do, Dru?”

She backed away at the harsh look on his face, at the sneering curve of his bottom lip. He knew better than to expect an answer that would make sense and accepted that he’d find out what the situation was in due course. All he could do at this point was make sure Dru got her punishment, because they both knew unless she was properly chastened, she couldn’t even come close to being a good girl.

He took a moment to admire the blood red of her velvet dress before viciously tearing it from bodice to waist. The rest of the fabric slid dejectedly over her hips and Dru took a small step back, stumbling on the fabric and landed on her bare butt.

“You are not trying to get away from me, are you, Dru?” His eyes flashed amber and he felt a snarl rumble passed his lips as she shook her head frantically. “Well, that’s good then. Come here,” he demanded and she was on her feet and before him in less than a second, making every effort to hide the twisted pleasure she felt at being ordered and abused. “On your knees, and make sure it’s good or I’ll have to make it hurt just a little bit harder.”

Without waiting for her to slowly take him into her mouth, Angelus thrust his hips and roared in satisfaction as her gagging reflex—still active even in death—pulsed around him and made him ejaculate fast. He loved this first immediate release. Loved to see his childe naked with her lips latched around his cock and keeping him up. She was perfect at distracting him from his shortcomings and truth be told, it was the only thing that had saved her. He couldn’t help but wonder if she was this good to Spike, or if the selfish little fuck was too giving to treat her like the subservient bitch she was.

She managed to swallow skilfully, not even a drop slipping passed her lips. If she hadn’t he would have hit her half way across the room, knowing from humiliating experience that his load was miniscule compared to most men. Little cock, little cum shots and his fury wound up to devastating heights yet again. He grabbed a fistful of hair and dragged her to the bedroom, not caring that her tits scraped over the hard stone floor and she was crying for him to have mercy. Oh, he’d show her mercy. When he was finished she’d be calling him Mercy.

And she’d be drowning in red when she did it.

Chapter Eighteen

Uncomplicated jealousy had driven his every step from the Watcher’s until he stood staring up at the front door of 1630 Revello Drive. Trepidation cautioned him on entering the house, knowing that he was facing a potential existence that he’d all but turned his back on just days ago, and wary of how easy it might be to want it back. He had over a century of bloodshed in his history and the one tethered below the house in the basement was just at the beginning of that journey, and he had no doubt that Dru and Angelus had done everything to make the new menu as enticing as demonly possible.

It wouldn’t have taken much to inspire the lust for the hunt—the desire to feel human flesh splitting beneath pointed fangs just dying to feed. Quenching the hunger that could almost drive a vamp mad—particularly if heartbeats deafened the monster within—was the most important thing to a fledgling’s existence and by the sound of her stories, Joyce had already brunched on her former employees. It had horrified Buffy, but Spike could appreciate the beauty of that first bloodbath of ones known in life—and it was exhilarating to relive it for himself. Becoming somehow spiritually joined with the Slayer was intoxicating to the extent that it made his fangs itch for the many good times they’d already shared, but it didn’t dull his lust for the sheer savage orgy of feasting on the demon’s weakness.

Blood.

Everything was about blood, and just because he’d tasted Buffy’s and knew no other could come close, he could bet he had more insight into the workings of the restrained vampire downstairs than anyone else might. Than anyone else cared to.

The thud of his boots was deafening as he made his way through the house, stopping at the closed basement door to gather himself and prepare for whatever eventuality might hit him once he was down there. She knew he was here—he could hear the soft laughter that greeted his arrival and he sighed sadly. Despite it all, despite wanting to celebrate the birth of a new sister, he felt Buffy’s devastation and loss as deeply as he’d felt his own all those years ago.

The door opened easily and there was no turning back; no running back to the Scooby stronghold to listen in bitter resentment to the story of Buffy and Angel while they expected him to be objective. No shrugging off this funk of sudden inadequacy—and what you can’t get rid of, you may as well lie down with. Thus, he descended toward Joyce.

“No fancy tricks,” he warned as he took the final steps in jerky, hesitant movements. And then he could see her, her paleness fairly glowing in the wisps of moonlight that had found shelter through the wall’s patchy solidity. She looked relaxed and calm, somehow knowing that she would be receiving visitors sooner rather than later.

Though he doubted it was him she’d quite been planning on.

Staying in the dark made the meeting seem more clandestine, more evil and Spike clung to the little example of retaining who he was with devilish glee. He’d never make any kind of connection with her if he was all high and mighty—like her daughter’s merry band of white hats. Still, it scared him how easily the switch came to him—now that he was supposedly a soldier at Buffy’s side. Destiny had seemed to place him at her side, merged them together in an instant without explanation, and while there was nothing he could regret about it, he saw now it was so fast—too fast maybe—that he hadn’t had a chance to really understand the trip.

“How you holdin’ up, pet? Getting used to the dark and dank hidey spots? ‘Cause that’s what you’re all about now that you’re a monster in the underbelly of society.” He pulled up and crouched just so that he was a bit too far for her to reach, even if the chains were a little long. His reminder of where she was and what the world had in store for her seemed to stun her for a second, and the demon that was once Joyce Summers frowned.

“Are you here to stake me so my baby girl won’t be put through the trauma?” And in a flash the smile was back and Spike wandered back in his mind to another gentle beautiful lady that was destroyed by his very own existence. He so easily got lost in those recollections, painful though they might be, and almost lost sight of the here and now.

When he pushed the memories back it was almost in surprise he saw Joyce before him, staring at him with an expression so muddled he couldn’t interpret it even if he’d wanted to.

“You remind me a lot of my mum,” he began, almost unwillingly before warming up to his tale. “Don’t tell many about it—like to keep that little failure locked up in my noggin. She was sick, but beautiful. She loved me more deeply and more faithfully than any other being has. But she was dying. I was already dead by then, by the time she was getting bad. I couldn’t bear the thought of all that gentility going to waste. All that love lost to the world. I wanted to bring her with me—because she was the only one I could be sure would love me.” Spike paused, wondering why he was handing her a weapon she could flail him with. And as he thought about the wisdom of continuing, she was there, the demon that wanted blood and wasn’t fussy about where it came from.

“I’ll bet it took her two seconds to wake up and see you for the needy brat you are and she attempted to run. What did you do? Stake her because she wasn’t your widdle mommy anymore?” The lust in her gaze was tainted with her disgust, and it was so reminiscent of what Spike had suffered in the past that he barely gave it credibility.

But it was reassuring. Somewhere in there it told him he was different—that whatever Dru had turned him for was not what he had become. He’d fooled them all for a hundred years—plenty well fooled himself if the truth be told. He’d done everything he could to prove he was as big and bad as his male lineage, and while Angelus had been gone to dim the comparison it had paid off and he’d kept Drusilla at his side. Now he wondered how devoted she would have been if he’d been more true to himself. If he’d not fed as often as her ravenous nature demanded. If he’d been more involved in the beauty he could still see in the world, would she still have seen him as something special? Or would she have dropped him for the first half-devoted cock that came her way? He could appreciate the football and the dog races, but the theatre, and opera…with a little sex pistols on the side. Even beautiful women—he’d rather look at them and see the glow in their faces, and even more the glow in some of their hearts, than drain them to resemble nothing.

“I staked my mum,” he confided and felt an enormous burden of what felt strangely like guilt slip from his shoulders to the floor. “She wasn’t right for a demon. Didn’t want that kind of twisted bitch along for the ride. Had Darla for that. So the moral of the story goes—don’t be thinking I don’t have the stones to take you out if that’s what’s decided. Only met you once, Joyce, and you near cracked my head open then. No love lost between us.” Spike stood, wondering why he’d felt it necessary to come here. Nothing was resolved—except he was feeling a bit lighter. Like something was resolved in the heavy catalogue of issues that needed to be.

