If you start to get confused because of thoughts in your head
Don't feel those feelings. Hold them in instead.
- Book of Mormon, the Musical -
Chapter 9
“Show me again,” Dru begged, her hands clasped together in supplication – the very picture of a Catholic schoolgirl.
The Shining Man’s hologram grinned and winked at her. “It seems like we might be forgetting something. We didn’t forget how to ask nicely, did we?” (Didn’t forget. Just didn’t want to.)
Dru dropped to her knees before the hologram, which leered, then said “Atta girl.”
With a shimmer and a flash, the image of the Shining Man was replaced by another vision. Two figures in silhouette. One was clearly Dru and the other was a man with bright white hair and a long black leather coat. They stood side-by-side in front of a Hellmouth, the lifeless form of a slayer at their feet.
(Together, Dark Prince William and I will kill a slayer, forever changing the destiny of the Hellmouth.)
“Yeah, yeah…” the Shining Man snapped back into focus, wiping away the vision with a swat of his hand. He pointed a finger at Dru, and raised his brows. “But not tonight. The next couple of nights you need to build your strength. Pick off some of these bottom feeders. I don’t want you going for your William just yet. The moment you take out someone from first class, they’ll suddenly begin to care and I want you a little closer to shore when that goes down.”
Dru nodded
(Bossy, full of cross words)
and began to stand. “Not quite yet
“Tonight, you’ll find your dinner on the stairwell, smoking a cigarette. He should be there in about ten minutes, so be a good girl and don’t dawdle.”
He gave a strange little salute, before he shimmered and then winked out of sight with a faintly audible pop.
Dru shifted into game face, then embedded the nail of her index finger deeply into the wooden bottom of the crate, cutting a jagged line along the floor just at her dollies feet.
(That’s the line you’re not to cross while Mummy is away.)
Though it was blackest night inside the crate, her dollies could see her line, she knew. They didn’t need light to see anymore than they needed words to talk to her. (Where did they begin and she end?)
Dru was feeling giddy. She always felt such a charge of dark delight after her Shining Man came to call (an ungentleman, but her savior). Her Shining Man took such good care of her. He’d arranged the crate for her, taught her where to catch fishies for dinner. He’d shown her a better way than the dreary existence she’d had with Angelus and Grandmum. The Shining Man had confirmed her destiny. She would create her Dark Prince William and rule at his side in a world of their making. He’d shown her the visions, and her Shining Man had never lied to her.
Nor did she lie to him, not precisely. She just didn’t tell him everything. (A good girl is a silent girl.)
Dru hadn’t told him of the vision that her dollies had shown her (clever darlings). Like the Shining Man, her little dears were never wrong and they’d been speaking to her a lot longer, though poor Miss Lily didn’t enunciate so well with that railroad spike in her mouth.
They’d begun talking to her on the night of her own mummy’s murder (such bright red blood, shining around her head like a halo). On that night they’d told her of the change that was coming. They’d told her of Angelus, of Grandmum. They’d told her of William, too, her Dark Prince that waited for her to bring him forth into unlife.
They’d told her of her future, her destiny. “Together, she and her Prince William would kill a slayer, forever changing the destiny of the Hellmouth.”
And like her Shining Man, they’d shown her visions as well. Lovely pictures (dancing in flames and blood). And though the words were identical to the Shining Man’s prophecy, the visions themselves were not.
In both visions, Dru could see herself, the body of the dead slayer and the Hellmouth. However, in her dollies’ vision, her prince did not have strangely white hair and a long black coat. Their Prince William was wearing a brown suit coat and had a gun strapped to his hip, his hair brown and curling.
Which vision showed her the true face of her Dark Prince? She did not know.
Miss Penny mumbled to her (not William’s time yet) and Dru stepped on Miss Penny’s delicate china foot, crushing it into shards beneath the heel of her shoe. (Yes, my darling. Mummy knows.)
Dru had been so very patient. Such a good, good girl, she’d been. Though the Shining Man bid her to wait, she would go to her prince when he called her.
(Three days, maybe four.) That was Miss Edith.
