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~*~

Spike waited until his girl’s footsteps faded before giving in to his agony.

He made sure to close the claim when he did. It was by no means a strong link—mating bonds forged in desperation never were, at least not at first. For all that it was used for more sinister matters, a vampire mating ritual was, first and foremost, an act of love. Without that, it was nothing.

His bond with the Slayer wasn’t nothing, which in and of itself told him quite a bit.

He remembered going half-insane, of course. Hell, he still felt like that, a bit. The demon had taken over him again, given him the strength to withstand the pity and fear he’d felt roiling off Buffy, but that nagging little bit of him that had been in full power for awhile while she was still asleep—that part remained, whispered in his cranium till he felt like he had a bug in his head, and was desperate to get it out.

Bad man. William is a bad bad man.

God, he wished that wankerish voice would shut the hell up.

He could feel it gaining strength, though, feeding on the goodness that permeated him every second the claim with the Slayer stayed in him. It was as though her virtue, her purity, was food for that bit of whatever-it-was that no other vampire spoke of having.

It had been with him all this time, just not quite so loud. It was the reason he’d never indulged in torture the way Angelus did, the reason he’d taken the Slayers down in a fair fight instead of catching them when they were weak. It was the part of him that still held some idea of honor, that whispered because it’s wrong when the demon asked why not?

And right now, it was the reason he wanted to kiss daylight.

Death, destruction, pain—they were the demon’s element. Warmth, tenderness, and light had been foreign to him for so long that finding a piece of him that reveled in such things was akin to discovering a third eye, or perhaps another dick. Things like that just didn’t happen.

Too tired and weak to fight it, Spike allowed the tortured being’s memories to take him over.

*

”No! Please, anyone but her! Kill me, if you like!”

The eyes of the woman were dark brown—beautiful and desperate. Fear added such a lovely tinge to them. Pity the rest of her was so damn ugly, or he might’ve taken her up on her offer.

Her daughter, though…Spike smiled toothily. “Step aside, bitch,” he ordered cockily. “Time to use your daughter for the only thing the bint’s really good for.”

“Is that right?”

He whirled around—and right into an iron fist.

Spike flew back twenty feet, landing next to a dumpster. When he leapt to his feet, smelly and enraged, he beheld the small blonde who was now his companion in the alley. Her face was confident, a stake was in her hand, and a smell that he would recognize anywhere roiled off her.

“Slayer!”

Unlike most vampires, who would have snarled it in fear, Spike gave the greeting an almost delighted inflection. He knew it would drive her nuts; Slayers, he’d learned, thrived on normality.

“Who the hell are you?” she said, nonplussed. “Oh, wait—you’re dust.” And with that weak pun, she leapt for him.

She wasn’t the only one who could make a body fly through the air simply by punching it. Spike grinned when he saw her fall to the ground.

“Might not wanna try that again, pet.”

Her eyes narrowed and she launched herself up again, not in the least bit daunted. “So, you really think you can challenge a Slayer?” she asked coldly.

Spike cocked his head at her. Interesting, she was…so very small and thin, and as cool as a glacier. “Dunno, luv…’ve killed two of ‘em.”

He saw the emotions flicker across her face, reading them like many would read a book. Anger, shock, and then awareness, followed straight by fear. “You’re William the Bloody,” she said, her voice tight.

“Used to be,” he admitted, nodding. “But ‘ve reinvented m’self since then.”

“Right.” Her eyes flickered up and down his form. “Apparently,” she said sarcastically, “You’ve reinvented yourself into a pathetic Billy Idol wannabe.”

He growled and launched himself at her. He should have been able to tackle her to the ground—but she neatly sidestepped him, and it was all he could do not to fall over.

“Why are you here?” the Slayer asked bluntly, still gripping her stake tightly. “I know it’s not to kill me.”

“Perceptive little bitch, aren’t you?”

“Just answer the question!” she snapped, losing her patience.

So, the Slayer was human after all. Spike smirked at her, hitching his jeans up and watching her eyes dart downwards.

Oh, yeah. This was gonna be a hell of a lot of fun.

