~*~
When Buffy woke, sunshine was still streaming in through the windows. Her body was protesting, urging her to sleep longer…but something else, some part of her that she might have called her heart if she was better versed in poetical notions, was tugging at her, forcing her awake.
Spike. He’d claimed her, and they’d—her cheeks reddened as blood rushed to her nether regions. So shouldn’t be getting all hot and bothered because Spike made love to me…and made me climax again and again and again… Her eyes all but rolled back in her head and she groaned, half in shame and half in anticipation.
That was when she felt it—a bolt of anguish that ran through her and then, as suddenly as it had come, retreated, leaving her bewildered. She certainly wasn’t feel grief of that magnitude, so who…?
“You ought to go back to sleep. It’s not polite, intruding upon a man’s misery.”
The voice, clogged with tears and oddly stilted in its accent, startled her. She jumped—and then, still completely naked, whirled around and pinned the vampire in the corner to the wall with her gaze. “Spike? What the hell is going on?”
He looked away from her. “Hell. Ought to pay a visit, meet my maker, give him my regards…I’ll be there soon enough.”
What the fuck? “Spike, drop the act,” she said disbelievingly. “Seriously, you claimed and screwed a Slayer. Shouldn’t you be making with the smugness?”
“No!” he cried, and even Buffy’s sleep-muddled brain could hear and feel the pain in that one word. “Didn’t mean to, shouldn’t have marked her, pretty girl, not pretty any more, evil makes her ugly…”
This was going to get on her nerves very, very quickly. “Spike, you didn’t hurt me,” she said, trying to make her voice gentle. Whatever insanity had gripped him, she didn’t want to incite it. “You just—you didn’t hurt me.” She let the odd little bond she was feeling in her mind loosen a bit, so that her feelings flowed towards him. “It didn’t hurt,” she repeated, staring at him and feeling the knot in her stomach tighten.
She’d grown remarkably used to Spike’s odd moods, but this one was…different. Along with the opening of the claim came feelings flowing from him with incredible speed, feelings that almost had her weeping, they were so intense. Not just intense, either…they were…
Well, human.
She’d known the claim would have a strong effect on them both, but Spike was acting almost as though he’d gotten himself a soul—which of course, Buffy hastened to reassure herself, was absolutely impossible.
Still, something was clearly off.
She wrapped the sheet around herself and got off the bed, moving towards him and trying to ignore the way he frantically scrabbled away from her. “Spike, it’s just me,” she said as gently as she could.
“Girl. Just a girl. Hurt the girl,” he muttered, fighting to get away from her. “Little pixies in my head, she said there would be. Warned me…didn’t listen, did I? Couldn’t listen, never could. Didn’t want to listen, hear the truth in madness…pay for it now, I will. Will. Will will pay.”
“Spike!”
Her Watcher had trained her to have a voice that could quell an army of demons if it needed to; now she finally found the skill coming in handy. At the whiplike sound of her voice he stopped his insane gibberings. “Mustn’t listen, must block her out,” he muttered…but his hands remained as his sides, and he was still.
“Look, I don’t know what’s up with you,” she said honestly. “But we can’t afford to have you like this.” She slowly advanced towards him, relieved when he didn’t try to get away from her. “Let me just—“
Quicker than a striking snake, she reached her hand out and grasped his tightly. He made a noise like a wounded animal, but it was too late to stop her; she was yanking him towards the bed.
“No—no! Mustn’t give into temptation, can’t let her near, can feel her, feel her goodness, all around me, polluting me, shut her out, get her out…”
The claim. Buffy stopped dead, and her head whirled with the implications. He wasn’t a gibbering mockery of the human—or not-so-human—condition because of some spell Willow had put on him, the way she thought he was. No, he was a mess because of the claim.
She’d put some part of herself in him…her soul? Did he have some semblance of a conscience now? If so, then she was in deeper shit than she really wanted to recognize. “Spike, I need you to tell me—“ She took a deep breath. “I need you to tell me how you feel.”
He burst out laughing at that, maniacal laughter that put shivers running down her spine. “Tell her how I feel, she wants,” he gibbered. “Tell her about the phantoms haunting him, let her know how sorry I am, maybe grovel at her feet and beg for her forgiveness. Bad man. Badmanbadmanbadman—“
“Spike!” She didn’t know what possessed her. Actually, given how things had been going lately, she wouldn’t have been surprised if something really had possessed her. One minute she was staring at the gibbering vampire at her feet, feeling something akin to pity and revulsion that defied labeling…
And the next, she’d slapped him.
