Breathe Into My Pain
His first inquiry was naturally after her welfare, and he thought it rather odd when she favored him with a laugh. It wasn’t a rich laugh, but enough so to decipher that she was chuckling out of amusement rather than cynicism. And it bewildered him. Not that he would ever complain, of course. He would never deny her anything resembling merriment, especially given her current conditions, but it puzzled him all the same.
The way she looked at him still stole the nonexistent breath from his lips. Affectionate, even adoring, and more than grateful. For everything he had done and the hint of everything he would do. Life was a fucking hoot—giving him what he wanted while raping her of everything she deserved. While placing her here. Defiling her with the weight of his failure.
“You’re sweet,” she murmured against his lips.
Spike looked at her askance. “’m what?”
She did not answer, rather looked at him with eyes like saucers; eyes that could tempt him to his last strand of decency, all the while refusing to allow him leave of what had transpired within these walls.
It was awe. Bright, blinding awe. Awe behind her gaze. Behind her guarded thanks. Behind everything that had ever made him what he was or what he ought to be. Awe and adoration. There was no love—he would not delude himself. Buffy did not love him for this, and did not know his own regard, but there was something. Something warm and wonderful, amidst all the pain. And it astounded him. After everything she had seen him do, everything she knew him for, she could find it within herself to look at him like this.
“You’re real.” A statement. A last verification. Known but needed still for all its wonderful realism.
Spike smiled. He couldn’t help it. Nimble, eager yet soft fingers traced her face with adoring regard. There was nothing to do but agree. “Very.”
“You sent him away.”
Lament immediately rose within him. She spoke the truth, but it wasn’t as though he would be there to guard her when Angelus returned to seize what he thought was his. “He’ll be back, pet.”
“But you will, too. Be back.”
The vampire smiled, nodding as he leaned inward, unable to help himself. His empty lungs filled with her essence, his nostrils carrying her scent as far as physics would allow. “The next time you see me,” he whispered urgently, “it’ll be to take you away from here. You got it?”
“How?”
“There’s a plan, sweets.”
“Angelus…he has the…the only…”
He nodded once more, brushing a butterfly kiss against her temple. “I know,” he murmured. “But Cordy’s thought of somethin’. Albeit, ‘s not very good, but ‘s somethin’.”
Buffy fell silent for a few long seconds, her eyes heavy with burdened resolve. “Spike…” she murmured. “You…you never told me.”
“Told you what, baby?”
“Why.” She pulled back at that, gaze burning him to his core. He couldn’t help but swell with admiration. She was undoubtedly the strongest person he had ever known. The Slayer back and front when she wasn’t trying to be something else. A woman that didn’t know her own abilities. Buffy—the shadow of perfection that returned sunlight to hands that did not know what to do with it. The determination he saw there was nothing short of extraordinary. A need for knowledge that surpassed her well-being. That surpassed everything she was meant to be. And in that, he saw that despite what had transpired here, she would always be as she was. That strength could not be besmirched and abolished. “Spike…you hate me.”
A poignant smile drew to his face. She had accused him of as much upon first seeing him. “No.”
“But—”
He silenced her with another kiss, tasting lips that were just as raw, just as abused as the last time he demanded anything from her. “I don’t hate you, luv,” he whispered. “I wouldn’t be here ‘f I did.”
“Then why?”
A sigh sounded through his lips. He had been ready to tell her. So ready until Angelus interfered. Ready to reveal everything. To detail his agonizing love for her in ways that would likely result in her beg for him to leave her be. To die at the hands of these sadists rather than wish that sort of adoration upon herself. But then, she did not appear repulsed when he touched her. She returned his attentions as best she could and even made to initiate her own. He had told himself that it was due to the circumstance, but the smallest part of him couldn’t help but wonder. But hope. “You wouldn’t like it, pet.”
“Spike—”
“I don’t hate you. That’s all you need to know.”
A protest fettered to her lips but died in her eyes before it could be voiced. And then she smiled at him—undemanding and somehow understanding. As though she knew without needing to be told, or was complacent in the ever-elusive state of ignorance he thought was so necessary. “I don’t either,” she whispered. “Hate you. I don’t think I ever have.”
Spike’s stared at her in astonishment. “You don’?”
“You’re…”
“Pet, you don’ have to prove anythin’ to me. Ever.” His hands molded around her face softly, barely touching her but needing the contact. Any contact. “’m not goin’ anywhere.”
“Before…” she murmured. “Before this…before—”
“Don’ try to talk ‘f it hurts.”
“I need.” She indulged a breath to compose herself. “Spike, before. When we…were before. Before all…before Angel…before—”
He nodded encouragingly, brushing a kiss over her lips. “Before the wankers took you,” he acknowledged.
“You were…I know I never…never said it…” Despite the determination on her face, it was more than obvious that the last thing she needed to be doing was attempting to speak.
“Pet—”
“Before. You were…good…you were being good…to me. And—”
“Buffy—”
A flash of irritation surged behind her eyes, and he couldn’t help but admire her for it. Nor could he help the smile that spread across his lips at her forceful tone. That was his girl. “Would you let me talk? Please?”