While he’d been lost in thought, he hadn’t noticed Joyce’s defensive huddle. Maybe his unloading had had a purpose. Seemed to knock a bit of the arrogance off this newest of fledglings, and for that, Spike felt his familiar smirk return. Bint knew he could do it. If he could dust the one that had given him life, courage and love, he could dust a sister in death. Especially one that Angelus had plans for.

And then it all came together in his head. Joyce was Angelus’s little pawn in this game and Angelus didn’t let his playthings out of sight. Spike turned back to the woman; she had slumped against the wall in discouragement. “Dru sent you out, didn’ she? Didn’t want you competing for her precious Daddy. Stupid bint probably thought the Slayer or one of her crew would stake you and you wouldn’t be coming back.” He stopped and wondered at the warning he got on the air. Angelus was on the move and an unprotected slayer abode wouldn’t be the best place to leave her mother. “Well, I got a bit of news for you, luv. The Slayer’s your only chance of staying undusty. So, you’ve got a choice. You can wait here till Angelus comes back to claim you—and he’ll belt several shades of shit out of you for leaving without his say so—and try and fill in your time with as much hunting as you can before your daughter puts your miserable existence to rest. Or, you can come with me and I’ll try an’ protect you as best I can. On the Slayer’s side you’ve got more chance of survival. Take it or leave it.”

Spike watched as the woman’s alert eyes started darting around in panic. He scrounged around in his pocket until he came up with an almost empty pack of cigarettes, flicked one out and lit up, amused at the play of emotions on her face. He knew he could feel Angelus’s approach—though now he had to work at sensing it after being so successful in stamping it out in the past. Hell, he could feel it strongly and Joyce would be newly attuned to it, making it powerful and more urgent to not be far away from home. It was rather gratifying to see how a few words could scare her into this kind of frantic haste to choose a side.

“He’s angry?”

She sounded like she could hardly believe it, and even if the demon liked a bit of rough treatment now and again, Joyce had been a rather unabused woman in life and wasn’t used to the type of terror Angelus would make his daily regimen to break his newest family member.

“You don’t disobey Angelus, pet.” Spike stopped at that and almost laughed out loud. “Well, you do, but only if you know the wanker can’t hurt you. You, he can do much more than hurt. By the time he’s finished with you you’d be as barmy as Dru. Up to you now, but I’d get on with it. Clock’s tickin’.”

The end of the cigarette glowed bright on the short end of the stick and just as Spike threw it to the floor and stamped it out, he had his answer.

“I don’t want to dust,” she offered, much of the attitude and confidence cowering under the crushing nearness of her grandsire. “Please, take me where he can’t get me?”

Spike stalled, wondering if she was playing him or if she genuinely understood what she was in for if Angelus got his hands back on her not quite scrawny body. For all he knew, this could have been the plan. Dru could have sent her off in the hopes of luring him home, and if he’d not been open to a willing suggestion of return, maybe she could trick him.

“Not bloody likely,” he affirmed quietly, feeling the spade in his hands before he swung and knocked Joyce out cold. “Right handy bit of equipment, that!” Spike put down the shovel, casually leaning it against the basement wall and then set about unchaining his casualty and left. His legs were fully healed now, thanks to Buffy’s diligence, and he had no trouble carrying the weight of another body up the stairs.

Once out in the night, Spike knew he had few choices. As much as they could sense Angelus, he’d know how to track Joyce—and quickly. There was no option of an abandoned factory or other like building. He needed somewhere Angelus had no access, and the only place Spike was allowed that Angelus wasn’t was the Watcher’s place. While he was fine about dumping the Slayer’s mother at her feet, he wasn’t too keen to re-enter the conversation. He still felt relatively pissed enough to continue his walk.

He still needed to think—and without Buffy at his side.

There was nothing for it but to return, and hope the boy at least would wet himself over the new houseguest.

With that image firmly playing in his mind, Spike grinned. Oh yes, many beautiful things left in the world. And a good humiliating event was one of them.

Chapter Nineteen

The room had just settled into an uncomfortable silence when Spike slammed the door, dread settling with the impact of a bullet on Buffy’s heart. It was a horribly incapacitating thought to wonder if she’d so callously done the wrong thing—so thoughtlessly grieved over the impact of losing Angel to his own personal darkness right in front of the new love of her life. She didn’t have to wonder what propelled Spike’s steps away from her—she felt the betrayal of her words it in her heart. Whatever reason was behind Angel’s loss of soul, it was secondary to everything now. He was evil personified, and now she’d replaced him at her side in the fight, as well as in her heart.

What she now had with Spike was so new and untried, and Buffy wasn’t sure that Spike grasped this. They’d become bound to each other in circumstances neither of them understood and ever since, they’d been carried away on the high of such deep feeling—such depthless belonging that it had, so far, defied words. The past few days had been devoted to establishing a strong physical link between them—warriors and lovers on the brink of the fight of their lives. But they were together and that was what gave Buffy strength and confidence.

Until she’d become distracted by late breaking news and opened her big fat mouth. Angel was in her past—true, a not so distant past, but he was mostly gone from her head, definitely gone from her heart, and with what she hoped in her confidence of gypsy magic—her life.

“While it absolutely galls me to admit such a thing, Spike is right,” Giles broke into the silence. “Jenny, I apologise for my lack of tolerance. I can hardly condemn you for not sharing information when I have been as responsible for keeping you in the dark in the past. I-I’m sure it hasn’t been the easiest of times to trust in me a-after—”

“Rupert,” Jenny interjected, standing and making her way to the thoroughly repentant librarian. “I can’t let you take so much blame. I was foolish not to confide in you before now, and I am more than sorry that Buffy had to experience such a cruel—”

If there was one thing Buffy didn’t want to do, it was rehash the reason Spike had just stormed out of the place. It was time to grab the situation and shake a solution out of it. Focus. That’s what they needed—and lots of it. “Okay, you know what? We’re just gonna skip right on over Buffy’s bad experiences and move into the ‘how do we re-ensoul Angel’ part of the discussion. Really, don’t feel sorry for me. I had to go through all that to have Spike, and despite earlier, I think it could be really good for us. But we need to neutralise the Angelus and Drusilla sitch. And then, there’s Mom.”

The room seemed almost smothered in the weight of memory and a sickness fell in more than one stomach.

“Jenny, have you done it? Do you know how to give Angel back his soul?”

The first moment of lightness came with the easiness of the teacher’s smile. “I did. Just as Buffy and Spike burst into the classroom, I’d saved it all on disk. And of course there’s the hardcopy that Spike…er…retrieved when he whipped out the tower.” And there was a grin.

“That’s my guy,” Buffy confirmed with her own indulgent and loving smile. “He’s nothing if not resourceful.”

Jenny turned seductively playful within seconds. “Oh, I’ll bet you’ll find out exactly how resourceful a vampire like Spike can be.”

Xander and Giles choked together at her conspiratorial wink at Buffy, the Slayer blushing bright pink before giggling and nodding in confirmation.

“That is so something you’re never going to find out first hand.” And then she turned sombre, businesslike and determined. “Can you do the spell for my mom?”

“I could help,” interjected Willow, feeling left out with the sex implications and desperate to remind everyone that she was really coming along with her pencil spinning. “I mean, I know it would be a bit of a jump from what I’ve been doing, but I feel like I could do it. I-I think I have the power inside me to do something that big.”

