Dawn made her way slowly down the hallway toward the room where Spike and Buffy were hopefully sleeping…or…possibly *not* sleeping… That thought almost made her turn around and go back to her own room. The thought of walking in on her sister and her best friend doing it was not exactly appealing. Still, she made herself go on.
At this point, Dawn would be satisfied as long as they weren’t in the process of killing each other.
Witnessing any other “processes” might scar her for life – but at least she would know that the two people nearest to her heart, with the exception of her mother, were safe.
All in all, she was *almost* sure that it would be worth the indelible mental images she would carry with her for the rest of her life, just to be sure that Spike and Buffy were both unharmed.
She stopped outside the door of the room, trying to look through the thick, heavy curtains into the room beyond them, for some sign of what might be going on inside. Unfortunately, the drapes were too thick to reveal anything, and they were tightly drawn, leaving no cracks through which to look. She could see nothing inside the room at all. She couldn’t even tell if any lights were on or not.
She stopped and stood in front of the door, drawing in a deep breath in preparation. She *so* did *not* want to interrupt her sister and Spike.
What if nothing was wrong? How humiliating would *that* be?
But deep down – Dawn knew that that was not the case. She could not quite put her finger on it – Spike and Buffy had both told her that everything was fine – but somehow she just *knew* that something was terribly wrong.
She desperately hoped that *she* was the one who was wrong.
She considered knocking, but then decided against it. If they were sleeping, she did not want to wake them; and if something bad really was happening on the other side of that door, knocking would give the Slayer time to attempt to hide it, and possibly put Spike in greater danger.
Maybe if she just quietly opened the door a crack and peeked in…
If they were asleep, they would never even know that she had been there. Of course, that line of action held the risk of embarrassing them all very badly if Buffy and Spike were *not* asleep, and nothing was wrong at all – but it also gave her the element of surprise, if Spike *was* in trouble. Quietly, cautiously, she tried the handle.
It didn’t turn.
She took out the key card she had placed in her pocket, regarding it with resignation. It was a bit more conspicuous, more likely to be heard from inside, then her careful turning of the knob – but it seemed to be a necessary risk. She really had no other options at this point. She slid the card into the slot as quietly as possible, hearing a faint click as she slowly edged the door open.
Or at least -- *tried* to.
The door did not budge, either.
She frowned, looking up and down at the door that was somehow a more formidable barrier than she had expected, trying again to push it open, a bit harder this time, though still with no success. She wondered for a moment why the key didn’t seem to be working – but – the knob was turning, so the key was obviously still working properly…
Suddenly, she understood why the door would not move, and yet the handle turned, remembering the deadbolt she had had to unlock on her own room door before coming out here. But – why would Buffy have given her a key to the room, if she was only going to bolt the door so that she could not get in, anyway?
The answer was frighteningly simple.
*Buffy* wouldn’t.
Spike would not have been so thoughtless and foolish as to deadbolt the door, no matter what raunchy new Sex Olympics sport they were inventing – so that left only one option as to who might have wanted the door bolted – and it was an option she didn’t even want to consider.
Her heart pounded in her chest with sudden fear, her mind racing as she tried to decide what to do. She was no Slayer; if the door was deadbolted, she knew better than to think that she would be able to get into the room on her own.
She could go down to the front desk and try to get the manager to come up and let her into the room – surely the hotel staff would have keys to the deadbolts…But…how could she convince them to do it? There was no audible sound from the room, no indication of any actual trouble.
The hotel manager would probably just think she was a nosy little sister trying to give her sister and her boyfriend a hard time.
The only other conceivable way of getting into the room – was simply to knock, and hope that the Slayer would let her in, perhaps attempting to maintain the façade of actually beign her sister – so that she could help Buffy regain control.
But – what if in so doing, she somehow managed to place Spike in a more dangerous situation? She really had no idea whatsoever of what was going on behind that door. The Slayer demon that was quite possibly in control of her sister at the moment was not exactly a stable personality; she was violent, and cruel, and easily angered – and therefore absolutely unpredictable.
Dawn just stood there for a long moment, trying to hear any sound from beyond the door, trying desperately to determine what she should do – painfully aware that as she stood there in clueless indecision, the precious seconds ticked by, quite likely bringing her friend and her sister to their destruction.
Spike’s razor sharp fangs slid easily through the soft flesh of the Slayer’s throat, and he slowly drew in a mouthful of the hot, rich fluid that flowed through her veins – taking his time, allowing the taste to fill his mouth before swallowing it down, relishing the feeling of strength and power that washed through him at the first taste of the potent Slayer’s blood.