That didn’t mean, however, that he would allow her to stress herself to the point of affecting her health. “You shouldn’t,” he told her. “Don’ worry yourself with me, luv. Ever. Whatever it is, it can wait.”
“No. In case…just in case…”
Something cold fell within him—the mere suggestion of any other possible outcome foregone on his caring candor. He looked at her astray, as though she offended him or endangered herself even further for the notion of anything else. “Don’t,” he said harshly, unable to help himself. “Don’t say that. Don’ even think it. We’re gonna get you outta here.”
“Just in case—”
“No.”
There it was. Plea. The rawness of emotions touching her where nothing else stood the chance. It nearly choked him—rightfully so. The brunt weight of everything he had ever seen, ever done, could not compare to this. There was no measure for credence. No measure for anything. “Spike,” she gasped, breaking his nonbeating heart all over. “Please. I have to…just this. This reassurance that you’ll…that you know how much I…” She paused to take a breath, raising her head slowly to meet his captivated gaze. “Thank you. Thank you for…everything.”
Thanking him. She was thanking him? For doing what was natural to him? For being here, for being…anything.
Spike’s vision blurred. “You don’ have to…I had no other…I…oh, Buffy, I…”
She smiled weakly. “Don’t tell me I rendered you speechless.”
He snickered inarticulately, regarding her with warmth that should have rightly set him ablaze. “Li’l more than that,” he replied.
There was a considerate pause, but she nodded all the same. It was oddly formal—this meeting between two people who had shared so much without sharing anything at all. His hands ached to touch her, to make her feel better as he had before, but his will forbade it. He would not reach for her intimately without permission. Not when she had suffered so much abuse. Not with his warring conscience warning him still that anything that had transpired had nothing to do with him. He was simply the first who had offered a caress of gentility. She would have taken it from anyone.
Though the thought made his already cold blood freeze within dead veins.
“There’s no reason,” she whimpered the next minute, drawing him back to her with the smallest glance. “No reason for you to be here, Spike.”
“You’re reason enough.”
“I never gave you reason.”
He smiled gently, unable to resist from caressing her brow with his lips. “You din’t need to. I know these blokes, pet. Know ‘em well. The whole nasty lot. The thought of you up here…that was enough reason for me.”
Buffy shook her head. The confusion on her face nearly tore him apart. As always, it was more than that. It had to be. And she knew it. Even without the luxury of viewing himself in a mirror, he knew damn well that his eyes gave him away a thousand times over. The years before his siring had taught him that much. Nights staggering home to Mother with the routine stop in front of the mirror to be sure he didn’t look too strained. Too disheveled. Too brokenhearted. He would look in the mirror and hate himself for what he saw staring back at him. A good man, if not one bent by society’s standards.
A hundred years couldn’t change that, nor could the demon inhabiting his insides. Spike reckoned his monster and William had spent enough time together to measure out the pros and cons of their individual status. The past few months had seen more William than he ever cared to acknowledge.
“He said…” Spike’s eyes immediately went to her face, large and inquisitive. Her voice, aching as it was, sounded heavenly to ears that ached to hear it. “Angel…he said…that you were…that you…”
Oh, bugger Peaches. The old ponce would have mentioned his love for the Slayer. He had been hoping she was too foregone to notice. Of course not. Life did not bend to that whim, even when the one being played was by no standards alive. Fan-fucking-tastic.
“Wanker says a lot of things,” he retorted dismissively with a shrug.
“Spike. No. He said—”
“Never mind what he says. Never mind anythin’ he says.”
The Slayer opened her mouth to contest him as she always would. As he would always have her do. However, by some decree, she held her tongue and kept her thoughts to herself. Then there was resignation. From the confusion playing a harp across her features to steadfast resignation. The unsatisfied acknowledgement that she would get nothing else from him.
In that moment, seeing that defeat on her face, he was inspired once more to tell her. Tell her, get it on the table, sod all consequences. He loved her. He was here because he loved her. Where she went, he would follow. Even if she led him into sunlight.
He loved her, and she deserved to know.
But not now. The courage he had so prided himself on failed once more. To see the face of her rejection here would outdo him. Especially given what they had already shared. He had touched her like a lover and she had not denied him. If he made the suggestion that such contact ever exceed probability, she likely and rightly would.
There was, of course, the old adage that traumatic experiences changed a person. That didn’t rest well with Spike, either. If she ever came to him of her own will, he wanted it to be out of genuine feeling rather than obligation. Rather than repaying a debt he would rather her live all her days than attempt to redeem. This was enough to fill an eternity’s worth of empty nights. This was everything.
“Dru.”
Spike blinked, startled and jolting back to study her eyes. “What?”
“Dru. Have you…have you seen Dru?”
He stared at her as though she had broken into a Broadway show tune. Drusilla? She wanted to know about Drusilla? The look in her eyes was serious enough, but he couldn’t believe it.
Where on earth had that come from?