Giles watched the redheaded girl he’d known as a mousy, unconfident, yet highly intelligent student and wondered how he’d missed this development. He contemplated her, seeing her radiate with faith in herself and suddenly knew that she did indeed have the power to be helpful with this spell—and quite possibly much more besides. Despite his own dabbling at magic in his youth, and the very real consequences of his ignorance, he’d embarked on this stint of watcher with the expectation of being in contact with only one special young girl. That he’d blindly fallen in with a gypsy of the clan devastated by Angelus’s run through history and a school girl with the potential to be a very great witch, not to mention Xander who—Giles stopped his mental wandering, not having the strength to convince himself that Xander had any function other than supplying his favourite jam-filled donuts. He knew that was churlish, but he was greatly irritated by the boy more often than not, even though he served a great motivation to Buffy in her nightly fight.

“How soon can this take place, Jenny?” Giles could hardly believe they were at this point, that this nightmare could actually have an end in sight—an end that wouldn’t be devastating for anyone but Angel. And perhaps Drusilla once she lost her last link to her evil world.

Buffy sat on the edge of the discussion, relief that her mother could be returned to her warring with her need to see Spike. To be near him was to feel his arms around her, giving her more security than she’d felt her entire lifetime. That he’d left angry with her was so crushing that she was periodically breathless.

There was no awareness of how much time had passed. Buffy listened vaguely with a sense of static need. She was finding it difficult to function without Spike present—without knowing he was still hers and didn’t hate her for caring for even five minutes that it was her fault Angelus was free. There was no warning—she’d barely managed to talk herself through a pep talk that everything would be fine between them when Spike kicked open the door and barked an order for an invite, her mother unconscious over his shoulder.

“Spike.” Her anxiety over how he would react to her now he was back was her first concern, her eyes sweeping painfully over the figure of her mother before pleading with him to say everything was okay. That fear that had sat like a lead weight in the pit of her stomach quietly waiting for disaster to strike came to life sharply when he avoided her eyes.

“Brought the Slayer’s mum. Angelus is out and about and he’ll be after her. Wanker probably won’t stop till he gets her, so might want to put a rush on the mojo while you can.” Spike moved to put his burden down on the suddenly vacated sofa, neither Willow nor Xander overly keen to see if Buffy’s mom would be as gracious and friendly toward them as she had been in life.

“I only have one orb of Thessula, so who do you want me to curse?” Jenny looked back and forth between Giles and Buffy, feeling surprisingly even less comfortable around the newcomer than she previously had while Spike was still in the room. It could have to do with how he swooped in like a caped avenger to save her life—without his even knowing her. Or it could be the fact that Buffy’s mother had just woken and her amber eyes were watching her with the intentness of purpose.

“Curse?” Joyce slowly sat up, her eyes never wavering from the suddenly apprehensive gypsy. “You wouldn’t dare,” she hissed, her body moving in such a slow seductive manner that most of the room was oblivious to the danger Jenny was in. Standing now and almost fully straightened, Joyce Summers was ready to attack—until Spike stood in front of her and grabbed her around the neck, his fingers digging in painfully until the focus on the teacher was gone and Joyce was growling in pain.

“You’ve got no bloody say in this scenario. I brought you here to save your worthless life. You attack the teach and I’ll have nothing but a handful of dust to remember you by. See that girl over there? The one is your daughter? Don’t go banking on the fact that she’ll be too soft to do it; slayer is one tough bird. There’s no chance she’ll sacrifice anyone here just because you wear her mother’s face.” His voice was hard, more than a little bit mean but Joyce could see the truth to it. She didn’t know Buffy like she’d thought she had, so it would be foolhardy to try and take her daughter on in an untried situation. There was one fundamental point to all of this—she didn’t want to be dust. She wanted immortal life—wanted to see how the world would end.

Her sire had told her very little about this situation with the soul that had taken her own sire from her for a century and more. Drusilla was never very lucid about things and whatever explanations she offered they were tempered with rhymes and strange sayings that Joyce couldn’t decipher. It had ended up just being fun to make things up—pretend scenarios that Drusilla might be prattling on about. Now it would seem that she could have benefited from knowing what the whole soul thing was about.

It was undeniable though—it sounded bad. It sounded like something she wanted no part of. “Whatever your plan is, leave me out of it.” She watched them warily while deliberately moveing back to the sofa. Her eyes contemplated the elder man in the room, remembering his vague familiarity and becoming distracted by the need to remember.

When she returned her attention to the others, the dark-haired woman was preparing something and Joyce realised she should have been paying more attention. She didn’t know what they’d planned, didn’t see the final decision pass from Buffy to the teacher. Nerves and helplessness wound up tighter and tighter until Joyce felt the need to run, to tear at throats and escape now before it would be forever too late. None of them seemed to be watching her anymore, though. Not even her intolerable daughter’s school friends. They’d all decided this magic was more interesting than a friend’s mother turning up a vampire and hungry for their blood. Didn’t they know how easily she could grasp hold of their hair and claim their throat as her wineglass for the night?

That image put a smile on her face—particularly the one where it was Xander Harris. She owed him for his uncoordinated yet successful attack that landed her painfully at the bottom of her own basement steps and at the mercy of her daughter.

She couldn’t help it if it was comical watching Buffy’s only male friend waving a bundle of burning herbs and incense in the air like a really ungifted new-ager. The impatient glances she received were too much on top of the stress, too much added to this weird beginning she’d had and Joyce had nothing left but to laugh. The dark-haired woman passed something to Willow and the redhead was tossing a handful of stones within their tight human circle. It was really quite hilarious in that nervy frightened way. Having no clue what they were planning to do—or if it was going to be to her—Joyce laughed it up, throwing out distracting insults thick and fast in an effort to distract them.

Until Buffy stepped up and slapped her hard. Then she played on the girl’s vulnerability and guilt to good effect. “You hit me,” she said, the shock in her voice really well acted as the demon relished the flush of apology already trembling on Buffy’s lips.

“Too right she bloody well did, you hag.” Spike had seen enough and felt dread at every flinch and sideways look of devastation that Buffy aimed at the undead demon with her mother’s face. It was enough to make him realise that his earlier anger at the mention of Angelus and his previous influence in the slayer’s life had been nothing but battered ego reacting—and he was judging Buffy on Drusilla’s performance of unwavering faith in her sire. “Now back off or I might have to teach you how to stay in line as well.”

Joyce didn’t question why she was suddenly afraid of Spike. She’d been sent to him from Dru with the purpose of reminding him of the darkness he’d rejected and left behind. Not for one second did Dru accept that he was gone for good, and Joyce had just assumed that he was too weak-willed to say no to Buffy. The glint of hardness she’d just seen in the coldness of his human eyes was enough to set her straight. She didn’t think Spike would really be anywhere or do anything he didn’t want to do and that made her suddenly apprehensive about going too far and testing his loyalty to Buffy in keeping her demonised mother alive.

When she ducked her head and their attention diverted, the sound of foreign words tickled her ears while something else tugged at her insides. Joyce moaned low and pained in her throat as the teacher sustained her tranced incantation, her nails clawing at her own flesh, leaving bloody scratches down her arms. The orb glowed and the panic whipped through Joyce like wildfire. She didn’t know—wasn’t sure that this show was for her and that her grandsire wasn’t in line to be put out to pasture, but the fear was building so high that she felt like screaming.

“Acum.”

And she did scream, the sound exploding from her throat in a squalling ball of terror and rage, and then the pain consumed, playing pictures in her head that suddenly had new meaning, had spirit attached and she was falling, dying, killing. All her evil misdeeds, her crime and sins washed up from her aching belly, searing heat in her throat as she brought it up raw, spraying the carpet burgundy as she attempted to purge the hate that had directed her killing. That had murdered her employees like they were nothing but vermin undeserving of life.