He had to make himself go slowly, he reminded himself – had to give the blood time to work in his system. By the time she would become alarmed at the amount he was taking and try to make him stop – he wanted to be strong enough to hold his own against her.
If he was careful, he could use the mark his fangs were currently marking again to drive the Slayer to a place of pleasure where she would not even notice how much blood he was taking – would not notice the increase in his strength, or the waning of her own – until it was too late for her to do anything about it.
Her dominance ritual had failed; the only power she held over him at the moment was through her superior strength and better physical condition at the moment – which was only a result of the brutal torture she had just put him through.
He drew slightly harder the second time, allowing his fangs to slide partially out of the pierced flesh, then slowly back in, and the Slayer gasped at the pleasurably painful sensation as his natural weapons grazed against her sensitive, injured flesh. Spike felt her arms clutching him tighter, holding him to her as she arched her neck to give him better access.
He fought off an instinctive sense of panic at the restrictive arms that held him, fought the impulse to either attempt to break away right then – which would have been utterly useless – or to draw hard on the blood flowing from her throat right then, to quickly snatch from her the strength he needed to rid his violated, degraded body of her hated touch, and break free of her forever.
But that was too risky.
He couldn’t take a chance of making *her* panic and push him away before he was strong enough to keep her from doing so. Besides – everything was going according to plan. He was slowly but steadily weakening her, and the pleasure of his bite filled her body and mind so thoroughly that she appeared to have no thought whatsoever of making him stop.
“*Harder*,” she gasped, one hand rising to the back of his head and pressing his head down demandingly against her neck.
Resentful of her dominant, demeaning behavior, and the cruelty he had suffered at her hands already this night, Spike was more than happy to oblige. As he drew hard from her throat, pulling her sweet, hot blood into his mouth and swallowing it down in great, greedy gulps, she moaned softly in pleasure.
“*Spike*!” she gasped. “Spike, yes! More!”
His rough lips pressed against the ivory column of her throat, Spike smiled a wicked smile around his fangs, as he began to feel the injuries she had dealt him that night beginning to heal – cuts closing up, burns fading away, as a renewed sense of strength and a sharp awareness cut through the fog of pain and fear that had closed in on him the moment he had awakened to find himself naked and chained to the Slayer’s bed – more vulnerable than he had ever been in his entire existence.
With a growl of menace and challenge, his arms shot out at his sides to break the Slayer’s loveless embrace, and he gripped her arms and pushed her down to the floor under him, before she had time to react or protest. Her eyes widened in shock and alarm as she suddenly realized what was happening, and *did* try to push him off of her – but it was too late by now.
Spike’s strength exceeded hers now, and he easily held her down, his fangs latched into her throat, unrelenting. She fought uselessly to break his grip, letting out a sharp little cry as he drew another long draught of her blood from her veins and into his own body.
He was no longer taking care to make the experience pleasurable for her.
Before she could make another sound, one of his hands moved to cover her mouth tightly, at the same time tilting her head and allowing him better access to her throat. Her eyes were wide and full of panic as her free hand slapped ineffectually, with ever-weakening movements, at the increasingly powerful vampire, drawing her ever nearer to the edge of unconsciousness.
*Go ahead,* Buffy encouraged him in his head. *It’ll give us more time…*
That was all the permission Spike needed, as his concerns about hurting his mate’s body were soothed by her decisive direction to do just that. She *wanted* him to do this.
He drew back fro a moment, golden feral eyes meeting her wide, terrified emerald gaze, as he smiled with wicked glee, leaning in close to her ear to whisper his next words with a chilling menace of triumph.
“Say goodnight, Slayer.”
Her eyes widened further with realization, as he plunged his fangs into his mark again with a feral snarl, drawing another hard pull of blood from her body – enough to send her crashing into the blackness of unconsciousness.
Dawn’s eyes widened on the other side of the door, but she felt a sense of relief at the sound of her sister’s voice, moaning Spike’s name, urging him on to more. It was incredibly disturbing to hear the desire in Buffy’s voice, to know what she and her best friend were doing on the other side of that door – but not quite as disturbing as the almost animalistic noises she heard coming from both Buffy and the vampire in the next moment.
Was Spike *growling*?
And then – the sounds that her sister was making…
*Gross, Buffy!* Dawn thought, rolling her eyes as she turned away from the door and headed back down the hall to her own room, satisfied that her worries had been for nothing.
Buffy and Spike were simply having loud, obnoxious sex – in the middle of what was probably the most dangerous, traumatic time of all of their lives.
**That’s* brilliant,* Dawn thought to herself with annoyance. *Way to prioritize, Buffy!*
Still, she felt a tremendous sense of relief and satisfaction as she walked back into her own motel room. She would be able to sleep now; she had heard enough to put her mind at ease.