Dru reached over and patted Miss Edith’s head lovingly. Yes, she could bide her time for a few days. Build her strength until the time was right to find her Prince, gift him with his new life.
Blowing a kiss to her little row of silent maids, she opened the door of her crate and slipped out into the night, where the beating heart of her dinner waited on a nearby stairwell.
~*~
Sleeping in her clothes was a bad idea when she’d worn jeans and a tank top. When she was covered in yards of Victorian gear, it was spectacularly bad. Buffy woke up tangled in yards of material, the collar of her dress was digging into her neck.
William was already awake and dressing himself in front of the large closet. She moved quietly, tilting her head slightly, to get a better view. He’d just slipped his undershirt off his head and was looking through drawers, shirtless, his back to her. He certainly had a body like Spike’s. When he reached to a high shelf to retrieve a fresh undershirt, his muscles rippled and flexed. He was built more like a predator than the quiet English gentleman he proclaimed to be.
When he abruptly turned towards her, she slammed her eyelids shut quickly.
“Good morning, Buffy,” he said. She hadn’t been quite quick enough.
“Hi,” she mumbled, irritated at the happy tone in his voice. She’d let her guard down a little bit yesterday, and found herself regretting it. Especially when faced with a cheery, half-naked ‘husband’ who had a body that he, frankly, had no right to have.
“Sleep well?” He slipped an undershirt over his head and gave her a shy smile.
“Not really,” she grumbled.
“Sorry to hear it. Perhaps breakfast will be just the thing to restore your spirits.” He continued to dress, buttoning up a sky blue shirt. The color of it would bring out his eyes in a very disturbing way, she just knew it. It was really sneaky of him to be so cheerful, thoughtful, half-naked and blue-wearing this early in the morning.
Two knocks on the door announced that the porter had arrived with breakfast. While William went to collect the tray, Buffy wriggled off the end of the bed and sat down at the table, running her fingers through her hair in a futile detangling effort.
William set the tray down before them, lifting the covers from the various dishes and pouring their tea, while Buffy placed some toast on her plate.
“Not hungry this morning?” he asked.
She shook her head no. It was absolutely maddening how he was ignoring her level best efforts at being rude to him. He kept persisting in cheerful conversation. The bastard.
“I do hope you’re not getting seasick again. I could make inquiries to Dr. Crowdner, if you think that would help.”
“I’m fine!” She glowered at him.
That hint, mercifully, he seemed to take, and he began to eat his breakfast with no further attempts at conversation. She nibbled at her toast and watched him, trying to find a way to work through who he really was.
“Do you work out?” she asked, abruptly.
“Beg pardon?”
“Do you go to the gym? Work out? Seems like a strange thing for a gentleman to do.”
He smiled at her, his blue eyes crinkling at the corners. That shirt did bring out an icy blue shade to them, damn him.
“I box, Buffy. I believe that is the word you used.”
She couldn’t help but let out a short burst of laughter. “You don’t really seem like a boxing type!”
But he only remained smiling at her. “I couldn’t agree more, however you took issue with that, and insisted I persist in the sport. And you were quite right to do so. It was most enjoyable and has come in quite handy from time to time.” He raised his teacup in a toast to her.
“Who … who do you claim I was to you. I mean, before I was your wife. How did I come into your life? Some kind of Dutchess of East Pemblytonberkshire? What is your story exactly?”
“You were a member of my household staff.”
“Ah, the old reliable governess falls in love with the master of the house?”
“Something like that.”
“Like that? What was I?”
“A parlour maid and part-time nurse to my mother.”
“Oh god.” Her petulance was momentarily forgotten at the absurdity of the thought. “Did I suck at it?”
He laughed. “Not at all! You were a most excellent nurse. You brightened my mother’s days like no other – which is a primary duty for a nurse, after all.”
“But the maid thing. You can’t tell me that I was any good at that.”
“England has never seen anyone like you. Nor will they again, I’d wager.”
She looked at him skeptically.