As the circle calmed, as the crowd looked on, a souled Joyce wept.

And a thwarted Angelus slept.

Chapter Twenty

He awoke gasping. As the world came into focus, it was the look of terror on Dru’s face that snapped him fully back to reality. He stopped the sickening human impulse and roared his distaste with a stream of vicious snarls of obscenity.

“What the fuck are you doing staring at me like that while I’m trying to sleep?”

He sat up, the blood red sheet slipping to his naked groin and showcasing his hard torso. He liked the shy way she looked at him, mixed with that dark seductive temptress that wanted him, no matter how he abused her. And more often than not, his cock was in charge of how much he forgave and gave it to her; but if there was one thing that really got on his nerves, it was waking up suddenly with her staring at him, face shadowed with the look of doom.

“All of Princess’s children have run away to live in the sun.” A swollen tear slid in exaggerated slowness down a pale cheek, but it only added to her ethereal beauty. “They want to hurt Daddy, too. Don’t let them take you back. Please?” Her miserable sniff did nothing to the hardness of his heart and he sighed in exasperation.

“You woke me up to tell me this crap that I already knew?” He was already desperate and he had this churning sensation in his gut that it was already out of his hands—that he was about to lose it all. There was no doubt that in the past his problem-solving skills had been innovative, but this seemed to be a unique situation. He could face down mobs baying for his blood, could escape burning barns even when deserted by his sire, and he could make any mortal writhe in excruciating emotional pain until their own end—but he couldn’t seem to come up with a plan that would succeed against a gypsy under slayer protection. They apparently strove for only one end—to keep his foul soul joined to his existence.

If only he’d been able to fucking kill the bitch and inflict a little torment on the watcher like he’d planned, life would be beyond sweet about now. All he could see through a hate-reddened haze was how they must all think him a fool—a figure of ridicule that threatened no danger to them at all. It made the rage burn right through him, made every part of him alert with purpose. He needed to prove to himself that he wasn’t what they thought—he was still dangerous, he meant more than the snickering fun they’d poked at his less than generous proportions. For that alone he should make them pay.

Except he knew deep inside that it was too late and they’d catch him before he had the chance. He felt like he was approaching his last meal, facing his last night in the world—like Jesus—before he was lost forever with only the imprint of his existence left floating in the air.

New eyes saw his childe. Dru, white and frightened and them both knowing that too soon she would face immortality alone. An unaccustomed rush of affection hit him and he opened his arms wide to receive her, not even feeling irritated that she was crying or acting childlike in her need for him. He kissed her forehead, a hand gently cupping a small breast and kneading it as he grieved. It wasn’t like him to give up, but he wasn’t going to fall so low as to look a fool in front of them. He wasn’t going to run around like a headless chicken for a solution that was unattainable.

Dru loved him irrevocably and the last time he’d lost her, it had been without warning. Once he’d changed, and degraded with a filthy conscience, he’d been unable to look at her and he’d lost so much with that. He had a chance here to make her remember the truth of him; make her pine forever for what he’d been to her. Daddy. And so he led her to his bed, to his body, felt her shudder in his arms as he made this time about her and how he was able to care for others, if not love them. He wasn’t Spike, but he could be fair. He could reward Dru for her years of devotion.

The soft kiss he bestowed on her unsuspecting lips was a gift. She looked at him in wonder, unprepared for this moment yet seizing and embracing it with her cold heart. It wasn’t the first time she’d been treated with affection—Spike often moved her in this way. But it meant so much more coming from one who never really had. Not with the darkness of his eyes shining in place of amber. There was sincerity there, and it shook her to her very depths.

“Oh,” she cried and she settled over his body with finality.

Understanding flashed in his eyes and at last a plan was formed. “Come with me, Dru? Let me protect you always?”

Her answer was to push him to his back and straddle him, moaning in despaired joy as the tip of his cock soothed her aching flesh. She rubbed her wet folds around him, gasping as she slid slowly down and took him in as shallowly inside as his length allowed. They stared into each other’s eyes, coloured irises merging with demon’s gold and she quickened her pace, feeling nothing but happiness that it was settled and he would be with her forever. His fingers scraped over pert nipples and he smiled at her, lips stretched by an emotion that was unfamiliar. Pleasant.

Right.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Buffy couldn’t force herself to go near her. Her mother was a broken woman, wailing on Giles’s carpet as she dealt with the death she had brought upon the families she’d known best in this pissant town.

She focused on Spike, so grateful that he was here, that he’d brought her mom to her. They had ground to cover, she had fences to mend, but God, she just hoped he could understand why she’d been hit at random by the guilt of releasing Angelus on the world. When their eyes clashed she was almost glad, even though he burned her with his uncertain rejection. She wished that reassuring him could be as simple as offending him had been. That she could just walk over to him, take him into her arms and kiss him senseless so that it was easy to drain the thoughts of earlier from his head.

His look of longing made her wonder why she’d thought it would be too hard. Why she allowed her brain to complicate everything up until she was too scared to take the risk. Her heart was too eager this time and before she’d engaged her brain her feet were on the move, and with tears in her eyes, she flung herself into his arms.

His embrace was tight and she could hear him swallowing hard, her wet face smashed into the column of his throat. He felt warm and essential and Buffy knew without any doubt she wouldn’t get through this reunion with her mother without him at her side. Her body shook with the tears she’d tried so hard to hold back, but being with him, being understood by him opened a dam that she’d never known she had blocked. Buffy clamped hold of a section of his throat with her teeth, her tongue teasing the flesh as she moaned her sadness against his skin. God, he was hers. She needed him so much and he was hers.

“I love you,” she said after a while of gentle rocking, succumbing to the safety of the hold when he didn’t lessen the strength in the band of his arms around her or let her go. “It was a shock earlier, to know it was my fault. But as soon as you walked out the door, I didn’t even care anymore. I only care about you. I love you.”

“Buffy,” he started, his voice tired and resigned, but as she pulled away and the fear was more than obvious on her face, he couldn’t hold onto the resentment that had him tearing out of there in the first place. “It’s all right, sweet. A bloke doesn’t react well to hearing about his girl’s first, and that your first was bloody Angel of all miserable creatures, it just hit too many weeping sores. Let’s not give the git too much power. All’s forgiven. Now get back here and snog until my lips bleed.”

There was immediate disappointment that he didn’t return the words, and Buffy struggled to hide her hurt and wondered just how over it he really was. But the promise of Spike lips was too much and she drifted closer until the barest brush of his mouth against hers had her breathing heavy with forgetting the pitfalls of their reunion. She felt a little part of her die as his tongue hesitantly sought contact with hers, burned to a crisp in a shock explosion of the power of her love. It was overwhelming, it was distracting and she was grateful for it. He tasted her mouth, swirled his tongue around hers and traced her teeth slowly as his hands clasped her head, fingers tangled in her hair. It was sensual to extremes and Buffy felt light headed and dizzy when at last he pulled away.

“You’re the one, Buffy,” he confirmed huskily, his hands still gently cupping her face and showering her with awe as her happy tears fell. “And I love you so much it hurts.”

“Oh.” She shuddered with happiness, the tears falling faster and heavier yet somehow making her fill with his strength. He had faith in her, he loved her so everything would be all right. Everything would work out whether she believed it could or not.

The door slamming behind a very excitable Giles had them jumping guiltily apart and taking notice again of what was happening in the room around them.