When his eyes met hers again, they were crystalline, the tears that they’d held gone. “What the bloody ‘ell ‘m I doin’ on the floor, Slayer?” he inquired coolly.
The killer was back.
Her voice was trembling, ever so slightly, when she said, “I—I’m not sure. I woke up, and you were acting…strange.”
“Strange, eh?” His face was still blank.
“You mean—you don’t remember?” Buffy was pretty sure incredulity was coming off her in waves.
His only response was another blank look. “’m I supposed to remember something?” he asked. “Although…’m definitely not gonna forget the shagging we just did.”
She was appalled. “You mean, even after—“ you claimed me. But the words wouldn’t come out. “After we—and I—and you—“
Spike should have been able to feel her confusion and bubbling anger. Hell, she could feel them, and she wasn’t at all skilled when it came to categorizing and interpreting her emotions. But he gave no sign of feeling anything when he said lazily, “You a’right, Slayer? You’re even more incoherent than usual. I didn’t drain you too much, did I? Wouldn’t want to have you all weak-willed for tonight. ‘s not half as much fun that way.”
If he sounded a little less venomous, a little less blatantly evil, than he usually did, Buffy didn’t notice. His voice rang in her ears—not the voice of a tortured half-ensouled-seeming creature, but the voice of the soulless thing who’d manipulated her emotions and almost destroyed her a year ago.
The world seemed to thicken around her, as though someone had stuffed cotton between her ears. She was barely lucid when she said, “I have—I have to go.”
She fled into the bathroom, shutting the door behind herself and locking it, even though she knew that if he wanted to hurt her, he wouldn’t even need to bother with the door. He was inside her now, in more way than one. She could feel him—could feel his demon, slimy and insidious, working its way into her soul.
He was poisoning her.
Her fingers tightened on the cold, smooth surface of the sink, and she looked in the mirror. Her reflection. Yes, she still had that. Short hair, haunted hazel eyes, and that scar—the scar she’d gained on her first night as a Slayer. This was who she was…but now there was someone else inside, and she couldn’t get him out.
Why, why, why had she agreed to let him claim her?
She knew why. Because of her Watcher. It always circled back to that. Every time she tried to have an emotion of her own, the damned Council intruded, putting its ideals into her head and stealing her sanity.
But it was also him, waiting for her outside with that evil gleam in his eyes. He was—he’d been almost human for those few minutes. She’d seen tortured regret in those eyes. No sooner had she tried to touch it, to touch him, than he’d drawn away from her—and now, having seen, if only for a second, what he might have been like as a human, she was left desperate for another glimpse. Just one more, to prove to her that the monster now residing in her mind and heart had some redeeming quality about them.
How could that be even possible? How could she see the human in him, when it was long gone. Rule number one, the first thing a Watcher told his or her young charge: When a human is turned, all vestiges of his or her soul is devoured by the demon. Without the aid of extremely powerful magic, no soul can be restored to the demon—and even the world’s strongest magic finds restoring the original soul difficult, if not impossible.
She was not seeing William the bloody awful poet at all; she was seeing Spike the vampire, who was even after their mating—if one could call it that—toying with her.
Her hands strayed to the shameful marks that seemed to burn themselves into her neck. The link was weaker than she’d been led to believe it would, though of course that could be simply because she hadn’t reciprocated the claiming…not to mention that there were no real emotions between them in the first place.
Right, pet. You go on believing that.
For a second she thought Spike had actually spoken in her head; shocked, she whirled around to stare at the closed door. He couldn’t have heard her thoughts, much less inserted his own into her head. It was impossible…
Wasn’t it?
Their claim couldn’t possibly be so strong. Buffy repeated that thought over and over again in her head. It wasn’t that strong. It wasn’t.
Because if it was, then she was even more of a whore, even more sick and twisted, than she’d formerly thought.
Suddenly, she couldn’t bear seeing her reflection—couldn’t stand to see her face, so flushed and healthy after a night of sex with a vampire, staring back at her. Couldn’t bear the marks on her neck.
She’d left her duffel in the bathroom, and now she was glad. Shoving on a pair of jeans and a thin top, Buffy ran out of the bathroom, past Spike, and out the door.
She didn’t stop running until she managed to get lost in London’s winding streets.
~*~
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Thanks so much for the input I got for the last chapter--I love hearing what you guys think =)