“Well, yeh, ‘ve seen her,” he replied awkwardly, still unsure of what she was looking for. “She went huntin’ with them…with us. I din’t bite anyone, Buffy, I swear. I—”
“Have you…been with Dru?”
The peroxide vampire simply stared, searching her eyes for whatever she was not telling him. Then with a notion of the same, her gaze dropped to the ground and she attempted to hide, best she could as she was. Naked and exposed—open to anything or anyone that decided to take pleasure in her body. The move was so random, so blessedly unexpected that he didn’t know whether to demand meaning or bark a laugh in turn.
“Dawn,” she said just as suddenly. “Glory. Does…where’s Dawn? How—”
“The Bit’s in England with Rupert,” Spike retorted easily. “’E took the lot of them to get away from that Hellgod bint.”
“Mom?”
“With ‘em, I think. ‘E’s ‘avin’ the Council of Wankers help her with her condition. At leas’, tha’s what he suggested.” That had been days ago, he realized. Days, and yet what all had happened. What all had changed.
There was a widening in Buffy’s eyes that he hadn’t seen in what felt like forever. That innate Slayerness that coursed through her veins overpowering any need for herself in order to think in the welfare of others. He had no idea how she did it. How she could even form rational thought with all she had been through. “Spike,” she whispered urgently. “If something happens…if I—”
“You won’t.”
“But—”
“No bloody ‘buts’, Buffy. ‘m gettin’ you outta here.”
“—you have to watch her. Okay? Just…just please…promise me that. Promise—”
He stole her words with a kiss to silence her completely, hoping that her better judgment and—more appropriately—some form of anger would speak for her. It did not. Instead, she matched him for what she could without doing further injury to herself, and it was obvious that she meant to fight the same when he pulled away. She would keep asking it of him until he complied. Until he agreed completely.
“Tell you what, sweetheart,” he murmured. “We’ll watch her together, all right?”
“She’s…she’s the—”
Spike’s eyes widened with alarm, knowing instinctively that whatever was about to spill across her lips was too important to be trusted with stone walls that might as well be paper thin. There wasn’t anything to suggest such, of course. He just knew it. And alliance or not, he wasn’t about to trust Lindsey McDonald with anything that had not already been endowed upon his shoulders. No matter that the moment the words tickled the air, he was inherently curious as to their conclusion. “Don’ say anythin’,” he warned. “Okay?”
Buffy paused to look at him inquisitively, and nodded when she understood.
“Just protect her,” she told him instead. “Please.”
“Like I said, luv, we’ll protect her together.”
“If I don’t—”
“’ll watch the Bit till the world ends,” he promised. “But not before I get you outta here safe an’ sound. All right? She’s fine. Anythin’ had ‘appened, I’d’ve heard from Rupert by now. The lover Wiccans are with the lot, too. Don’ think any of the Scoobies stayed in SunnyD after you…” What could he say? Left? As though she decided to take a holiday and vanished of her own accord? No. Even in such, he could not pretend. “After you were gone.”
That didn’t seem to calm her as he had hoped. Instead, Buffy’s eyes went wide, and she surged painfully against her restraints. The whimper that tore through her throat was the only mark of injury she made, but it caused his cold blood to boil all the same. To watch worn skin tear and reopen old wounds. As delicately as he could, Spike placed his hands on her shoulders to calm her, intent gaze matching hers for everything she had yet to betray.
“The Hellmouth,” she gasped. “The Hellmouth is…no one’s there to…”
“Buffy—”
“They’ll think…” She rested against his offered shoulder, panting with exertion. It killed him that it took so little to wind her. “Spike…they’ll think that…the demons…they’ll think I’m…that I’m dead. That the Hellmouth is free…free range. They’ll—”
“Don’ worry about the Hellmouth.”
“Spike! I—”
He discontinued her protests with a fierce, brazen kiss that did little to deter the worries sprouting on either side. However, she did not protest. Did not fight him. Offered no resistance. Rather, after a few seconds, she relaxed and returned his fervor with a touch of her own, making him burn all over with the slightest suggestion. He pushed his way into her mouth, marking her for everything she had left to offer, if only for a little while.
There was a contented murmur when they parted. Though he could not have been prepared for what she said next.
“How can you touch me?”
Spike blinked worriedly and jumped back as though scathed. “I’m sorry,” he gasped immediately. “God, I’m so sorry. I thought you…” So close and yet so bloody far. If he had pushed beyond the boundaries of his welcome, intently or not, he would surely meet the sunlight come morning. And when he felt courage enough to speak again, he nearly flinched at the dejectedness in his tone. “I thought that’s what you wanted.”
There was a thick pause as she studied him, and then, to the amazement of both, threw her head back and laughed. “Oh God, I do,” she reassured him. “You…I don’t know why…I thought about it after you…after you left me—”
He flinched; she did not respond.
“—the…things…you did things…” Her eyes fell with near shyness to the ground, and the notion did him in all over. “I never thought you’d touch me like that.”
“Neither did I,” he admitted. He never thought she would let him.
“You…” Then Buffy was looking at him again, overpowering her bashfulness for the more stringent curiosity. “You’re more than you say you are, aren’t you?”
