Buffy had been worried the night before when he'd seemed so cold in the bathroom, but then when he'd joined her in the bed, he'd gone back to warm. Figuratively speaking anyway… Part of her was insisting that she shouldn't care so much, but she rationalized it away and argued against her own inner voice that she only cared because things were so much easier for her when Spike wasn't angry and violent.
It wasn't because seeing his eyes lack the emotion she'd grown so used to made her hurt. That idea was just ridiculous.
"Mmm…mornin', kitten," Spike rumbled against her as he turned more towards the warmth of her body.
"It's afternoon," Buffy pointed out, looking at the clock on the bedside table across from her.
"'M a vamp. 'S mornin' t'me."
"Then what's night?"
"Afternoon."
Buffy giggled. "That's just silly."
"Doesn't matter. Gonna shag you no matter what time it is."
Buffy cried out in surprise as Spike suddenly rolled them over and entered her with one smooth stroke. "Always so wet for me, Buffy," Spike purred against her ear, starting a rhythm of slow, lazy thrusts.
Buffy panted beneath him, her small hands clutching his shoulders. She was relieved to find that Spike hadn't gone back to cutting himself off from her like he had in the bathroom. Warmth was pouring through the claim, and it made her hold on to him tighter as her words of encouragement came out in breathy moans.
It took a little bit for what Buffy was saying to pierce Spike's sleep-fogged brain, but when he did, his rhythm faltered for a beat and he almost stopped completely.
"Spike…please…need you…need it like this. Need you to hold me… Oh god Spike, I need you to love me…love me…"
She couldn't know what she was saying, the glazed look in her eyes telling Spike that she was caught up in a wave of desire. But for the moment he could let himself believe that she was at least accepting of his love, and his thrusts grew harder, more desperate.
Buffy was close, her body strung tight as Spike moved above her. Desperate for that last little push that would send her over the edge, Buffy grabbed the back of his head and roughly pushed him down to her neck.
Spike didn't need the invitation further explained. His fangs sliced into her neck, and Buffy immediately clamped around his cock, her shout of release cut short when she decided to take his neck into her mouth, to taste his blood as he did hers.
He came hard inside of her with the first feel of her teeth in his skin, but he didn't remove his fangs from her neck, and she continued to drink from him as he did from her. A bright light seemed to burst in front of him, and he tried to close his eyes to block it out only to have it still there, surrounding him. Every wall between them came tumbling down, the claim exposing them both to new heights as a current of pleasure flowed between them both, extending itself until it was too much and they broke apart.
Buffy gasped, her eyes wide. She felt different somehow, stronger. Spike's blood was coursing through her, pounding in her veins, and she panicked, struggling to push him off.
"Buffy?" Spike asked, blinking in confusion.
"Just…just get off me!" Buffy yelled. She pushed him with a strength she'd never felt before, and sent flying off the bed.
Spike lay on the ground, a look of shock on his face. "Wha…pet?"
"I…oh god…" Buffy snatched the sheet off the bed and wrapped it around her before she ran out of the room and on to the balcony. The sunlight hit her and she collapsed to the ground, bringing her knees to her chin as she rocked back and forth.
Spike frowned in confusion as he pulled himself off the ground. Buffy's emotions were clear through the claim, and the overriding one was terror. He could tell it wasn't him she was afraid of, but what it actually was, he wasn't sure. He walked over to the balcony, making sure to stand well behind the curtain. "Buffy?"
"Leave me alone!" Buffy yelled.
"Sweetheart, tell me what's wrong? What's got you so spooked?"
Buffy didn't respond, and Spike growled low in frustration, He wished he could go out there and talk to her face to face, but that wasn't possible. "Kitten? Why don't you come back in the room and we can talk, yeah?"
"I can't. Gotta stay out here…have to stay in case…" She trailed off and Spike frowned, her mumbled response doing nothing to make anything clearer for him.
"Buffy, sweetheart, you need to tell me what's going on. You're upset, I know, but I can't do anything to help you unless you tell me what the problem is."
She said nothing, and Spike stood long moments in silence until he lost any hold he'd had on his patience. "Bugger this," he muttered as he stormed over to the bed and grabbed the comforter. He put it over himself and ran outside, ignoring Buffy's yell and the way the sun burned his hand as he snatched her up and brought her back into the hotel room.
She fought weakly against him, but Spike held her close as they sat on the floor beside the balcony. Finally, she gave up and collapsed into his arms and sobbing.
"I don't want to, Spike…" she said finally, her words hitching with her tears. "I don't…"
"You don't want to what, baby?" Spike asked.
She looked up then, her eyes wild. "I don't want to…to change."
Spike sucked in a breath as he realized what the problem was. "Into a vampire you mean."
Buffy nodded. "Yeah."
Spike cupped her face in his hands and wiped her tears off with his thumbs. "You won't, sweetheart. Don't you worry about that."
"But…I'm stronger. I know I am, Spike. I can feel that. And…and after what we just…what we just did, I could feel it…your blood. It's…it's in me. And you drank mine, too, and…"
"Shh…pet, it's okay," Spike said. "We've done that before and you're not a vampire."
Buffy shook her head. "But not like that. That was different. You know it was, Spike."
