“It happened. I knew it.”
“Yes, yes. You’re very clever.” Giles tossed him a pair of flannel pajamas. “I can’t…do this part. You’re going to have to change her.”
Buffy whimpered. “Change? As in…with the removing of clothing?”
Angel shrugged. “It’s nothing I haven’t seen before.”
“Thank you for that,” Giles grumbled under his breath. “Please, refrain from speaking about any…knowledge you might have about my slayer during this one and only time you will ever have my permission to disrobe her.”
Buffy shook her head so hard that she dizzied herself. “No,” she moaned. “No. No. I-I can change myself. I’m not completely helpless. I—”
“Buffy,” Giles berated softly. “You can’t see anything.”
“Well, that’s only because my eyes are swollen shut.” She scowled and tried to pry her eyes open, only to give up with a defeated moan. “Something I believe you were going to explain.”
“It’s called the Cruciamentum.”
“That much I gathered from the massive yelling,” she observed dryly, only to gasp and jerk violently when Angel tried to inch Spike’s black tee up her body. “No! No! I do not give you permission to change me!”
“Buffy, your clothes are wet. Captain Peroxide—”
She all but growled. “If you so much as think of blaming any of tonight on Spike, I will personally shove your nonbeating heart down your throat.”
“Buffy—”
“You led me there!” she spat. “You led me there and then you told me that Spike was bleeding and then this happened. Undressing me is the last thing you’re gonna be doing right now.”
Angel sighed. She could be so difficult sometimes. “Buffy, if we don’t get you out of the wet clothes, you’re gonna get sick.”
“Then let Spike change me.”
“You’re gonna have to make good on the nonbeating-heart-down-my-throat thing before I let Spike touch you.”
“I guess I missed the part where it’s any of your business.”
Angel rolled his eyes. “Okay. I get that you’re mad, but—”
“Mad?!”
“Angel was just assisting me,” Giles explained with a grumble from where he stood in the corner, his back to them. “The Cruciamentum is a test that the Council puts the Slayer through on her eighteenth birthday. As Watcher, it’s my job to administer the muscle relaxant—”
“Administer?” Buffy squeaked, ceasing her protests in astonishment, and allowing Angel the leverage he needed to tug the tee over her head. “Spike was right? You’ve been drugging me?”
“Buffy—”
“You drugged me and then ignored me when I started wigging?”
“But you didn’t,” Angel barked, turning his hands to the clasp of her jeans. “You’ve been so preoccupied with this Spike thing that you let the complete loss of your powers just barrel over you—”
“This Spike thing happened to be what saved my life tonight.” She paused and gasped when she realized that he’d jerked her jeans down her legs. “You sick pervert! Leave me alone!”
“Buffy—”
She kicked, but her effort was futile. “I want Spike!”
Angel froze and grabbed her leg. “Hold on.”
“I’m gonna ralph, Angel, I swear to God. Let me go!”
“Hold on.” He pressed her legs to the mattress, his eyes glued to her inner left thigh. “Giles?”
The Watcher didn’t budge. “Hmmm?”
“You need to see this.”
“I can’t tell you how much I don’t need to see this.”
Angel sighed. “This is no time for modesty. You need to see this.”
Buffy whimpered and twisted. “I don’t know what your damage is, but I’m not going to sit here and play the part of—”
Angel ignored her and scooted over as Giles joined him. “See?” he said, his voice barely above a whisper as he brushed his finger across the bite mark. “There—”
That was definitely the wrong move to make. Buffy’s rather weak but full-hearted struggles exploded into a frenzy. She twisted. She swung. She opened her mouth and pealed loose a scream that would make the heavens quiver.
Giles and Angel froze.
This was not good.
“I don’t understand,” Joyce remarked, sliding Spike a cup of hot chocolate and rounding the island, holding up an icepack. “Explain to me why Angel is here again?”
Spike sniggered and raised the mug to his lips, trying hard not to warm when she pressed the cold compress to his bruised head. In all honesty, he didn’t know what he’d done to earn the woman’s affection. There was no familiarity between them beyond the awkward discussion that took place the night that Joyce discovered her daughter was the Slayer. Well, their discussion along with the unfortunate head-hit-with-an-axe business. And yet, Joyce was serving him hot chocolate and looking at him as though he was her personal savior. That was a bit much for any bloke to take.
Especially when he was ignoring every raging instinct that demanded he bolt upstairs and hurl the intrusive tossers out the nearest window.
“Angel has a soul again.” He winced as the words left his lips. God, was that even an excuse? Spike snickered. “As if that matters.”
Joyce frowned and shook her head. “Buffy tried to explain this to me after she got back. And then…a few weeks ago, he was here. He was here one night when she wasn’t, and she tried to explain again when she got back. How Angel had gone from being her boyfriend to a murderer…I just never…it never made sense to me.”