“What?”
“Angelus…he…he’s hurt me.” Though he knew that, it pained him still with a flush of unbridled anger to hear the words on her lips. “He’s soulless. He’s a monster. You’re the same.” Her eyes locked with his. “You’re supposed to be the same.”
“I’d never hurt you.”
“I know.” And she did. Amazing. Looking at her, he saw that she did. “And that’s what…like I said, you’re more than you say you are. I never…God, I never saw it. Never…Spike, you’re…” A sigh. She shook her head. “I don’t know why…you won’t tell me. Tell me how you can…touch…”
The vampire couldn’t help the smirk that tickled his lips, nor the command to bend forward and work her body for her. Whatever it was, her words had inspired more than hope. Now he took to caring for her as a privilege. A duty. A bond that she shared with no one else. Trusted with no one else. His alone to play to endless perfection. “Like this?” he asked, licking a wet path around an erect nipple.
She crooned and moaned against him, answering with a breathy and barely audible, “Yes.”
“’Cause I want to.” Obvious enough. He nuzzled his face between her breasts, lapping up whatever he could. Dried blood. Sweat. Even the dirt and grime that had collected there. He didn’t care. It was all her. “’Cause you don’t need to feel pain anymore, sweetheart. After we get you outta here, ‘m gonna see you rightly cared for an’ pampered till the end of time.”
“But I…” Buffy hesitated, considering how to voice her concerns. “You can’t…it can’t be something you enjoy. I’m…look at me…I—”
Spike smiled against her, nuzzled still and refusing to leave for the moment. “Since when do you care about what I want?”
“Since you were good to me.” She moaned when his tongue came back into play, wiggling her hips a bit. As much as her chains would allow her. “Since I realized how…how…”
“Don’ say it,” he cautioned, lifting his head to kiss her again.
There was a rumbled chuckle that put more pressure on her lungs than she was willing to concede for the moment. “You should know by now,” Buffy told him, “that if you don’t want me to do something, then the last thing the to do is to tell me not to do it.”
“Touché.” Spike pulled back slightly, attempting to not enjoy the murmur of discouragement that shot through her in effect. “You’re gorgeous, Summers. Doesn’ matter what ‘e does to you. Doesn’ matter a damn. You’re…I’ve never seen—”
She rolled her eyes.
He quirked a brow. “You don’ believe me?”
“In a word, no.”
The vampire chuckled in amusement. “Sassy. You must be feelin’ better.” However, before she could voice her opposition, he pressed a decisive finger to her lips and shook his head, weary of her in every sense of the word. “Trust me, baby,” he murmured. “Walkin’ through that door an’ seein’ you…after everythin’ ‘ve gone through to get here…nothin’ more beautiful than that. An’ trust me, pet. ‘m a greedy bastard. I’ve gotta have it all. An’ I do with you. You’re so strong. So bloody…your courage astounds me.”
The twinkle behind her eyes fell without prompt, giving way for the more palpable twinge of sorrow. “I don’t feel very courageous,” she whimpered. “Or strong. If I…I would’ve been able to…I could’ve…”
He kissed the hollow of her throat in reassurance. “There’s nothin’ you coulda done.”
“I’m not used to being helpless, Spike. I can’t stand it.”
“I know.”
“I’m the Slayer.”
“’m here, luv. We’ll get you out.” Spike rumbled a sigh and rested his forehead against hers. “An’ you’ll be back to kickin my ass like ole times. To make it easier for you, ‘ll even pretend like it hurts. How ‘bout it?”
She smiled gratefully. “I couldn’t go back to hurting you. Not after this.”
“Oi. Don’ make promises you can’t—”
“I can’t.” She leaned forward and kissed him gently, and his entire body froze in turn. It was wonderful, the liberated feel of her lips on his. Of her doing. Of her initiation. Forming that connection because she wanted it formed, rather than the heedless reassurance that played from his end every time he demanded her mouth for his own satisfaction. The moan that tickled her throat in turn only served to further his conviction, and his legs quivered in turn. “You’re really here.”
“’F you don’ know that by now—”
“I know it. I just can’t believe it. I’ve never treated you…” Buffy’s eyes fell shut once more. “I don’t deserve it.”
Instant anger furrowed within him. Didn’t deserve it? He couldn’t think of anyone more deserving. “Yes you do.”
“Not from you.”
She was dancing closer to reiterating the same question he refused to answer, and Spike wasn’t sure that his will was strong enough this time around to bid the same refusal. The defiance that suggested he could not reveal all his bearings without losing something for himself. The path he ventured was dangerous and unsure, he knew, and the various stubs along the way could prove incurable if he suddenly took a fall.
Thus he retreated within himself once more. Seeking, hunting, needing something desperately to distance her from questions about his regard. She knew he felt something—that much was obvious. She knew it and she didn’t want to believe it, but she knew it all the same.
If the word love were to surface, it might rightly be the undoing for all of them. He had to distract her.
Her and himself.
“Why’d you ask about Dru?”
A brief pause. “What?”
“Dru. You asked me about Dru.”
