Willow jumped visibly at Xander’s question, while the Slayer just looked down, avoiding her friends questioning gaze.
“Come on guys” Xander pressed, his voice soft and laden with understanding “It’s not natural seeing you two at fighting, unless of course Willow’s trying to end the world. You’re not trying to end the world are you Wills?”
No answer, but at least the two had glanced at each other all be it a wary look. “Guys?” he prompted again, voice beginning to betray irritation.
The shrill ring of the phone shattered pierced the heavy atmosphere like a scream, causing all three to flinch. Buffy regarded the phone with a suspicious look for several moments before Willow found her voice “Are you gonna get that?” she asked timidly.
Willow watched the one sided conversation with increasing alarm, she managed to glean that it was Jake, calling for Dawn, Dawn who they all assumed had spent the evening at the movies with Jake.
“Okay Jake, I’ll let her know you called, bye” Buffy finished, her voice devoid of emotion as she hung up.
She looked up at the pair, eyes laden with guilt “Dawn’s missing” she informed them unnecessarily. Her eyes met Willow’s, luminous and brimming with tears. “It must be…”
“Spike” the redhead supplied, when her friend trailed off. “He must have her, it’s just too big a coincidence”
“Spike, what? Are you serious?” neither girl acknowledged Xander’s bemused questioning.
“Can you find her, a spell?” Buffy solemnly asked the witch, who nodded confirmation. “Do it.”
……
Dawn had not been this scared since she had stood on Glory’s tower and watched Spike fail to save her from Doc’s blade. The same Spike who had worn such a heartfelt expression of regret as he had fallen from the tower. The same Spike whose unnaturally strong hands where now leaving bruises on her thighs as he pushed her legs apart. She had exhausted herself with fruitless struggles and could now do nothing more than lie there beneath him and weep.
She cried with fear for herself, she cried for Buffy who had been through the same, and despite the horror of the situation she cried for Spike, for her friend, for the trust they had once shared, about to be lost forever.
Spike lifted his head from where he was drunkenly tasting the salty skin of her collarbone and looked into her tear filled eyes. She was so utterly desperate, so completely afraid, he would rip the heart out of whatever had put that devastated look on her face, he’d tear their head off and…
He stopped his inner rant. That would be him of course. “Sort it out mate” he growled audibly and reached down the free himself from the confines of his jeans, startled to find his body was not exactly a willing accomplice to this defilement.
Dawn heard his zipper and began to fight him again in earnest, muttered pleas tumbling unbidden from her lips.
He looked up again at her face, dark hair lightened to gold in his minds eye, honeyed skin and green eyes filled with hurt and betrayal. A different voice filled his ears “Spike. Please Stop, I’m hurt”
Dawn felt him retract from her as if she where covered in holy water, she opened her eyes to see him scrambling back to huddle against the far wall, head buried in his hands, mindless words of regret and apology tumbling from his lips.
He lifted his head fixing her with tear filled eyes, wide, guilty and confused, and then she heard it, one word breathed so softly she could have missed it. One uncertain word that had her crawling across the ratty motel carpet towards him “Nibblet”
She pulled his shaking body to her own. His head pillowed against her breasts in an almost maternal embrace, shushing him gently as he babbled out his regret, the promise to never hurt her again repeated like a mantra against her skin. She rocked him gently letting the forgiveness that in Buffy she had refused to understand pour out of her and wrap around him like a warm blanket.
“It’s okay, Spike, it’s okay. Hush, it’s okay, I got you” her voice was soothing and gentle, her hand stroking his hair.
“Nibblet, little bit, I’m sorry. God I’m so sorry. Never hurt you. Never hurt you again. I’m sorry, so sorry” his words where muffled against her chest and his hand clutched desperately at her slim shoulders. “Forgive me, please, I’m so sorry”
She held him like that, until alcohol and emotional exhaustion finally claimed him. She followed him quickly in to sleep, propped awkwardly against the cold wall.
…………
“Shouldn’t we call Giles?” Willow questioned the Slayer as she and Xander hurried to keep up with her brisk pace.
“No time.” Buffy answered shortly, her face set in a mask of grim determination as she strode towards the car.
They sped towards the outskirts of town, where the Barret Motel stood in all its seedy neon glory.
…….
His eyes cracked open and he found himself in a warm, comforting embrace, the night’s events coming back to him slowly. He extracted himself gently from the girls embrace and stood, scooping her up effortlessly as he went. She shifted against him and he stilled, not wanting to wake her.
Two smooth steps had them alongside the bed, where he laid her body gently down on top of the covers, pulling her tattered blouse closed as best he could. He sat down beside her and studied her sleeping face, so pretty and vulnerable, his Nibblet.
She was his. He knew that. Knew that somehow she was his responsibility, his to protect and cherish. He touched her face gently, Dawn, she had called herself Dawn. The name meant nothing to him, but she did. From what place or time he couldn’t say, he had no memory of her, nothing for his mind to grasp on to but the certain knowledge that she was his.
A screeching of tyres on gravel announced the arrival of the Slayer and her merry band of do gooders. He moved to the window twitching the curtain to get a look at her, God but the she was magnificent, hair catching in the breeze, her feet planted firmly apart as she surveyed the motel car park. The witch pointed in his direction and he withdrew deeper into the room, listening to their footsteps crunching on the gravel outside.