“I’ve got it!” Giles proclaimed, a similar orb to the one used earlier held aloft in his hand as he presented it with a flourish to Jenny. He wore a soppy, very pleased-with-himself grin and the couple were lost in that sweet moment of mutual admiration they’d momentarily lost with the emergence of Angelus.

“So we’re back on with the smelly herbs?” Xander seemed overly keen to grab up the brittle bunch of dried twigs and wave them in the air again and Giles smiled rather more accommodatingly than he’d been with the boy all year.

“I-if Jenny isn’t too tired?” Giles turned enquiring eyes to the swaying teacher who was quite obviously exhausted from her earlier efforts.

“I think we would all feel a lot safer if we just did this. And Willow is still here so she can help me.” Jenny smiled as the eager young would-be witch leapt forward, her enthusiasm almost blinding in the sombre atmosphere of the room.

“Absolutely. I can help with whatever is needing help. I’m all with the helpfulness. Just call me Helpful Willow.” And she grinned, all her teeth showing and exhausting the adults in one charged moment.

Buffy stepped forward, eyeing her mother warily as she continued to sob her pain, completely oblivious to her surroundings. It made her heart clench yet forced a realisation she wasn’t ready yet to face. Nothing was practical in this circumstance—she had no way of knowing how she could continue to be raised by a vampire, while she was a slayer.

“Do we need anything else besides the glowy orb thingy? Because if you need Angelus to be here, I’m thinking we need to change how we go about this.” There was worry in the crossed brows and arms, yet Jenny dispelled it all with a confident smile.

“No, Buffy. I can do it wherever he is. Another twenty minutes or so and it will all be over. We can all go back to normal.”

As one they turned to observe an inconsolable Joyce and wondered if life had ever been normal in the first place.

“What about Dru?” As much as she hated thinking of the skanky nutjob, they had to be alert to how she might react in this. Buffy chanced a look at Spike, relieved to see him not so torn up at the thought of what Dru’s undecided fate.

“Let’s just get the wanker back and then we’ll decide on Dru. Yeah?”

There was general agreement and then the process began again.

Buffy sat nervously by her mother and waited.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

He’d never allowed himself to know her sweetness. He’d spent his time corrupting it, making her twisted and insecure and he’d loved every small consequence of it. But the newness wasn’t disappointing. It seemed fitting, experiencing this when it was their last in this world. The last they would look into each other’s eyes and see a world that couldn’t handle them the way they were.

There was more out there—or at least, in a ‘there’ somewhere. There was Hell, and that was most likely the home they could never abandon once this night was through. He loved to watch her slide up and down on his cock, loved to see the pleasure he alone could give her as her sire. As the one she loved beyond all others, even her own childe.

There was silence between them now and he was mesmerised by the tears that had multiplied and fell without artifice. She was sad and it came from her heart. He allowed it this time, not having the thrill for punishment when he’d decided to not run but make sure they could never find him.

His orgasm approached slowly, building around each tormenting grunt from her throat, each excruciating clench of her muscles as she squeezed him into memory. “That’s it, baby. Fuck me hard, Dru. Show Daddy how perfect you are.” The words were harsh though his voice was low, and then the moment was reached. The tears dribbled off her chin as she climbed off him, leaving his cock standing and straining for release. With a move more violent than any that had occurred in the last ten minutes, Dru struck, tearing a chair to pieces despite her blurred vision. One long shattered spear of wood was held in her hands as she climbed back onto him, taking him back inside her slick tunnel as she caressed the wood and stared at him appealingly.

“The only way?” she asked, yet acceptance made her lower her eyes. She quickly spurred them back to completion, positioning the stick between them so a sharpened end rested against each of their blackened hearts.

And as the little death exploded within and gave them a moment of sexual bliss, Dru saw the gleam in his eye as she struck and slammed herself down on the stake, pushing it down as she exploded into eternity and her dust mingled with the scattered remains beneath her.

It was the only way.

Chapter Twenty-One

She sounded like a wounded animal. The second the light of his soul flashed inside the orb, Joyce was tearing at her hair and moaning like a fox with its leg caught and severed in a hunter’s trap. Her reaction was so sudden, so startling that it shook everyone in the room—particularly as she’d had her turn as recipient of the spell and had spent the last hour dealing with her pain in a huddle on the floor.

Her heartbroken screams seemed to be some kind of doomsayer and the Scoobies shuddered violently. Buffy rushed forward awkwardly to try and sooth her mother to quiet, ever mindful that as oblivious as the citizens of Sunnydale were, it wouldn’t stop them reporting an apparent murder next door.

“Mom? It’s okay. Angel would want this.” Buffy went ignored, but decided to persist by reaching her hand out to touch her mother, only to retract it fast as Joyce flinched away from the possibility of her daughter’s touch.

It had apparently been enough to stop the squall of noise, though, and Buffy was able to concentrate on the strangeness of this soul spell to the last one.

“What’s going on?” She stared at the glowing orb, mesmerised by Angel’s soul that had flashed away and then returned almost with the speed of light, before finally leaving for good. The first time around, her mother hadn’t reacted half as terrified and out of control as she was now.

Jenny looked up, obviously having no clue what to tell Buffy. “I’m not sure. Everything seems to have worked out fine. But your mother—” She shrugged helplessly.

There was no need to continue—everyone could see that Joyce Summers was beside herself with some kind of pain. It wasn’t until Buffy turned to Spike, hoping he might have an opinion on the problem, when his own expression of horrified disbelief struck her like a jab to the heart. Something was wrong—with the spell, with the air, with her. She was fresh out of clues, but whatever it was, Spike knew.

Buffy watched him, her eyes imploring him to share the assumed catastrophe rather than have her be the one to break into the confusion. She stood as his mouth opened, then closed as he was forced to swallow hard against the surge of tears in his throat.

“Bloody hell,” he exploded in disbelief, and then the pacing and the frantic hand movements began. The full length of the room, he strode back and forth, passed stunned onlookers as they stared in anxious curiosity. “I’ll be buggered.” And then the unthinkable happened; Buffy saw the sparkle of new tears as the salty liquid acquainted itself with the smooth plains of his face. He was staring at the only other vampire in the room—the only other vampire that could feel the sudden departure as he did. The only other vampire—possibly in the world—that could know the heartache of being irrevocably alone. His family was split. The one that had given him life and tormented him into obscene understanding of his new lot in life, and the human, half demon one he’d come to know with accepting Buffy as his mate for eternity. There was no swinging choice between the two any longer. He had Buffy, and he had Joyce. That was it now: total.

It was far too devastating for him to formulate an explanation in his head, let alone one he could share. His sire and Angelus—they’d chosen each other and forsaken him and their newest creation. It hurt more than he could have ever imagined, leaving a hollow of grief inside that he didn’t have the first inkling or skill to deal with. And Buffy. God, how would she take the news?

He was back to being reminded of Angel, whom he’d wanted to forget the second he’d first run from this flat earlier in the night. He’d accepted the presence of Angelus in his life—hardly being able to ignore it with Joyce teasing at his senses. And now he was…

“Dust.”

It was the only word he could expel. His mouth was dry, his lips numb and his tongue was swollen obscenely in his mouth. And then he laughed, some crack of hysteria splitting wide open and letting the sound obliterate the howling destruction of Joyce’s grief.

The human contingent stared at the unhinged vampire pair with horror. What on earth could have happened to make two vampires become completely with the split personality in a matter of minutes? Buffy felt angry and struggled with herself not to go over there and punch one or the both of them into some kind of sense. She resented this; she resented Spike making her feel on guard and wary, not knowing if this was some weird reaction to his grandsire’s reunion with his soul or if he’d somehow managed to catch it for himself.