~*~

He’d been a bastard back then, just as he was one now. Then, his mission had been to entrap the Slayer, have a bit of fun with her—maybe turn her—and then discard her. Now…bloody hell. Now he was ready to kiss sunlight for even thinking about touching her.

He held his head in his hands, fighting to block out the voices in him, whispering, taunting him, tempting him to give in—but whether he should give in to being a monster or a man, he didn’t know.

“Get out!” he yelled suddenly to the room around him. “Never was good, never could learn to defend the ladies…couldn’t…can’t now, she’s too bright, burns me she does, but I can’t get her out, none of them, always there, never gone, haunting, hurting, hurting William, hurt the girl…”

After awhile, he lost track of whether he was babbling or silent. The turmoil in his mind was spilling outward like a tidal wave, engulfing him and sending him spinning off into blackness.

He was brought back by the terror that suddenly coursed through their bond. He’d shut her off from his feelings, but no one had ever taught the Slayer how to manage a claiming bond—she was still wide open to him, and right now, he could feel the agony and fear rushing through her.

He leapt to his feet with a growl. His mate was in danger—the knowledge pushed all of William’s pathetic babblings away for the moment. He dressed quickly, not bothering to even button his shirt, and left the hotel room at a run.

He’d find her. Find her and then…the demon howled. His mate had run away from him, rejected him like a fledgling. There had to be some form of retribution.

She would pay. They both would.

~*~

Buffy hadn’t actually intended to get herself killed.

She’d wanted to find some nice, evil, kid-killing demon and kick its ass, if only to reinforce to herself the fact that she was still the Slayer. Instead, she found herself facing off with a group of humans who seemed determined to bring her down.

“Get off of me,” she grunted, pushing yet another man away. The Slayer Handbook forbade her to hurt humans, and it was the one rule that she hadn’t broken yet…but God, she was close. “What is your deal, anyway?” she asked one of them before pushing him down. “You’re not gonna rob me, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“We have no desire,” one of the men said in a crisp English accent, “To rob you, you rotten little Slayer bitch.”

Buffy had no chance to hit the man—and she was definitely planning on it. OK, she was a morally bereft, criminally insane mate to one of the worst vampires in the history of vampirism (if vampirism had a history)…but still, the man in front of her was insulting her, and the one thing stronger than her Slayer instincts was the pride she kept close to her heart.

But her fist was just drawing back when one of his companions swung his club into the man’s stomach. “Berk! We weren’t supposed to let her—“

“Find out about how the Watcher’s Council wants to kill me?” Buffy asked dully. “Sorry, but I connected the dots awhile ago.”

All four of the men started in surprise. “H-how?” one of them stuttered. “I thought—we’d been circumspect!”

“About as circumspect as an elephant,” Buffy said sarcastically. “Come on, you thought I wouldn’t catch on? The Watchers want to kill me because I’m not a nice, biddable little Slayer any more.”

The man with the club merely smirked, hefting the heavy wood in his hand. “And now they’ll get their wish. Goodbye, Slayer.”

Before she could move—before she could even decide not to move, because right now dying was as good as any other option—the club came down upon her head.

It didn’t kill her, of course, but it was brought down with such strength, and her entire body was already so tired, that she crumpled at the blow.

The man holding the bat chuckled darkly. “Lookie there, boys,” he said malevolently. “One blow brings the Slayer down. Guess fucking a vampire really did deplete her strength.”

Fucking a vampire. Spike. He was the only person who knew she was here, who knew she might be hurting…and right now, the fact that he wasn’t a person was mattering less and less. All she knew was that she didn’t want to die.

Spike. Help…please. She’d never be sure if she thought it or if he actually heard it…because next thing she knew, the men were on her, beating her, and any coherent thought she still had fled.

She only blacked out for a minute. She could tell because when she came back she was still alive, which definitely wouldn’t have happened if she’d been out for more than just a minute. Those men were trying to kill her, and in as painful a way as they could without sullying the Council’s name with torture.

When she came to, it was to the sound of a roar that could have scared Satan himself back into sobriety. She managed to open her eyes finally, only to find her view blocked by undulating leather.

Spike had come to her.

Blood spattered her face as he slaughtered the man. It was not careful, calculated killing, and he did not feed from them. He simply murdered them, tearing off head and ripping out throats.