Buffy released an exasperated sigh. “Don’t try to change the subject.”
“No. You asked me. I wanna know.” Spike cocked his head, inspired with genuine curiosity. “You asked ‘f I’d been with her since I got back. Why?”
The Slayer’s head lowered conspiratorially at that, and she snuck a peek at him to see if he was laughing at her. “Well…” she answered softly, almost afraid to be heard. “…have you?”
The peroxide vampire reckoned that after finding little evidence to the contrary, being continuously surprised by her was not going to help anything. And yet, he couldn’t help himself. It was self-inflicted, of course. Provoked at his own measure. But to consider her as he did now. The meek wonderment behind such fiery depths of solitude. There was something there that most definitely had not known existence long. Something burning and powerful. Something that was most assuredly not within the bounds of normal curiosity.
She was jealous.
The Slayer—Buffy—was jealous. And she hadn’t wanted him to know.
Liberated joy spread through him, though it had no rightful place. Given ordinary circumstances, Spike would have taunted her. He knew that upfront, just as he similarly knew that he would do no such thing now. It wasn’t a question of the ethics he was not supposed to have, nor the strain of civility deemed by the best as void to all of his kind. It was simple knowledge. Straightforward, simple knowledge.
“No, luv,” he answered softly. “She’s tried, though. Makin’ with the ‘come hither’ eyes an’ what all. ‘S prolly another reason Angelus wasn’ too keen on believin’ I was jus’ happenin’ by. No doubt she’s been wailin’ an’ givin’ dear ole grandmum an’ your precious ex a fair share of grief since I won’ entertain her.”
Buffy nodded, though it was obvious that she didn’t understand. “Why?” she asked a few minutes later. “Why haven’t…you’ve wanted Dru back for forever. Why are you doing…why any of this? Why not just…be one of them?”
There was an incredulous chuckle and he shook his head. “You’re a piece of work, Summers,” he noted admiringly. “Honestly, ‘f you don’ know by now…”
“How can I, when you won’t tell me?”
Touché. But every turn deserved another.
“Why does me bein’ with Dru matter at all?” Spike reached to tuck loose locks of disobedient hair behind her ear, thumb unable to help from caressing her cheek.
More uncomfortable fidgeting. Despite the circumstances, he couldn’t deny that he loved seeing her like that. And whatever the cause, she looked remarkably well for what she had been through. As though someone had fueled her with energy—with reason—since he last saw her. He wanted to believe that he had something to do with it, of course, but fool as he might be, Spike was not one to live in a world of his creation. Life with Drusilla had more than proven the dangers of such presumption.
“When you were here…” Buffy said softly, every word a caress that further inflated shards of hope that had no reason to be cared for. “When you were with me before, you…you made me feel…better.”
He arched a probing brow. “Better?”
“You…touched…” The hint of rouge tinted her cheeks, charming him. He well remembered their encounter. He had lived on nothing else since. “You touched me…and it felt…”
His mouth was tugging in a grin, but he didn’t want to embarrass her. Nor did he want to flood his own judgment with hope that led him through a series of falsely lit tunnels to the same drawn, empty conclusion. “Good?” he suggested softly.
The embarrassment was still there, though her countenance betrayed more a fear of rejection and mockery than her admittance to any sort of want of feeling. “Yes.”
Spike flashed a dimpled smile. “Good. ‘S s’posed to work like that, luv.”
“I know. But you…you haven’t…”
The allure on his face melted just as quickly to vexation. Haven’t…?
Oh.
There was little mistaking in that. His fingers danced over the tender skin at her thigh, not presuming anything more intimate for the moment. Though he doubted himself wrong, there was still something very erroneous about acting without permission. And here he was: granted the same he had always thought himself denied. She wanted him. Good God, Buffy Summers wanted him. His touch. His comfort. His caress. Him.
“I wasn’ gonna,” he replied softly. “Not unless you asked me. Din’t know ‘f I was…’f you wanted me to…”
The blush in her cheeks was growing deeper. Bloody mesmerizing.
“Not because of Dru,” he reassured her. “She’d never stop me from touchin’ you, pet. Only you have that kinda power.” Spike leaned forward and planted a kiss on her forehead, eyes falling shut. “I never thought you’d let me this close.”
“I wouldn’t have,” she agreed, moaning when his lips found her throat again. “Never. Oh…”
There was a rumbled sigh of concession. He forced his hands to fists and bade himself away with an inward curse. “We’re runnin’ low on time, darling,” he warned. “I better—”
Desperation filled her eyes: straight and urgent. As though she would collapse at command, chains and all. “No. Don’t go.”
The world had not known itself long enough to be deemed this cruel.
“I have to.”
“Please, Spike…” There was enough there to tug at whatever will he had left, but the peroxide vampire forced himself to be strong. To resist her, even if every fiber of his being commanded him otherwise. “Please don’t leave me. Not again.” Her face was falling with more despair by the second—commanding him with resolute dominance. “You make me forget. God, you make me forget. If you leave, it comes back. It’ll all come back.”