Spike swallowed hard. The second time had been the kidnapping, he was sure of it. Angel had come by looking for her when she didn’t show. But the first time? When had Buffy popped off? From the way Joyce spoke, it sounded as though she’d taken an extended leave. “Buffy was away?” he asked pointedly, arching his brows so she couldn’t mistake his meaning.
A pained look crossed her face, and she nodded. “After…last year, after you left, Buffy and I got into a fight. I told her that if she left, she shouldn’t come back.”
Spike stopped drinking and calmly lowered the cup back to the counter. “What?”
“Well—”
“You kicked her out?”
The shame that colored Joyce’s eyes was perhaps the only thing saving her from being a midnight snack. That plus the knowledge that eating the Slayer’s mum wasn’t the surest way to win a girl’s heart. “She was the number one suspect in a murder, Spike. And Willow was in the hospital and suddenly, she comes out that she’s a vampire slayer. It was all a little hard to take on faith.”
“On bloody faith?” Spike demanded, recoiling in disgust. “We dusted a vamp right in front of you!”
“Yes, and that was rather startling.”
“You understand that if she hadn’t left, the whole sodding world would’ve been sucked into Hell, right?” He arched a brow and leered unpleasantly. “She saved the lot of you from something far worse than seein’ a vamp dust before your virgin eyes. An’ I’m willing to stake my unlife on the gamble that neither you nor any of her li’l friends bothered to show her any gratitude for what she sacrificed.” Spike scoffed and shook his head. “She hasn’t talked about it…about bein’ away an’ all, but I’m guessing it wasn’t a bloody picnic for her, either. Kicked out by her mum after running her honey through with a sword? Yeah, I can’t imagine why she’d never wanna see this pissant town again. Way I see it, you’re fortunate she loves the lot of you enough to come back at all.”
He’d struck a nerve; Joyce was pale and trembling, her eyes wide with remorse. “It…Spike, that was a couple months ago. We’re past this. Buffy…she’s apologized, and—”
“Did you?”
“What?”
“Apologize? You abandoned her when she needed you the most.”
“I was right here!”
Spike arched a brow. “You told her to leave. What was she s’posed to do?”
“She didn’t—”
“Joyce…” He held up a hand, then reached for his hot chocolate mug again. “I don’t wanna start a riff between you an’ your daughter, an’ I don’t wanna open up old wounds. But I think that asking her to shoulder the blame for everything is a bit unfair, especially considering the world she lives in. A world where…” He motioned upward with his eyes. “This happens.”
“Spike…” But she didn’t have anything to say.
Which was just as well. The next second, Spike felt a rush of pain and fury like nothing he’d ever known. It speared through him so forcefully he nearly fell off his stool. And in a blink, all rationality flew aside. Buffy needed him. She was being touched. She was being prodded by hands that were not his. She was crying for him.
“S-Spike?” Joyce ventured slowly.
The demon burst through his human face. He was halfway up the stairs by the time Buffy’s scream tore through the air.
“Get out.”
Angel blinked dazedly and met Giles’s furious eyes. “What?”
“You heard me. Get out.”
“She’s still—”
“You touched her. She screamed. Those are two things I would prefer never to have happen again.” Giles pointed at the door. “Get out.”
Buffy whimpered as she pulled the flannel bottoms that Angel had lain on her bed up over her hips. “Please,” she moaned pitifully. “I want…please. I want Spike. Please let Spike in here. Please.”
Angel and Giles just looked at her stupidly.
Tears squeezed through her swollen lids. God, why had she let them take her away from Spike in the first place?
“Please!” she gasped. “Where’s Spike? I need—”
Something crashed and the room was engulfed in a furious roar. She heard Angel barking in protest. Heard her Watcher object. The walls shook, and the roaring never stopped. And despite her confusion—despite the sheer frustration that came with her lack of sight—Buffy found herself calming down. Her heart wasn’t as sore. Her pulse wasn’t racing as hard. The bite mark still hurt, but not nearly as much. Angel’s alien, unwanted touch had her stomach in knots. She’d already had to choke down the need to vomit once, though had Angel not jerked away from her the minute she screamed, she might not have been able to help herself.
He’d touched her there. He’d shown her Watcher…that. He’d been so desperate to find a bite mark on her, and now that he had, she didn’t know what he was trying to prove. He hadn’t said, “Aha!” or made any allegations following the bite mark’s discovery. He’d just pointed it out.
Well, to be fair, she’d started screaming pretty much the next second.
Buffy jerked in time with a definite crash, swallowing a whimper when the door closed.
“Spike?”
She found herself in a familiar embrace the next second and the pain in her chest softened into a contented lull. “Spike?”
“I’m here,” he murmured, showering her face with sweet kisses. “I’m right here.”
“Giles? Angel?”
“I tossed Angel down the stairs. Giles…well, he’d’ve gotten the same treatment if he weren’t so bloody breakable.”
Buffy laughed and clutched at him. “Don’t leave me.”
Spike’s arms tightened around her. “I’m not going anywhere, baby,” he murmured, coaxing her head to his shoulder. “Not anywhere.”
To be continued