“You were very …. transformative.” His eyes took on a distant look and he smiled to himself. “You were extremely good at…teaching me things, Buffy. You also had very thorough techniques when it came to finding hidden objects and protecting our family from unpleasant influences.”
It always felt so strange when he talked about her unremembered life. Either she’d done these things which she had no memory of, which left her feeling hollow and used somehow. Or he was lying, which filled her with silent rage. She vacillated between the two options – both of them making her feel equally miserable.
If she believed him, it meant that ten years of her life were gone, forever. That she’d forever lost her family, her friends, her life. That she’d some how turned into this woman who would choose to be living in this time, married to this strange version of Spike. On the other hand, if he was lying, she had a chance to regain her life, return to her destiny as the slayer, return to those who counted on her.
He had to be lying. He was just way better at it than she’d ever given him credit for.
When they were interrupted by two brief knocks on the door, William went up to answer it. Buffy scooted her chair back, assuming it was the porter to collect their dishes, and was surprised to see Dr. Crowdner standing in the hallway instead.
“Good morning William, Elizabeth,” he said, crisply, nodding curtly at the pair of them. “William, I need to speak to you, alone. Would you please step into the hall for a moment?”
William looked confused, but nodded and stepped out with the doctor, closing the door firmly behind him.
Oh, this didn’t look good, not at all. Private conversations about her, like she was a child while Daddy and the Doctor discussed her treatment? That wasn’t going to fly. She scooted over to listen at the door; the thickness of the metal was not very conductive to sound, however, and she could only catch a few snatches of conversation that made very little sense.
The doctor seemed very snippy. He asked if William had used the ‘device’ yet, and William, quite truthfully responded that he had not. The doctor then launched into a sermonette on being “sensitive toward the weaker sex.” It was difficult to catch through the metal. He definitely seemed to think that William had somehow been unkind towards her and said that he would like to collect the machine and return it to the storage hold.
William cracked open the door, and began backing up into the room, so she scurried backwards toward the table quickly.
“Very well. Once we’ve had breakfast put away and dressed for the day, I’ll arrange for a porter to get you so that you can supervise putting the machine away.” William closed the door behind him, and leaned against it in obvious relief. “Bloody hell.”
The way he said it chilled her blood; he sounded exactly like Spike.
“What did you say?” she asked, her voice a monotone.
“Bloody hell?” He looked perplexed, before guessing the cause of her irritation. “Forgive my cursing. You and I…used to engage in it while in one another’s company quite frequently. You were especially good at it.” He gave her another smile. His tenth of the day? She’d lost count at this point.
He rubbed a hand on the back of his neck. “The doctor wishes to take this machine back, at any rate. I seem to have offended him in some way. I suppose it’s just as well.”
“Don’t you want to use it?” She stuck her big toe in to test these waters.
“We needn’t bother with it.” He said, not meeting her eyes.
“Don’t you want to use it?” she asked.
“Not really.”
What kind of man wouldn’t want to use that on his wife? His reluctance drove her to push him in the very direction he sought to avoid. He must be afraid of using it on her; he knew he wouldn’t be able to keep his mask in place in an intimate situation.
“I want you to use it. Now.” There, her stupid mouth had said it. Her same stupid mouth that had suggested he be the one to use it on her in the first place.
He raised one brow and tilted his head, looking at her in a way mirrored Spike exactly. If she’d considered backing out of the deal, the look he’d just given her had well and truly closed that door for good.
“Yes, William, I’d like you to use the device on me, now.” If he didn’t want to use it on her, the only obvious course of action was to insist upon it.
He blinked. “Why?”
“As part of my therapy, of course.”
“No, Buffy. Why? Why now?” He reached out to touch her arm, but she jumped backwards before he reached her.
She turned her back to him, angrily unbuttoning the front of her dress.
She could hear him step behind her. When he spoke, his voice was low and measured. “If you won’t answer that question, can you answer this one? Yesterday you had begun to thaw, just a little. Why are you so angry at me today?”