*Much more than enough, actually,* she corrected in her mind with a sigh, as she climbed back into the bed next to her mother’s and drifted off to sleep.
Spike locked the chains that had been used to bind him tightly around the Slayer’s wrists, then allowed her limp arms to drop back down onto the bed, before moving toward the foot of the bed to make sure her ankles were secured as well.
She had been out for nearly twenty minutes already – long enough for Spike to get her back into her clothes, and securely restrained – though the chains were not nearly as cruelly tight as she had made them when she had used them on him. She was unconscious, and restrained, and incapable of doing any more damage to him – therefore no further damage was necessary to be done to her at the moment.
Though his demon still screamed out in a rage that told him it felt otherwise.
He stared down at the peaceful, sleeping face that had twisted in rage and violence as she had tortured him so viciously, violated him without pity or compassion – remembering other moments, when that same face had smiled at him with love and affection, or gazed at him through wide, tear-filled eyes full of sorrow and sympathy.
His tormentor, enemy, lover, and dearest friend – all rolled into one.
It was bloody mind-boggling.
Suddenly, despite the Slayer’s blood singing through his veins with a vibrancy and strength he had not felt since Buffy had claimed him – Spike was utterly exhausted. He allowed himself to fall back into the chair beside the bed, leaning his head back against the back of it and closing his eyes as he drew in a deep, shuddering breath that was part relief, and part…well, part…
There was just no word for what he was feeling at that moment, the pain and confusion and love and concern and guilt and fear and relief, all rolled into one great big overwhelming *thing*, until he was half afraid that he was losing his bloody mind.
*We did it, Spike,* Buffy’s gentle whispered reassurance in his mind was comforting – almost *too* comforting, when his emotions were so on edge as it was. *It’s over.*
*Not yet, it’s not…close…but not quite, Slayer.*
Something in the curt, sharp tone of his thoughts, and the unconscious use of her title, struck Buffy as odd, sending a cold little shiver of hurt and apprehension through her heart.
*Spike?*
He sighed heavily. When they were this close, it was impossible for him *not* to know the emotional effect his response had had on her.
*Sorry, pet,* he thought immediately. *Don’t mind me – had a bit of a rough bloody night is all – and it ain’t over yet.* Even if she *hadn’t* known him far too well to believe him completely, the slight tremor on the end of his words as he thought of what was still to come this night revealed his emotions to her.
*Spike…*
The tenderness, the apology and sympathy in the whispered word was almost more than he could bear.
“Don’t,” he whispered aloud, his voice choked with emotion. “Don’t, Buffy…”
But she already had.
In the next instant, he felt an overwhelming sense of love, safety, a warmth and reassurance that his ravaged heart and body craved desperately, after this night of horror and pain, as Buffy deliberately revealed the depth of her love for him, her gratitude for the sacrifice he had made, wrapping her love around him like a warm, comforting, shielding blanket.
*I love you so much,* she whispered, the words intent, earnest and sincere. *You have no idea, Spike…I don’t think *I* did…until tonight. I *love* you.*
He did return her sentiments, in his heart – he *did*. But somehow, he couldn’t bring himself to respond – not now. His emotions were too jumbled, too confused and raw and painful, for him to even begin to try to respond. He sat forward in his seat, his elbows on the table in front of him, and his head resting in his hands.
*Buffy – Buffy…* he tried to reply, but all he could manage was her name.
And in the next instant, though her body was chained to the bed, immobile – thankfully – it was as if he could feel her warm arms wrap around him in tenderness and comfort, could hear her soft, understanding voice whispering to him softly.
*It’s okay, Spike…it’s okay…let it go…*
Her tender embrace, her gentle words, were the key to unlock the floodgate of his emotions, and he collapsed over the table – though with his eyes closed, surrounded by the love of his mate, he felt as if he was in Buffy’s arms.
He knew that the night was far from over. In a few short minutes, most likely, judging by typical Slayer stamina, the Slayer would be awakening, and he and Buffy would need to complete the plan they had developed. His work was not yet through, though he felt safe in saying that the worst was most definitely over – at least, he bloody well hoped so!
He knew that there was more to be done, that he could not lose it completely – not yet. But for now, the Slayer was still unconscious on the bed, and Buffy’s embrace surrounded him, and he was free to do as she gently advised and simply attempt to let go of the agony and fear and shameful vulnerability of the past few hellish hours.
To all appearances alone – and yet, not at all – Spike lowered his head into his arms on the table, feeling the invisible arms of his mate around him, as he gave vent to his emotions – and wept.
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