Spike swallowed hard, reactionary senses on autopilot. He couldn’t trust himself otherwise. “I’ll be back, Buffy,” he said softly. “You know I will.”
The doubt that had been there the first time he told her as much was gone, much to his relief. There was no reason to suspect him of fallacy now. Not with what had passed between them. A blessed so much and a mournful so little.
“I know,” she conceded at last. “I know. I just…I…”
“’S killin’ me too, pet. To be this bloody close.” A dark wave overwhelmed him, not terribly unexpected, but sudden all the same. His mind was not so agreeably engaged. Not when he saw the evidence of avarice sprawled before him in her barren glory. The marks embedded in her skin weren’t going anywhere, and he didn’t want to consider how many new ones lay in wait.
How she might suffer for his lapse at Angelus’s hand.
“’m gonna kill him.”
“Spike—”
“I mean it, Buffy. This isn’t somethin’ you can talk me out of…not that that’s been a big sellin’ point in the past. I don’t care that ‘e’s not your bloody Angel. I don’ care that ‘e has a pretty li’l clause that’ll make all this forgivable. I don’—”
“It’s not his fault.”
The words made him burn with insufferable fury. “’S not yours, either. An’ of the two of you, I wager I’d find more fault with tall, dark, an’ brooding.” He caressed her cheek absently. “’m gonna kill him, Buffy. Make no mistake of that.”
There was nothing but silence for a long minute, her eyes bland but imploring his all the same. In evidence of her searching for motive. For reason of being. For anything. There was life there. Life hidden beneath layers of hardened shell. As though she was trying to reemerge even when baring herself completely was at its most dangerous. It took only seconds to recognize what she was doing. What she was looking for. What she needed to find with such desperation that it took him asunder a whole new wave of awe.
She was reading him. She was looking into him. The notion touched him more than perhaps anything he had ever felt—more than her kisses, her acceptance, her pleasured moans as he helped her forget for just a little while where she was. Buffy had never gazed at him with a want of learning. She had always seen what there was to see in the eyes of a Slayer. She had always seen what every good little Chosen One should. And despite her reasoning, she had never attempted to look beyond that. Burdened and scorned happily within her prejudice. There was only one vampire that she would ever accredit leniency, and he had betrayed her. Betrayed her in every since of the word, even if the circumstances were not directly of his will.
Angel would not have wished this upon her, and Spike would kill anyone who had. Angel would have risked everything to get her out. Angel, despite reputation, likely wouldn’t have displayed as much patience as the platinum Cockney felt he had exercised. Angel wouldn’t have crumpled to look at her, even if it was tearing him up. He was a stone façade in any context.
But the Angel in her recollection had a soul. Spike did not. Yet here he was. Risking the same. Risking, perhaps, more than the same. Sharing her tears. Fighting her fights. Giving her everything with no question as to what he was owed in turn. Everything that conventionally defied a vampire was lost on him. And Spike was a vampire. He was a vampire of the strictest sense. A vampire that relished, that killed, that felt no pity or remorse.
Except that he did. And he was here now. That meant everything. The vengeance burning his gaze would not go unpaid. Because he was here. Because he was sincere.
Perhaps pain had calloused her feelings on the matter. The line defining right and wrong was so damn blurry. Spike saw himself through her eyes. Saw him, not Angel. Saw the acceptance that she made not only of him, but what he had sacrificed—risked—to be with her now. Saw that while he bore no marks of consequence, his wounds were just as deep as hers.
For the world, he looked a man ready to avenge the woman he loved. And he wouldn’t stop for anyone. Not even her.
Angel’s blood would not come at his expense. While there was no love lost between the two vampires, this had nothing to do with their notorious dislike of each other. And perhaps that was what defined it. What unclouded her judgment. Angelus had killed Jenny Calendar, and that was enough to sentence him. What he was doing now—to her, to civilians, to Spike—merited a second turn. And there was no Willow here to help him.
Perhaps with as much as she had at once loved Angel, these crimes stood for no forgiveness. Either way, the matter was out of her hands. That much was more than obvious. And Buffy would not begrudge her champion for it.
“All right,” she whispered.
Spike stared at her as though attempting to decipher whether she meant it. Her eyes could not lie to him.
Thus he smiled. “Thank you.” It felt an odd thing to say. Gratification for her approval of killing a former lover. But times like these were not meant for logic. Not with a Slayer of Slayers rescuing the victim of his own prey. The same that had taken his heart, even if she didn’t know herself to be a theft. The words were blunt and true. No want of further feeling could come from them. “I…what ‘e’s done to you…’s killed me.”
Selfish. Killed him. She was the one being tortured.
And yet, surprisingly still, she smiled her understanding. “I know. I don’t know why, but I know.”
A moment of complacent stillness. For perhaps the first time, they truly knew each other.
It couldn’t last long. Soon, Spike was pulling away, shades of regret shadowing his face. “I gotta go.”
And again, instant denial. She wouldn’t let him leave for the world. “No.”
“Buffy…’ll be back for you.”
“When?”
“As soon as I bloody can.”