Oh!

Oh God. A more alert set of eyes suddenly narrowed and studied Spike’s every move. Buffy needed to see that there was some sanity still clinging to the edges of him—that the vampire she loved and had pledged her eternity to hadn’t suddenly become ensouled and was facing over a century of remorse and grief.

And then Joyce seemed to snap out of it, only to fling herself in supernatural glory to latch at Spike’s throat, furious intent in the harsh line of her mouth and the dangerous glitter of her green eyes. “You bastard!” she screeched, shaking an unresisting hysterical Spike like a rag doll. He swayed as if his spine had been liquefied, and there was such crippling pain in his eyes that it left Buffy with a sour taste in her mouth.

“What’s going on?” She almost had to shout while she definitely had to barge her way into the melee and tear her mother away from her incoherent boyfriend.

The eyes that were focused intently on her, incredulous, were dull and more lifeless than they’d been since Mrs. Summers returned to them dead. “Nothing’s going on, Buffy. Everything is gone, nothing left to make anything go on with.”

“Never thought he could do it. I mean, knew the ponce was a grade-A wanker, but this…never thought he’d be able to…that he could…” And that was it, Spike sat down hard on the couch, his head buried in his hands and his hunched shoulders shaking violently in what Buffy was assuming was some kind of emotional devastation. His fingers clutched at his hair and he rocked; Buffy had never felt so hopeless or clueless in all her life.

“Someone needs to explain this. Are we safe? Because as weird as this is getting, so not going home if Angelus is hunting out there without that flashy soul that went looking for him.” Xander appealed to them all, though he looked hardest at Spike. The vampire took no notice, was, in fact, in no state to be listening to anything much around him. So it was Jenny that answered.

“The spell worked. Angel has his soul back, I’m completely sure of that. What has gotten into them? It has nothing to do with this spell.”

Spike snorted, and when he finally looked up and challenged Buffy to stay in his eyes, he barked out a humourless laugh. “Oh it bloody worked, all right. The stupid git accepted it back the second before Dru slipped wood through his breast.”

It took Buffy a while to add that up. Angel was back with the soul, which was of the major goodness where she was concerned. It was a cause for a party, not this wailing funeral dirge that was giving her chills. And then the second part of the explanation hit her, and it was obviously the most important part. She felt sadness settle along with the knowledge that Angel was gone, but it didn’t tear her apart like it seemed to for Spike and her mom. Neither of them had been sired by Angelus; neither of them considered him anything much but a tormenting bully in the vampiric world of training to hunt and be evil to the fullest extent.

The only explanation for this plaintive display of grief was the loss of someone closer—someone whose loss would have impact and consequences. “Dru,” she gasped with an unwilling croak. Spike’s blurred gaze wrought an impact that turned her blood ice cold in her veins. She felt like her normal bodily functioning came to a screeching halt, her blood stilling and her heart thudding to a stop, only for everything to speed into overdrive in the next heavy second and the desire to hyperventilate and ignore it all almost having her rush out of there in a screaming, disbelieving panic.

The blow was crushing. Her jealousy was still so new and now she had to face her vampire lover with the loss of his direction; the loss of his first real adult love—even if she had been cruel and twisted.

“No, Buffy. Still know who I am, an’ where I’m going.” And despite his distance, she was in his arms in a vampire move of stealth and flight, his action ushering her outside and into the night.

He was kissing her hungrily before they took two steps into the courtyard. This passion in the face of tragedy scared her, but Buffy didn’t want to know what she’d be facing if he’d reacted any way but this. She loved him—the Slayer loved a vampire that wasn’t Angel, a vampire with no soul but who loved her in return with the depths of one.

“Drusilla’s dust.” His lips seemed to smack apart from hers and Buffy felt appalled that she’d let her apprehension slide with the power of Spike’s kiss. Voicing exactly what she’d been afraid of didn’t make it easier to face the reality, not when Spike still seemed so affected by it. As much as she wanted to be cold-hearted and refuse to understand how it could be so painful for him, she knew…if it had been her—her mother…

Buffy grew within herself and wrapped Spike in the only acceptance she had the ability right then to offer. Her arms seemed to swallow his frame, his body hunched in on itself with the loss of half of its purpose.

It took a while, but then he looked up, speared her with the intelligence of his gaze and made Buffy swallow compulsively. “It’s hard, yeah? I’d forgotten that connection. Been driftin’ along at her side for over a hundred years, thinking she was mine. Took the link for granted, didn’t need for it to be anything other than what it was when I was right there. But now it’s gone…feels like she’s taken a chunk of me with her.”

Buffy nodded, understanding and yet so far from it that she was speechless. “An’ Angel. Bloody hell, bloke got his soul back and got sent straight to Hell.” His eyes were haunted; guilty.

And Buffy locked up in shock.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

She’d confirmed it was safe. Around apologies that were eagerly accepted, Joyce confirmed it was safe. Angelus was no more, and that’s all she would say. But it was enough and Giles’s little flat emptied rather faster than he might have expected. Jenny left with Willow and Xander, even though he’d implored her to stay, still feeling the uncertainty of almost losing her to their own stupidity. She’d smiled, kissed his cheek and whispered a promise to get together soon, and then they were gone, passing Buffy and Spike’s blissfully unaware desperation to find some kind of understanding in this confusion of a night.

He was left alone with Joyce—with a vampire newly souled and in grief. Giles sighed as he helped her up off the floor and guided her without fear to a seat at his dinner table. And as uncomfortable as he felt with this, he could understand Buffy’s reluctance to face this situation. The pain in her face every time she was forced to look at her mother betrayed how guilty and terrified she was. He knew she wasn’t ready to take those first steps in re-establishing a relationship that whose dynamics had changed so dramatically.

They sat in a shared, thoughtful silence for several minutes before Joyce looked at him, her hand wandering slowly up to her face and tracing along the newly deformed bumps that had altered the beauty of her face.

“Oh God. I killed people. Slaughtered them for fun and had filthy, perverted sex while their dead eyes watched me.” The mother of the vampire slayer looked at him with some kind of need that he had no way of interpreting. She wanted him to slake her guilt, end her misery, but it was something Giles was unable to do. She’d not yet spoken to Buffy—not explained or grieved her own death with her daughter. Giles felt his own guilt in allowing this multiply tenfold, feeling deeply the imprint of this night on his own soul and knew it was going to fill with lessons that would not be too soon forgotten.

“I assure you, Joyce, that you had no control while the demon corrupted your every move, your every emotion. You will learn to live with what has happened, though I realise it will take time.” He was startled at her bitter laugh.

“Time? Oh well, that’s okay then. Not like I don’t have an eternity of that to work with, do I?” And she crumbled again right in front of him. “I’m cursed. I know this story—or parts of it anyway. Angelus had one, but he lost it.” Terrified eyes shot to his with the horror of realisation, causing them to deepen in amber before suddenly reverting back to green. She seemingly had no control over the change, her features switching back and forth with each alteration of emotion. “God, what if I lose it? Buffy can’t be watching me all the time. I can’t do this to her. It isn’t right for a mother to be a burden on her child like this.”

He had no words of reassurance, finding it difficult to resolve years of council training that had him agreeing to the sentiments she expressed. He also saw the difficulty in knowing this particular creature in life and could easily predict how devastated Buffy would be by all of this when she finally slowed and was able to process everything that had been happening in her life.