Tears began to run down her face, mixing with the blood that already stained them. She should have been crying for the deaths of the men, for all that they’d been trying to kill her. They were humans, and since she was barely old enough to understand the difference between people and monsters, she’d been programmed to feel grief when a human died. That was how the Slayer lived. Pain, bloodshed—they drove her.

But she was not crying for the men. Some part of her still rebelled at the idea of mourning the loss of those who had tried to kill her. No, she cried because, upon coming close to her, Spike had dropped all the shields he’d carefully placed upon their bond, and all his feelings came streaming through.

Rage that she, his mate, and the subordinate one in their bond, had had the nerve to leave him. Fear that her leaving him meant she was rejecting not only the bond, but Spike himself.

And the emotion that brought tears to her eyes: pain. Pain that he’d left her, self-loathing brought on by the dreams that she could now see had tortured him all night—and an all-encompassing dread that cut into her like a sharp knife, carving everything out and leaving her a hollow shell of who she was just moments ago.

The men were all dead—now he approached her. Shakily she stood up, fighting not to collapse under the weight of the emotions he was forcing upon her.

“You left me.” His voice was blank. If it weren’t for the roiling fury currently coming clearly through their bond, she might have thought he was perfectly fine.

“I—I had to think things over.”

“Right. Maybe you can think on this.”

For the second time that night, she was hit before she had a chance to react. Only this time it was Spike’s fist, and it sent her flying.

“You nasty, selfish little bitch! How dare you run away from me?”

Pain shot through her, not just the obvious physical pain, but mental pain brought on through the bond. And now she understood what she’d done with frightening clarity: by not claiming Spike back, she’d placed herself in a subordinate, weak position. And by running away, she’d rejected him in a way that the vampire society repudiated.

Well, she’d broken a million of her world’s rules that night. What did she care for a few vamp rules?

She launched to her feet and was immediately on the attack. Since she had no idea how to use their mental bond against him, she just blocked him out; that, at least, she’d had practice with.

Her fists were blurs as they connected with his face, again and again, until she felt the inhuman strength vampirism granted giving away, crumbling before the Slayer’s rage. She channeled all her anger, all her pain, and yes, all her guilt, into those blows.

“How can you do that?” she screamed at him. Somehow she’d knocked him down, into the slime of the dank, dirty alley. She was straddling him, hitting him over and over. “Hurt me, after what happened? You really are evil, aren’t you? You—after last night—I thought—and now you’re—“

She broke off when she realized that her ramblings had lost their coherence about the same time the tears began to stream down her face.

She stopped hitting him when she realized that tears were streaming down his face, as well.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice hoarse. “God, Buffy…’m sorry.”

Buffy stared at him in disbelief. His throat was bruised—had she grabbed it? She couldn’t remember. His face was a mass of scrapes, cuts, and bruises, all courtesy of her fists and nails. Blood streamed from his mouth.

It was her handiwork. And he said he was sorry.

Buffy had to fight the urge to throw up. It was just…horrendous. And she’d done it to him. She’d hurt him for no other reason than that the turmoil inside her had driven her to near-insanity. She’d hurt him far worse than he’d ever hurt her.

He was a monster. What did that make her?

“Spike, stand up. Please.”

“Can’t,” he rasped. The blood-stained corners of his mouth tilted up ironically. “Not since you broke m’ left leg, anyway.”

God. God. She had, hadn’t she?

“I’m—“

“Don’t even bloody say it.” Even in the throes of the pain only a Slayer could bring in, he sounded harsh and angry. “Just gimme the stake and have done with it. I don’t particularly wanna be killed by the first nasty that comes wanderin’ through here.”

Buffy shook her head. “N-no,” she said thickly, fighting to martial something resembling rational thought. “I—no. We’ll get you back, I’ll fix you somehow.”

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you, princess?” Spike asked. His eyes, barely visible through the blackness that surrounded them, glinted at her mockingly. “Don’t break somethin’ you can’t fix.”

A sob tore at her throat. “Stop it. Just—stop it!”

“Right.” His voice was hollow. “See you on the other side, kitten.”

And with that last odd, superficial remark, he passed out.

~*~

A/N: Thanks for all the support!





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