He might have just declared it years; her eyes flooded with tears once more. How he hated that look on her, knowing that he caused it. And yet, there was resignation. Pain from both her heart’s tug and the worn, abused muscles affixed within an equally abused body. “I know,” she whimpered. However, there was more. There was always something more. And even after she spoke again, she seemed surprised at the sudden bout of desperate neediness clinging to her voice. A tone overwhelmed with unnamed emotion. “But, please. Please. If you’re going to…”
That was it. He couldn’t help himself if he tried. Spike edged closer, nudging her brow with his. “What do you need, baby? What can I do?”
Her eyes drifted shut. “Just make it go away. I don’t care how long. Just…please…I need…”
There was nothing else to be said. He nodded his understanding. “Like before?”
“You can…” Despite the tears, the blush was back, affecting him just as sharply as before. He didn’t reckon there was a move she could make that would fail to influence him in some fashion or another. “You can…”
It was possibly the only time that Spike felt safe enough to listen to her body for everything she couldn’t yet trust with words. He smothered the grin that fought to break across his face, afraid that she would interpret him in an unflattering light. The mere thought of caressing her intimately spoke for every privilege he thought himself unworthy.
His own needs would go ignored. He tuned them out as though it had always been so simple. This wasn’t about him; it never had been.
“Okay,” he murmured, brushing a nearly chaste kiss across her forehead. Then slowly, thoughtfully, he began to descend down the taut length of her, nibbling and licking a wet path as he went. He paused briefly to make gentle, however arousing play with her nipples, but his venture prompted him further southward; not content until he was on his knees, hands softly caressing her thighs to relax her.
He felt her tense as though her skin was naturally resistant to him. Quivering at the touch of a vampire. Spike did not find offense—he could not. Not with what she had suffered. It had been his kind that made this of her. That had done this to her. They had reduced a pure beacon of light into something that cowered under sheltered beauty. He knew that she did not think herself particularly desirable and perhaps would not for the rest of her days. The atrocities that she had endured had the ability to slash the source of any woman’s self value. Where the essence of her conscience resided.
He was more than determined to prove her wrong.
“Relax,” he breathed against the welcoming warmth of her, nuzzling lightly into the nest of curls that guarded him from the delicacy waiting for his touch. Her scent was driving him wild. It would be a miracle if he did not find himself dust at her feet by no other whim than his haven before all was through.
“I am.”
The Slayer was notably not the most gifted of liars. Not when it came to such things.
“Buffy, I don’ have to—”
“No.” She strained as far forward as she could, overwhelming him with the trust of gesture. “Please…oh, God, please. Please.”
Spike’s gaze traveled heatedly up the length of her, the pureness of her scent sure to do him in. She was breathing heavily, her head thrown back and her eyes closed; a look of thoughtful concentration mapping her face. It amazed him that she could ever doubt her beauty. That she could doubt that he wanted her, regardless of what had become of her body. True, every inch of flesh was caked with something other than her innate goodness, but it presented her with light that only emphasized her strength. Her stamina. Her everything.
She was moaning at his fingertips. Panting, pleading, begging him to touch her. The doubt that had harbored his stomach roused once more with caution, but he would not listen to it. Buffy knew who he was, what he was, and had asked him for this. Asked him to relieve her pain, if only for a minute. And despite whatever consequence his actions might produce, he would never refuse her.
Slowly, intently, he lowered his mouth to the warm wetness that awaited his touch, indulging in nibbling licks that all had the same objective. His teeth scraped purposely against her inner thigh, eyes glued to her face to indulge all her reactions. The beads of sweat that had lined her forehead had multiplied without command. There because they were there.
“Please,” she begged.
“Baby want somethin’?”
A scowl befell her. He didn’t think she could look menacing if she tried; even had her arms and legs been free. “Evil.”
He chuckled. “Always.”
She pouted when she saw he was poking fun at her duress, though the light in her eyes contested anything she might have wanted him to believe otherwise. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you that it’s not nice to tease torture victims?”
The words struck that haunting chord within, but Spike pushed his innate sense of retribution aside. If she was not bothered by it, he would not assume to highlight how it troubled him. How he hated to think of her as such and have no place to change it with the rapidity he so desired. But he smiled anyway. Kindly. Lovingly. “Sorry luv,” he murmured against her. “Must’ve missed that memo.”
Then he licked a wet trail up her slit, and his eyes nearly rolled back at the richness of her taste. It had been a sample, really. Nothing more than a sample. But God, it stirred emotions that he did not believe could become more potent. To have the flavor of her yearning for him—him—on his tongue was more than he ever thought he could touch. She had pushed his belief beyond boundaries of understanding in more ways than one.
“So sweet,” he murmured, fingers skimming up her leg to play. He felt her skin sprout shivers in turn and the notion enchanted him.
“Ohhhh…”
His mouth returned to her, nibbling softly at her moist folds. He maintained an inward smile when she strained against him. It was too little to be so much. Spike had long prided himself in being a purely sexual being, but for all his experience and usual control, nothing could have prepared him for this. For touching her so lightly and relishing the reaction received—his just as, if not more powerful than her own. He was lapping at her, cherishing her taste. Her warmth. The ambrosia that she willingly gave him. It was pure Buffy, and it drove him wild.