The fool. She was angry at him because she’d begun to thaw, because he was beginning to get past her wall. She couldn’t tell him that, of course; she wouldn’t be so stupid as to give away the game. But she did seem to be winning, at least for now. He did not like the way things were going and that, if nothing else, gave her the motivation she needed to continue along her path.
Buttons undone, she let her dress slide to the floor. She was still wearing the light red chemise set she’d selected yesterday morning. She turned to face him defiantly.
He immediately looked away nervously. Puzzling. As her husband, William should be quite used to seeing her in her underwear. As Spike, he should be leering at her. Yet, he was doing neither.
She scooted over to the foot of the bed and climbed up, watching him, carefully. He merely ran his fingers through his tangle of hair, tugging on it anxiously
He leveled a steady gaze at her. He looked almost mournful. “You don’t have to do this, Buffy.” Again, he was trying so hard to talk her out of it, that she couldn’t resist pushing him.
“I insist on it, William. Fire that baby up.”
She crossed her arms over her chest, line drawn firmly on their cabin floor. With a flick of a switch, he turned on the machine, crossed her line.
Tha-thump, tha-thump, tha-thump. It was a fantastically uncomforting and unsexy sound. She watched her opponent carefully, trying to anticipate his next move. He reached over and picked up the wand, his long, tapered fingers holding it delicately. His eyes flashed over to hers.
“Do you…? That is to say…there are attachments. Do you suppose that…?’ He trailed off, a blush staining the sharp angle of his cheekbones.
“You tell me. As my husband you must know your way around here.”
She lay back on the bed, willing her thighs to unclench. If it came to a Victorian game of chicken, she was going to beat him like a drum.
“Very well.” His voice was low and steady. “Please lift your hips and I’ll help you remove your bloomers.”
Breathe, she reminded herself. Any moment now he’s going to let his mask slip and let Spike peep out. The second he did, the game would be over. The charade could end and Spike would have to admit the truth.
“I’ve got this,” she grumbled. Lifting her hips, she wriggled out of her bloomers and let them fall to the floor. He bent down to pick them up, placing them on the bed beside her as he stepped closer to the bed, standing between her legs.
Purposefully making an unsexy face, she squinted up at him, expecting to see him leering in the direction of her crotch. Instead, his blue eyes looked into hers, full of something that looked a lot like tenderness. It absolutely undid her.
She closed her eyes, remembered to breathe and doubled down.
“Ready when you are, Spike.”
Tha-thump, tha-thump, the machine reminded them.
His fingers touched the inside of her calf, very gently - his warm and human feeling fingers. Damn him. “I believe it would go more easily if you’d relax.”
“I am plenty relaxed,” she gritted out through clenched teeth.
She willed the muscles in her legs to unclench, concentrating upon breathing, on outlasting him in this game.
“Now I shall place the device on your inner thigh, so that you may become accustomed to its movement. It has a strange sort of fluttering action, and I shouldn’t wish to alarm you.”
He thought that he could trick her by feigning thoughtfulness. She was almost insulted that he didn’t know she’d see through that.
He pressed the rod gently against her inner thigh, just at the top, next to her opening; the tip undulated steadily against her muscles, making her jump slightly at first, until she became familiar with its rhythmic motion.
“The moment you want me to stop, you need only say my name.” His voice was low and sincere.
“Spike,” she tested.
He might have winced slightly at that; she couldn’t tell. This was supposed to be going quite differently. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes once more. In for penny, in for a pound. She could do this. She’d had orgasms before, usually alone in her bedroom, although Riley had given her three, possibly four, of them. If he kept calling her bluff all the way to the final hand, she could go there.
“I’ll begin now, Buffy.” He placed the tip of the device just at the opening of her vagina and leaned the wand up, so that it rested on her clitoris.
Holy Ravioli Batman – it felt wonderful, nothing like frantic rubbings in the dark. This felt entirely different; this slightly out-of-control feeling was like touching a live wire.
Her eyelids fluttered open involuntarily to see him looking at her, looking into her eyes and not at her pussy, as she’d expected. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard. “Is this…satisfactory? Is it pleasant?”