His empty meaningless offering remained in his head and they lapsed once again into a solicitous silence that resolved nothing and expanded little. Giles felt stiff with exhaustion, his older bones craving a flat surface on which to sleep and his eyes began to drift closed as the morning sun rose to bathe the world outside his window. He was almost incoherent when he asked Joyce to explain the note she was trying to write—almost frantically fast as his eyelids drooped and he succumbed to the tiredness he felt and slept. He missed the final sad smile Joyce aimed at him as she folded her piece of paper and wrote Buffy on the blank side. She gently placed it beside his relaxed hand and took unsteadily to her feet.

“Please help her to understand,” she whispered at the one man she hoped could guide Buffy through the rest of her life, and she quickly walked to the door. She opened it onto the beginning of a beautiful day and basked in the sunshine on her face.

And crumbled her way to dust.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

They’d made love. Not as unaware as the others may have thought, Buffy had waited for her friends and teacher to tiptoe by them and then had dragged Spike away, taking him to the only home she had in this town. She’d undressed him in her room, and then proceeded to show him that their love would be everything for her and that whatever he needed to get through this pain, she would be there to give. His kisses showed her how grateful he was, and the slow steady glide of him inside her proved to be just the distraction they needed.

After, when they lay still in each other’s arms, Buffy felt relaxed enough to finally sleep, being lured there by the warming sun as it began to bless her house. And then Spike jerked upright and swore furiously.

When he’d explained this last devastating turn, Buffy shed tears. She was engulfed with sadness that so many were lost, and she could easily acknowledge that her mother’s decision to end her existence hadn’t quite caught her with the power that it should have. It hurt now, but later it would bring her to her knees. She knew it, and for the moment Buffy chose to allow it its place and concentrated on cementing the one thing she did have and couldn’t lose ever.

Spike.

Her eyes stung throughout that horrible morning and sleep didn’t come again. Buffy rose and dressed, needing to do something that would take her mind off her life and then try to make sense of what it had become when that mission failed. Aimless argument with herself resulted in wandering focus and Buffy collapsed in defeat.

There was nothing salvageable about this experience. She’d loved Angel and lost him, but that didn’t hurt anywhere near as much as knowing how Spike felt at losing his family.

She didn’t know what their sanctioned joining meant, but knowing her life it would be answered in some cryptic way—more than likely by some badly dressed small guy in a weird hat. All she knew was that out of the whole mess, having Spike end up at her side felt like the only right thing that had happened. She felt whole when she was with him, like a part of her might be lost but he could always fill it back up again with love.

Buffy stood slowly, stretching out the cramps in her legs that had been the result of hours of non-moving and realised the moon was high in the sky. She could hear Spike quietly moving around upstairs, probably dressing and trying to sense where she was. Knowing she wanted him was only half the battle. He was in her life now and the purpose of that seemed to be written by Powers they had no memo from, so they had nothing to lead them but their own sense of right.

With a small, fragile smile settling on her lips, Buffy went in search of her vampire and thanked the day he’d decided to have a death wish. If he’d not wanted to die she might not have known life. The trade off was exciting and Buffy celebrated in her heart the gains she’d made.

Now, the world was waiting for them.

The Slayer and her vampire.

Epilogue

Buffy watched Spike navigate the excited patrons of The Bronze with a handful of sodas for her and her friends, as well as a beer for himself. The man was super skilled, and just watching the way he flashed his golden eyes at the rowdy bunch—forcing them to part frantically away from his path so as to not spill a drop—always made her heart melt. Considering her past—considering her job—she was surprised that the little reminders of his vampirism didn’t wig her out. She tried to block out the occasional thoughts on why it didn’t make her sad each time he bit her. Why she didn’t see him as the same unsouled monsters that her first love had been—that her mother had become—without their metaphysical leash.

Instead, the flash of his bumpies usually got her hot. And weak. And led to naughtiness of the so good variety. Naughtiness that she hadn’t tired of in the slightest since her life had wildly changed course in the past year.

They lived together as a couple in the house she’d called home ever since she’d moved to Sunnydale. Faced with the bank taking the house due to her mother’s lack of forward planning and actually having a will, Giles had shown how much he was not highly regarded by the council by taking responsibility of the house when his employers had laughed him off the phone during an inquiry about paying Buffy for slaying. However, a year changed things and since she’d turned eighteen, they’d gotten their own back on the miserly council. Giles hadn’t dared betray her with that funny crucifying b’day gift—not when Spike had rather colourfully explained to him what he’d do with his severed head if the Watcher even dared go along with the patriarchal institution. And, paling considerably, Giles had seen the benefits of Spike’s point of view. Instead, they’d caught Quentin Travers and pitted him against the hand-picked monster and watched him squeal.

After that, anything Buffy wanted, Buffy got. Life was so sweet she was putting on weight.

Spike made it back to the crowded table, the leather of his coat finally relaxing around his form and Buffy’s heart could start calming. Every time he moved she felt breathless; the sexiness of his lithe grace got her heart into overdrive every single time, and Buffy wondered if she’d ever get comfy with him like an old married couple. Not that she wanted unspontaneous, comfortable sex. She was totally happy with what she had of the now.

He smiled as he placed her coke on the table in front of her. She took one quick sip and then held out her hand, her eyes sparkling and her skin hot.

“Wanna dance?” She held her breath as he cocked his head to the side, watching her and then sweeping a swift, obscene look over her tight fitted shirt and short skirt.

“With you, pet?” he drawled huskily, sex just oozing from every look and move. “Always.” He took her hand and they slowly took pride of place amongst the party, the graduating class high on life and victory.

“Did you see how we took down that hu—freaking-mongous snake? Man, that was some awesome shit!” one teen screamed over the music to his surrounding friends, and they laughed and slapped each other on the back, even gave some hugs as they celebrated another year on the Hellmouth and staying alive.

Buffy giggled before high fiving a short boy in her class before finally focusing all her attention on Spike, feeling his hands sneak up the back of her shirt and stroking the bare skin at his fingertips. Even in this crowd she wanted more of his touch, didn’t care if people saw what he did to her. There was envy in more than one female face that observed her with him, and Buffy loved it.

Spike pulled her body closer to his, and the expected swell of his cock settled snugly against her. The brush of his fingers against her belly set blazing shots of desire straight through her, focusing all their potential power in the centres of pleasure. God she wanted him—always wanted to feel him inside her. And on days like today, when they were successful in saving the world, it made her crave him even more.

He always knew what she wanted from him, and with barely a look from her desire hazed eyes, he’d lowered lips always hungry for her kiss and Buffy melted right there on the dance floor. It never got old, never lost its intensity—this thing between them. Every time they joined, every time he bit her and renewed his connection to her, she felt the approval of powers she’d never met, except for that strange little guy that had warned them about Miss Calendar’s almost tragedy.

Buffy moaned, lost in how soft his lips were, how wet his tongue was, and how hot her body was becoming. It was time for a breath of fresh air, and with a tormented push away, she grabbed his hand and tugged him to the exit. A quick look at his knowing smirk made her blush, but Buffy knew Spike wouldn’t complain.

They found a dark spot in the alley behind The Bronze and Spike didn’t wait for any words, just shoved her hard against the brick wall and tugged up her skirt.

“Need this, don’t you, pet? Need to know you’re alive and Spike’s just the vamp to show you.” Deft fingers found the crotch of her panties, damp from dancing, desire and life. He tugged them down her legs, careful now he was responsible for replacing anything he tore, and watched as Buffy lifted one stilettoed foot out of the leg. Black lace settled sensually around her other ankle as Buffy lifted her leg and curled her knee over his hip.

