Take Heart 8, by dutchbuffy2305
Rating: NC-17, though only a bit of UST in this chapter. Don’t complain, ya pervs, You’ve already had an embarrassing amount, and there will be oodles more.
Thumbnail: Buffy and Spike form a reluctant team to take clean up the post-Initiative mess. Magic, sex, snarks, sparks, romance, horror and farce ensue. Did I mention sex?
Warning: character deaths – insofar as characters die in the Jossverse – and some grisly, farce-laden horror.
Timeline: After a different Primeval, BtVS 4.21;
Author's note: Originally written for The Deadly Hook, Apocalypse Ficathon. Big hug to the glorious Spikejones for betaing;
Author's website: http://home.planet.nl/~dutchbuffy2305;
Feedback: Yes, please, loads of it, to dutchbuffy2305@yahoo.co.uk
Considering that Spike’s impatiently waiting for sundown, when he can finally shake the Sunnydale dust off forever, the day races by at an unwonted clip. Spike’s hardly even packed when the last bloody sliver of the sun dips behind the horizon; not that he has that many possessions. He hoists the half-filled carryall and hoofs it over to Jake’s Bodyshop. He keeps looking over his shoulder, expecting an irate Slayer, but nobody bothers him on the way there. The car is ready and waiting for him. Spike can’t say why exactly this annoys him, but it does. Jake extorts more money from him. Spike doesn’t care. The tank is full, and he drives off.
His own cemetery is on the way out of town but he doesn’t slow the car as he drives by. He won’t miss the crypt, that’s for certain. He’s never taken the time to fix up the upper level, and it ranks medium on the list of undesirable dumps he’s had to spend time in. He half expects to see the Slayer jump out from behind the cemetery wall and stop his car, but she doesn’t. So he’s free to go, huh? He hadn’t expected the Slayer to give up without a struggle. Well, good. Absolutely bloody fantastic, in fact.
Go, Spike, go. He drives over the Goodbye-to-Sunnydale sign, exhorting him to come back for another visit, but it doesn’t quite feel as satisfactory as he’d like. Once on the freeway he has no excuse not to gun his engine and he does. He goes west. He can go anywhere he wants, do anything. Isn’t freedom wonderful? It’s too bad he’s still troubled by that pesky indigestion he’s been having the last few days. Well, a good dose of human blood will likely solve that.
Once he’s shaken the suburbs off, the night lies empty and majestic before him. Spike breathes the scents streaming in through his open window, sees the stars pinking here and there through the foggy night sky, turns the music louder. Life is good. The last lights of Sunnydale dwindle and disappear from his rearview mirror . For good. He hopes he hasn’t forgotten anything, and then chides himself for these wimpy thoughts. None of that now. He grits his teeth and grasps the steering wheel so hard he expects to see dents in it. He’s William the Bloody again. The images of Sunnydale will fade away and in a few years she’ll be no more than a flyspeck on the windshield of his memory.
He thinks of stopping at the first gas station to top up his blood levels with some attendant, but he really just wants to be going, driving on, put a good distance between himself and the location of his shame. It isn’t pleasant to remember the many humiliations, the scorn of demon and Scooby alike, the taste of pig’s blood, the craven things he did to get some cash or fags. Thank God it’s over.
The roads are quiet this time of night and on a whim, he drives on towards the ocean instead of picking either the northbound or the southbound highway. He leans his elbows on a table in an empty picnic grounds He inhales the briny air with relish. He knows he just has to stand there looking cool, and things will happen all by themselves.
There she comes now. Spike can hear her platform shoes go tippy tap for half a mile before she actually shows up. Her legs are long, her skirt is short. Just the kind of girl he likes. She sways towards him slowly, working her body for all it’s worth. Spike waits patiently, not moving a muscle; he doesn’t want to scare her yet. She’s a rabbit moving into his spotlights, mesmerized and not even realizing it.
“Hey, baby,” she says in what she probably imagines is a sexy drawl, “looking for some action?”
Spike shifts a little, allowing the duster to fall open, so she can see his splayed out fingers pointing at his the bulge in his jeans. He’s hard just from the anticipation.
“You’re really packing, ain’t ya, big boy?”
“All for you, darlin',” he says softly, in his own version of the sexy voice, and her pointy tongue comes out, slowly moistening her full, thickly Maybellined lips.
The surf growls sleepily, the freeway buzzes in the background, quiet routine night sounds that lull her into a sense of safety, and Spike waits until she comes closer.