She wanted to say something snarky. She wanted to beat him at this fucking game. But most of all, she didn’t want the sensation to stop, didn’t want him to stop looking at her like that.
She cast a quick glance to his crotch to confirm that, yes, he was sporting a very noticeable erection. He wasn’t doing anything lewd, however, nothing Spikelike. No leering looks or rubbing. Just attending to her, watching her with something that looked like tenderness.
Coward that she was, she closed her eyes and nodded at him.
He moved the wand at another angle, touching her sensitive nub in a way that sent little shocks down the back of her spine and up through her abdomen. He then began to bob the tip of the rod against her slit, up and down, touching lightly, just enough to produce a jolt of sensitivity, before moving away. How could he know how to do this, how to touch this part of her in just the right way when she wouldn’t have known herself?
She heard someone let out a soft moaning sigh, and realized that it was her.
The tension built like a heated coil that began at her clitoris, and spread out through her body like tiny electrical connections. She kept reminding herself, whatever you do, don’t say his name. If you say his name… he’ll stop.
She bit her bottom lip as he moved the rod against the tip of that little bundle of nerves in her nub, pressing more insistently now, reading her body’s cues and picking up the pace of his rhythmic tap-tap-tapping.
She twisted her hands in the sheets, seeking for something, something like a continuation of this or a completion of this. She felt his hand, warm, comforting, first on top of her fist, then as she twisted her hand around, his fingers entwined with hers, soothing her, holding her in place, undoing her. It was this touch, this gentle hand-holding that seemed to be her demise.
Her orgasm started, not deep inside as she’d experienced before, but at the tip of her clitoris. It came upon her almost like a muscle spasm, but a very pleasant one. Like a firework bursting into flame and color. Her pussy muscles clenched and twitched, straining against the tip of the rod, pushing it upwards slightly. She’d absolutely given up all control at this point and she dared not open her eyes. She just rode the feeling. The first mini climax surged over her, and then another, and finished with a third – each one bringing her up just a little bit higher, before crashing back down, that free-falling feeling that she got while on roller coasters.
Her clit was fantastically sensitive after the third and final wave, and she scooted backwards slightly in bed. He complied by moving the wand away from her slit, even while he leaned over and pressed his lips against her forehead. It wasn’t quite a kiss, just the soft pressure of his mouth upon her forehead. She could feel his lips move, murmuring something that she couldn’t make out over the tha-thump of the machine; then with a squeeze of the hand that he was still holding, he moved away from her and stepped over to silence the machine.
She could feel tears, hot and defeated, leaking out of her closed eyes and down the side of her face. Her chin began to quiver, but she forced the tears back with a shaking breath.
Her bluff hadn’t even really been called, but she’d lost the game all the same. She’d lost simply because he’d never been playing and she was too blind to have noticed. He was William; he’d only ever been William and her former life had been swept away. She was the one who’d been wrong. The whole time she’d only been playing a big game of chicken with herself, with the life she’d found herself in versus the life she where she knew she belonged.
Moving her hand up to wipe away her stupid, weak tears, she felt his warm fingers, touching the back of her hand, gently. She snatched her hand away, her eyes opening to flash at him angrily.
Lying there, nearly naked and feeling vulnerable, she wanted to hate him, to see something in him that justified this terrible anger that she felt. His expression gave her no foothold for that, however. His blue eyes held her gaze steadily with compassion and love.
“Buffy? What do you want me to do?” His voice was just above a whisper.
“I want you to leave me alone, William.”
At first he said nothing. He merely looked at the floor for a few long moments before she could hear his voice, serious and sad. “Very well.”
He moved over to the door and paused with his back to her. She realized he was being a gentleman again, not wishing to open their cabin door while she lay mostly naked and spread out like a centerfold. She scooted up on the bed, curling into a ball and dragging the covers around her in the process.
She could hear the soft click of the door as he left the room.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Thanks to my betas: DoriansKitten, Capella42 and Lutamira. And thanks to Amy for the lovely banner. A big thanks to Wolffan and Science for hand-holding and general midwifery and to all of you for reading and commenting! And to William for having those cheekbones! And to my cats!