Spike managed to maintain purpose. He wanted to draw this out as long as possible, and while his motives at present were about as pure as the yellow driven snow, the reminder remained steadfast in its insistence that this had nothing to do with him. It was about her. About making her feel as much nonpain as possible before he left her side. Before he crawled away to the real world and abandoned her for the likes of what Angelus would do. For what had passed.
“Oh God,” she gasped headily. “Spike. Oh God.”
Of course, if she kept on like that, he wasn’t sure he could maintain command of himself.
“Please,” Buffy whimpered, her voice burdened with fraught passion that even she had thought long dead. “More. Please. I need…oh God—” She buckled against her bindings when his tongue came closer to penetration, and he immediately pulled back, not wanting to cause her more pain. “No! Please more. Please. God, I need you.”
Spike froze. His eyes met the desperation in hers, but for the first time since seeing her, it wasn’t her that his thoughts favored. He wasn’t even sure that it was himself. “What did you say?” he asked, voice barely audible even to his ears.
“I need you,” she repeated, evidently missing the significance of such a confession. With so little having been said, he found it amazing, even in this situation, that she would give him that much. That she could give him that much. And that she didn’t even realize what it was. What it meant for her. For him. For both of them. “God, Spike…I need you so much.”
A moan of concession tore through his throat. He caught her swollen clit between his teeth, enveloping the needy bud without ceremony. He nibbled at her. Tasted her. Rubbed her sensitive skin between his teeth with rough gentility. Nimble fingers caressed her labia before his mouth took over. He tasted every inch of her, claiming her all over. When he tasted the blood that had driven him off just two days before, he suckled at it. Greedy. Desperate. Not hurting her. He would never. But at some point, will and rationality had abandoned him. He was inebriated with her taste, and her words were the driving force that saw him home.
She mewled his name again, her heated cries becoming frenzied. When his attention returned to her clit, the words that had been fighting her sensibility abandoned her without merit. His tongue encircled her once, twice, and drew her inward once more. The whimpers rumbling from her throat shot straight to his crotch; he was so hard that he couldn’t believe the flimsy zipper separating him from entrapment and relief had held. Every lick was serving to make him more lost. His hands ached to see to his relief, but he knew that to leave her body in any form would see the rightful end of him. He couldn’t stop touching her.
“God,” he gasped into her skin. The vibrations he sent against her only fueled her ardor further. “You taste so good.”
“Ohhhhh…”
He wasn’t sure if she had heard him or not, but her hips thrust forward in sharpened frenzy. That was it. All it took. His tongue delved inside her sweetness, searching and finding, seeking and needing. He stroked and lapped and took up all he could. He was a selfish bastard; there wasn’t a sip of this nectar that would go to waste, not a taste that he would concede to another. The tips of his fingers found her clit and caressed with gentleness that offset the ferocity he was attempting to keep at bay. He had tasted perfection and the unspoken suggestion that he might have to give it up was enough to bring out the monster he had spent weeks repressing since his feelings knew light. He found that perfect spot within her and probed relentlessly—even after he felt her start to tense. Even as the ripples of orgasm rode through her. Even as he knew this was when he was supposed to pull away and return to the world outside. The world darkened because it was denied her light. The world he was here for. The world that had given him her, only to rip her away again.
Spike’s hands clutched at her thighs in desperation as the echo of her euphoria died around them. He held her so tight he began to fear hurting her further, rationality pouring back into him as his arms loosened and drew her near. A soft whimper pushed through his lips and his head found solace against the flat of her stomach. It took a few seconds to realize that when his vision blurred, it wasn’t because of the passion that had overwhelmed him.
Now that he had been given this much, he didn’t think he could ever let her go. The strain of what he was—the trueness in his character—was beating him without relent. And until that moment, he realized, he had not known himself. Not known the weight of what he felt. The emotion playing his insides, the rawness of suggested despair, everything to mark him time and again would wear him out before he could identify the cause.
He knew it was true. In those seconds, he knew without doubt that he loved her. Loved with more than he was worth. There had been no doubt before, but now there was no question, either. It was beyond infatuation. Beyond desire. Beyond everything. He had never known ardor like this. Not with anyone. And it terrified him. Spike was not accustomed to being frightened. He couldn’t remember a point in his unlife that had left him so barren that he didn’t know if continuing was an option. He had claimed it so with Drusilla, but that was nothing compared to this. Nothing compared to the warm, pliable body in his arms.
The same meant to damn him and serve as his salvation.
And he knew, he knew. Saving her now was more than rescuing the woman he loved. Saving her was more than anything he could have hoped to grasp. It was decided then. Regretless. For the air he did not need to breathe, for the tears he was not supposed to shed. She was his anchor. His light. Touching her was to touch the sun and feel only warmth without the burn. No one deserved to know that sort of radiance.
He had to save her.
If he did not, there would be no one to save him from himself.
No one.
To be continued in Chapter Twenty-Nine: Bottle of Red Wine…