“What do you need, baby?” she says. “Tell me what you want and I’ll give you a really good price, handsome fellow like yourself. Not from around here, are you?”
“Not really,” he says.
She takes one step more. He smells the myriad smells of her body, sweat and tacos, cheap perfume and other people’s come, a hint of dirty nappy. Beneath that there's her blood, more than a gallon of thick rich blood pumping around in her body, all warm and yummy, so close to the skin that he can see her veins pulsing like glowing worms in her flesh.
He swallows hard.
“Come here, love. Get it out for me.”
“You want a hand-job, honey?”
“I want it all,” he growls, and his strong arm snakes around her waist slowly, so slowly, and he knows she senses danger but she steels herself against it. Girls like her are in some danger all the time, so they ignore it and just go on with their business, even now when she should scream and run.
Spike might even prefer that, have a chase, get her nice and frightened, heat her up and set her heart to pumping faster. But he wants a bit of play first. His slow cold finger traces a vein, right where it disappears into her low-cut top.
“Nice,” he says.
The girl titters, mechanically trying for flattered and flirty, tired and bored underneath. That’s not good enough. He needs genuine fear, not rote. He wants her to really feel before he kills her.
“You never afraid, pet, all alone in the night? I could be anybody, a serial killer, a blood crazed vampire…What would you do if I was?”
“Scream,” she says, and flicks her cheap synthetic extensions backwards. “And then I’d let you fuck me while you drank my blood.”
Spike smiles deeply into her eyes and touches his finger to her neck, holding her close and tight with his other arm.
He lifts her up with one hand, settling her warm thighs over his own, and her eyes widen. “You’re strong, baby.”
“Us vampires are strong, supernaturally strong.”
She laughs politely and settles her hand over his dick. “Fifty dollars, baby, and I’ll give you the fuck of a lifetime.”
He’s not getting through to her. He bends over her neck and gives an exploratory nip.
“Hey,” she says, annoyed now, “biting is extra.”
“No, darling, biting is free,” Spike says and vamps out.
This is what he was looking for! She screams and struggles and kicks, slapping weak hands on his face and chest, but her slaps are as effective as wet spaghetti in his hungry grasp. Spike rips off her thong with his right hand and throws it away.
“Don’t worry, love,” he says, “You’re not gonna die right away. I’m going to take my time about draining you. I fancy a bit of a suck first. On your knees.”
She shakes her head wildly, her mouth under his hand making grunting, panicked noises. Delicious. He gets tired of it pretty soon and forces her roughly to her knees. She screams in pain and shock and he inhales the first tinge of blood in the air with relish. Soon.
“Work it, love, you don’t wanna die in horrible pain, do you? If you’re a good girl I’ll kill you quick,” he says automatically, not paying too much attention to what he promises. It’s the sound of the words they react to, not the content.
He takes out his dick and forces it into her protesting mouth. It’s hot and wet, like human mouths always are, so he’s not sure why this still isn’t quite the thrill he’s looking for. He’ll take a sip first then. He yanks her up and tears into her neck; not the artery yet, because he doesn’t want her to bleed to death before he’s ready. Her blood tastes flat, there’s no zinging in his mouth, no extra twitch in his cock, not this sense of the whole world wheeling madly around him that his tiny taste of Slayer blood gave.
He’s still hard, and he angrily thrusts into her mouth again, paying no attention to her gagging and her frightened scrabbling hands. He lights a fag and leans back, closing his eyes so he won’t have to see her. He’ll know anything she plans before she will herself, just by the scent of her abject sweat and the little movements her hands make. Her heart races at appropriate levels and the smell of her fear perfumes the air. Her terror is now more than acceptable, but the aftertaste of her blood is making him queasy. Then she pees herself. Bugger, he’s so out of practice! He knows very well how he could have prevented that happening; fuck first, terrorize later. Well, her blood will taste no less sweet because of it, and if she would apply herself a bit more he’d get off quicker, but his irritation is fast overtaking arousal and hunger.
Besides, her eyes are brown and her hair is black. She’s not from California but from somewhere more southern, he guesses. She’s just wrong. He pushes her away from his softening cock.
“Shove off, you stupid slag. This is not doing it for me.”
She crawls away on her knees, gibbering with terror and Spike strides off in the other direction. Minging little tart. He needs to find one with more class, a blonde maybe. Younger, too. After the Slayer, this one’s too bland, too ordinary to please him.