“Shut. Up,” she warned with a smile, pleasure already rippling through her body as her hand taunted his cock with an experienced rub and a squeeze through the denim of his jeans. Buffy finally took pity on that face screwed up in desperate need, loving the panting breathlessness that never stopped surprising her as he anticipated her touch on his engorged flesh. She popped the button and watched as the weight of his cock alone pushed the zipper part ways down. A little more help and Buffy revealed his ass—thanks to leaving his duster over a stool inside—more than likely glowing in the alley but giving her flesh to touch with her inner thigh and knee.

There was no need to lift her higher, the red stiletto doing much more than getting him revved for the fuck of his life against an alley wall. Spike’s cock probed the place he wished he could stay permanently. He nudged his way in, groaning at the heated slippery tunnel that wrapped itself tight around him, encouraging him in inch by swelling inch with nothing but the pulsing muscles of her body. It was like being massaged when they did this, and even though they both knew beyond a doubt that it was love every single time, there was something so incredibly hot in seeing it as a fuck—hot and raw and elemental to both their natures. There was a mental violence in every joining, and Spike felt the need to pound into her overwhelm him as he started the first real thrusts, feeling his girl ripple and shake as sensation fed the craving. He caught sight of the twisted panty dangling against her ankle and the hotness of it in the dirty alley had him want to give her marks, almost hoped the brick work would scratch against her lower back and add the pain to the pleasure.

The slow working of his cock in and out of her was mesmerising, and each time he pulled out he saw the panties. It excited him and he found the surge in his balls almost excruciating as his semen rushed through the length of his cock like a hurtling runaway train and he was spurting inside Buffy without warning. He roared his release, but never slowed. It exhausted him but Buffy wasn’t ready and he was still hard, desperate to thrust her into an explosion as fierce as his own and wanting desperately for her to see stars.

When her head suddenly flung back and she didn’t even flinch at the crack of her skull against bricks, he knew it was a clear sky in slayer heaven tonight, littered with many sparkly stars. He pumped until he felt raw, but then he experienced another pulsing orgasm following such a subtle build up that it took him completely unawares.

The comedown was sticky, but Buffy laughed her way through it, her face flushed and her eyes slightly unfocused. “Whoa. This is so gonna kill me one day.”

“Not likely, kid.”

“Arghhhhh!!! Go away!!” Buffy shouted at the greasy little intruder with the funky hat as she struggled to push Spike away and tried to aim her shaking limb back through the leg of her panties and drag them up to cover her butt.

An amused chuckle was shared between the small demon and Spike, and Buffy punched her boyfriend hard in the chest, glaring at him for finding the interruption so funny.

“You so want to die, don’t you?” There was fire in her eyes as she turned to the weaselly little interrupter, and as humiliated as she was, she was the Slayer and this guy was fixing to lose his ribcage. “Just why are you here? Again?”

“Hello to you too, Slayer.” Whistler grinned at the quiet rage building up in the girl with the world both on her shoulders and at her feet and sighed. The Powers had shown much wisdom choosing this vampire over the other to be her eternal mate. The catastrophes his previous idea for a match that had been averted with the simplicity of love was breathtaking.

“Seriously, you’re risking all your—” Buffy paused as she contemplated that favourite phrase and decided she could contemplate the possible removal of bits with Spike because it included suggestive fondling, but for this annoying demon? So not finishing the thought. “Hats,” she finished weakly, stomping in frustration on Spike’s booted foot with her sharp heel as he snickered at her back.

“Oh, can’t have that. Only got one hat. An’ she’s special.” He stroked the repulsive thing and Buffy cringed.

“Your hat is female? That’s just….ewww. You are so weird.” Buffy looked away from him, smoothed down her hair and made sure her clothes looked a little less askew, avoiding everything to do with the being that was looking at her.

“Came to give my condolences. Losing your mom and all.”

Buffy had dealt with what had happened—she really had—but she’d mourned the loss of a woman, not the emergence of a vampire; perhaps that was why she found it so easy to accept everything about Spike, warts and all. Still, it kind of irked her that this guy was dredging up the pain all over again.

“Gee, you’re all about the punctual.” She felt churlish, arms crossed and confrontational. And her fist itched to knock that grin right off his face.

“Got held up. Seemed like a souled vampire got sent to Hell and I had to work out what to do with him. Time just flies by in Hell. Interesting place. Kinda hot, though. Singed my trench coat.”

Buffy so didn’t care. At least, she didn’t want to care. But then interest snagged her and she looked at him intently. “Angel got his soul back? Before he dusted?”

“Oh yeah,” answered Whistler with a joke in his voice. “Miscalculated that one, big time.”

“Bloody poof deserved a bit of suffering,” Spike interjected as he lit up and moved away in irritation. Buffy smiled indulgently. He always got that way around the Angel topic. She didn’t bring him up anymore, much preferring the less broody Spike, rather than the Spike he became when talk of Angel occurred. But Xander would pop the name in as often as he could—it was long standing entertainment to frustrate Spike to fangs. It had become a bonding opportunity for him and Giles, the elder finding the boy not quite as useless as he once had.

“So, you’re what? Dropping in on your way from Hell? Again, why?” Buffy’s foot was tapping now; she was impatient for the twerp to be gone so she and Spike could go back inside and commiserate the end of high school with her friends.

He sighed in exasperation. “Told you. Also checking up that you two are still with the happy happy, joy joy. Got to hand it to those Powers; when they pick champions to fuse together, they get it right! Left to me, kid, and your life might have ended up a disaster.”

“Pshyeah, like you have anything to do with my life.” Buffy had an awful feeling in her gut, remembering the night she and Spike had shared something so extraordinarily unique and became one together. Was it destiny, or had their relationship been engineered?

“Destiny’s a funny bloke. Seems to think he’s got a swanky hat and a sense of humour. You know he’d be wrong, don’t you?” Spike asked with a definite edge to his voice. It hadn’t been hard to see the flinch on Buffy’s face as soon as it was suggested that whatever had happened between them maybe hadn’t happened on its own. He could see the wheels turning, the dread beginning to take root that they’d been manipulated and the good life that they’d built together was based on a lie.

Except it wasn’t.

Spike knew his heart—probably better than his head—and he knew without even having to think about it that whatever had sent him, suicidal, into the path of the Slayer and then the subsequent events that saw them bond closer than any other vampire and slayer, was based on nothing more than his own whims and insecurities. Not some Higher Being throwing a monkey wrench in to cock up Peaches’s path. Yeah, so he knew that the sculpted git was more than likely meant to return to Buffy, shiny soul intact after he’d killed a few people and broken her heart. He wasn’t sobbing at the change, but he wasn’t thanking the faceless Powers for it. As far as he was concerned, their union might have been approved by the Heavens or even God, but he’d done all the work. He’d made the decision, and he wouldn’t have this little wanker make Buffy doubt him now.

“You ever heard of free will?” Hesitant nods. “We just put our stamp of approval on it. You guys did the thing by getting yourselves together; the Powers were just giving you the big red tick in bold.”

Buffy released a very obvious held breath and laughed nervously. “So, gold star for us, huh? Who’d a thought anyone would see us as more than a freak show?”

Spike barked out a laugh, having heard that particular phrase before and not so much in reference to the slayer/vampire element of the equation. It usually came down to the assumed age gap or the peroxided hair and coat that made people’s brows raise in judgement. Being happily in love gave them the humour to just laugh and move on. It was a beautiful feeling to be so confident in his partner’s love.

“Well, kids, gotta go. Got a souled vampire to find a destiny for. Oh, and hey, might want to cut back on the expensive face creams. That mug’s not gonna age, so you may as well save some bucks.” Whistler winked at Buffy’s shocked face and blinked out of sight.

Leaving them with just one more thing to think about.

Destiny and Eternity.