With a loud crash the Slayer made her entrance, the door flying inward as her booted foot ripped it from its hinges. Her eyes went first to the girl on the bed, taking in her dishevelled appearance and tearstained face. When her eyes found him they blazed with righteous fury.
She was on him quick as lightning, one frighteningly powerful kick sending him crashing backwards, his body leaving an imprint in the plaster of the wall. “Spike!” she hissed his name, venom and horror mixing in her voice.
He gave her a sardonic smile as he climbed almost casually to his feet. The dance was finally about to begin. “’Ello Slayer” he drawled, “How’ve you bin? Life been all blood and peaches since you left me to burn?”
“Don’t” was that a command or a plea? He wasn’t sure. “Just don’t!” definitely, inexplicably, a plea.
“What’s the matter Slayer? You look like you’ve seen a ghost” He tucked a thumb through his belt loop and grinned at her. “Guess you weren’t expecting the big bad to pull a bloody phoenix on ye hey?”
“Why Spike?” she was looking at him with huge luminous eyes, full of hurt and betrayal. He frowned, betrayal? As if this wasn’t entirely expected of him.
“Why?” he asked her incredulously “You leave me to burn and you ask why?” he scoffed at her “Just supposed to forget that am I, all is Bloody forgiven.”
He had moved closer while he spoke, although she didn’t seem aware of it, perfect, striking distance. His fist shot out connecting mercilessly with the side of her face, sending her stumbling to his left. He took the opening and barrelled through the closed window, landing on the gravel outside in a graceful roll.
He ran across the courtyard, his blood singing with excitement at the sound of her pursuing footsteps. He turned to face her, God but she was amazing, face flushed, adrenalin pumping though her body, making it buzz with power.
He titled his head to the side, regarding her with a knowing smirk. “This is gonna be a kick”
To Buffy the moves of their dance where so familiar she hardly needed to think at all about it. Punch, duck, spin kick, repeat as required. Instead her mind wandered, to Dawn, motionless, but still breathing despite her torn clothes and tear stained face, on his bed. He hadn’t killed her maybe… No she could not afford to hope. It was hope that had stayed her hand with Angelus, and people had died for it, she would not hope again.
And yet the words came. “Spike, please, stop this. We both did what we had to. You know I never would have…” A fierce round house to the side of her head cut her off and sent her to her knees.
He was on her in a flash. Kneeling behind her, holding her flush against his body, her arms pinned uselessly to her sides. “Oh yes, Slayer” he hissed in her ear, so close that despite herself Buffy felt that oh so familiar fission of desire ripple through her body. “We did what we had to. Had to save your precious Angel didn’t ya?”
Her brow furrowed, save Angel, what was he talking about? Was he angry because she had chosen him to wear the amulet rather than Angel? She tried again to reason with him “You know why I chose you over Angel” she told him firmly, “it was our fight not Angel’s”
“Bollocks!” he countered vehemently, “it wasn’t about you, or Angel, it was about her, about saving her. And now she’s gone, because of you” He brought his head down towards her throat, his lips moving over the skin as he spoke. “But we can fix that now, all I gotta do is kill you and I can get me my Dru back in the land of the un-living.”
A lightning fast twist of her body, combined with a backward thrust of her head and she was free. Turning on him again eyes flashing with rage and jealousy “Dru!” she almost screamed the name “Dru! After everything… It’s still about Dru?”
He frowned, the poor bird was clearly as crazy as the lady in question, wasn’t everything about Dru? Another round of vicious kicks and punches saw Spike at a disadvantage, trapped between the Slayer and the wall of the motel, her stake poised for the kill.
She hesitated, he almost crowed with satisfaction at the sight. That split second that could win or lose a fight, and she hesitated. Ever the opportunist Spike reacted, one hand snaking out to grab her wrist, while he moved in close to throw her over his hip. She landed heavily on her back, breath exiting her body with an audible whoosh.
She didn’t struggle when he descended on her, body covering hers fangs travelling towards her exposed throat. She felt a strange wave of numbness grip her body. He was going to kill her, somehow it seemed fitting that she would be his, one way or another he had always possessed her, and how he would make her his third.
Sighing her acceptance she let her head fall to the side giving him better access to her jugular.
He recognised the stilling of her body, the strange calm that pervaded her being. Her resigned sigh confirmed his suspicion. There it was at last, the slayer death wish, finally catching up with her. His fangs pierced the soft skin of her throat with and almost reverent care, a clean wound over an old unnoticed scar.
Her blood was like fire, powerful, potent and intoxicating. His mouth burned with the taste and his body sang out in ecstasy. Slayer blood, the best of the best.
Then they came, with every gentle sip of her life’s blood he saw them, images and words, flashing across the screen of his mind. Scenes he had never witnessed playing out behind his eyes.
He saw the Slayer at the tip of Angelus’ sword. Saw her fighting vampires alongside him in a magic shop. Faster and faster the pictures, came, half formed and confused, she was laughing in one scene, in another she was scared, eyes filled with tears. He saw her body lying still on a pile of rubble and knew she was dead. He saw her throwing punch, sleeping, walking, issuing commands.
He pulled away from her throat and locked his eyes with hers “Buffy?” he questioned, searching her face for answers “What’s happening to me?”
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