It was, he had to give her that, but it wasn't what she was afraid of. "Takes more than drinking each other's blood to turn you into a vampire, kitten. You gotta be near death, and you're not. Your heartbeat's steady and your cheeks are nice an' pink."
"But why am I stronger? When I pushed you, you went really far, Spike. And before, when we fought that one time, I was too strong then, too. And the healing—why am I healing like this?" Buffy's eyes were wide and desperate, as if she were waiting for him to hand her the answers she craved.
"I don't know," Spike said, hating the way his response made her face fall. "The best I can figure, though, is that it's something about the claim. I don't know a lot about vampire/human claims, but I do know that they link the human's lifeline to that of his or her mate, so it's possible that the claim's working to make you stronger and quicker to heal so you'll be more suited for that."
"Oh. That…" Buffy stopped and her eyes grew wide again. "Wait, run that back—to the part about the linking lifelines."
Spike cleared his throat, a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach telling him this was not about to go well. "You're immortal now, Buffy. Well, as immortal as I am anyway. You're not going to get any older than this."
Spike watched as the shock on Buffy's face switched to anger and braced himself for the punch he saw coming. He clutched his nose as Buffy got to her feet and glared down at him, her hands balled into tight fists. "You know, some women would be happy to find out they weren't ever going to age," he said as he looked up at her with annoyance.
"Yeah, well, I'm not them," Buffy snapped. "How could you do this to me—and now even tell me?"
"I'm sorry!" Spike said. "I thought we already established that I hadn't really planned on the whole claim thing, and this part, well, I just told you now, didn't I?"
"Now wasn't soon enough!" Buffy yelled. She stood, making sure as she did that the sheet was still wrapped tightly around her. "I'm going on the balcony, and if you pull me back in, I'll—punch you in the nose again!" She stormed out, slamming the balcony door hard and cursing as it slid off the track. She sat back down on the ground, her eyes staring forward as she pulled her knees back to her chin.
Spike decided to let her stay out if that's what she wanted. Maybe a little time to herself would cool her off… He sighed and got to his feet in search of something to wrap his burnt hand with.
And the morning had started off so well…
Buffy had been outside for hours now and she was nowhere near coming to grips with what Spike had just told her. Immortal? She's was going to live for possibly forever like this—with him? It had been bad enough to think about spending a normal human lifespan with that arrogant, overbearing vampire.
Except for the part where it wasn't so bad at all, but Buffy chose to ignore that. It interfered with her righteous indignation.
How dare he keep this from her for as long as he had! They'd already discussed her healing, her strength, and even how he'd die if she died, yet never once had he felt the need to key her in on her newfound immortality. And when had he planned on telling her if she hadn't panicked this morning? A century from now when she wondered why she still had smooth skin and all her teeth?
Buffy sighed and tightened the hold she had on her knees. Forever… She was seventeen years old—the concept of forever was so beyond anything she could really fathom. Forever was seventy, eighty years, and even that was so far beyond the horizon that she couldn't really grasp the concept. How long was a hundred years? Five hundred? A thousand? Would it all seem to blur together after a while until it no longer seemed long at all, or would time stretch on and on in an endless drag?
Would she forget things eventually? Would she still remember her mother's face a century from now, or the way her voice had sounded? Already some things had faded, and would time brush them all away into oblivion?
She had too many questions, and none of them had an answer. She was truly with Spike forever.
Buffy guessed it put a whole new spin on "'til death do us part" when one of you was already dead.
She could feel Spike's tension through the claim, but she didn't go inside, still too angry with him to be willing to soothe him now. He'd changed her, turned her into something she hadn't been before she'd met him. No, she wasn't a vampire, but she wasn't really human anymore either. Humans aged. They grew older and eventually, they died. Buffy would never do that. She'd stay like this, frozen as time moved on around her.
So many people longed for immortality, but Buffy doubted they had any more of a concept of it than she did, that they really knew what they were wishing for. Forever was daunting and foreboding. It was too much, too long. Forever didn't have an ending, and everything was meant to have an ending. It was the natural way of things.
But Spike was something unnatural, and now, so was she.
Buffy covered her face with her hands and cried.
Spike could feel Buffy's tears and they tore at him. He wanted to go and gather her in his arms, but one look at his bandaged hand reminded him why he couldn't.
He didn't miss the symbolism there. Buffy belonged somewhere he couldn't go, and no matter how much he wanted to touch that, he couldn't—not without getting burned. He'd tried to pull her into his world, and all she did was resent him for it.
He kicked a small, empty bottle at his feet, cursing the ineptness of the mini bar. Like something that at best looked like what a bottle of liquor would look like from very far away could get him drunk. Please. He didn't think they made enough mini-bottles in the world to knock out his vampire constitution.
Spike growled in frustration. All he could ever do was bollix things up with Buffy again and again. Every time he thought he was getting somewhere with her, that maybe she was finally opening up, even just a little bit, he did something stupid enough to make her close herself off to him all over again.
It was clear that Buffy wasn't coming in anytime soon, even as the sun began to sink past the horizon. It wouldn't be long before he could go out there to her, but Spike wasn't fool enough to think that his company would be welcome. She needed her space, and bloody hell so did he.
With a snarl, he got to his feet and snatched his coat off the back of a chair, and he put it on as he walked out the door.
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