After twenty paces or so Spike thinks about what he’s just done and turns on his heels. No reason to let a frightened meal run off like that. He’s got his reputation to think of. Better snap her neck and throw her body off the cliff. He doesn’t want to leave any trace of what he’s done, nobody can know about his new pickiness. He finds the place where they stood by the smell of her blood on the asphalt, but she’s gone.
A car speeds towards him, pinning him in its headlights. At the last possible moment, Spike realizes it’s coming straight at him and he has to jump for his life. The car, a beat up old Caddy, roars off, and he stares after it with impotent indignation.
She wasn’t exactly a tasty snack to begin with, and now she even has the gall to try and run him over? What has the world turned to? Meals talking back at you, getting all sassy and uppity?
Spike lights another cigarette with fingers that shake from anger and marches back to the DeSoto, furious at himself and his fastidiousness. He’s gonna get in the car, find a busier place and ravage it. Kill a dozen people, leave them all over town with their throats torn out and drive off to, um, somewhere, and do the same in the next town. Gouts of blood, there will be, rivers of it. He tries to whip up some spark of interest at the fantasy, but there’s something lacking in all that hapless prey giving it up easy. Not enough challenge there.
He rubs his midriff. It can’t be heartburn, can it? Vampires don’t have acidic stomachs. The funny thing is, he gets it every time he thinks of driving off, whether it’s Cleveland or New Orleans he's idly contemplating. So it has nothing to do with destination, it must the food, or lack of it, that is making him feel funny.
Another car drives up to him. He turns his head with a snarl ready on his lips. The passenger side window rolls down. A big smile behind impenetrable black shades gleams up at Spike.
“Hey, buddy, looking to…”
Spike yanks him out through the window, plunges his teeth straight into the jugular and half drains the guy before the driver next to him manages to open his mouth. Spike thrusts his arm into the window and across the seat, grabs the driver by the throat and squeezes hard. The engine coughs and dies. Spike calmly opens the door and works the unconscious driver over to the passenger seat. He returns to the first man, who’s lying on the pavement spurting out his life, finishes him off and tosses him down to the beach. The car obediently starts for him and he drives off to a quiet spot where he can have his dessert in peace.
Spike sits on a rock by the beach and enjoys leisurely sips and smokes through the dark-blue, peaceful night. He might even go and bathe, he thinks. Life is good. Although his main course and pudding are male, not his usual preference, at least he feels no compunction at all about killing them. He was a tiny bit worried, not really, but just a teensy bit concerned there might be some carry-over from the spell, but it has been incontrovertibly proven there’s not. What would the Slayer think of him now, huh? She’d be forced to stake him on the spot, if she could. He shakes his head angrily. Don’t think of the Slayer, and what she approves of or not. She doesn’t matter anymore.
The moon enters dramatically mid-stage over the Pacific, dripping her pale light over the swells and painting a shiny path to his boots. Spike washes off a few bloodstains in the surf and finishes his last cigarette. Hey, he could acquire his cigarettes in a totally legal way in the future; the two guys had thousands of dollars of cash on them, not to mention several attractive gold chains, Rolexes and a few plastic bags of cocaine. Spike pockets the knives, guns and ammo as well. He’s a modern kind of vampire, not above killing by other means than tooth and nail, unlike most of his hidebound brethren.
So. Now all he has to do is decide which way to go. Ow. There’s that stinging feeling again. He’s gonna pay it no mind. To North or to South, that is the question. He loosens his belt a notch to see if that’ll help the burning and the squeezing. North, he decides. Spring in Canada sounds fresh and different, and besides, he’s never had Mountie before. He groans as the pain jackknifes through him again. The cool mountain air will do him good, he decides.
He gets back on the freeway, music pounding tinnily from the ancient speakers, which he never had replaced because all that modern crap makes it sound wishy-washy. Music’s not meant to be perfect, music’s meant to be raw, a straight I.V. into the heart, pouring in pain and joy and notes just this side of false. Brilliant. Moonlight pours onto the dashboard from behind; he’s tapping his fingers and singing along in his loudest Sid voice. It’s all so bleeding romantic, a man might compose a little verse in an off moment.
The next exit is Barstow and Spike freezes behind the steering wheel, the cold from the realization traveling through him from the crisped hair on his head to his icy toes. He’s back on the sodding highway to Sunnyhell. When the bleeding hell did that happen? He was on his way to Canada! He wrenches the car onto the shoulder and kills the engine.
Spike lets his head fall on the steering wheel. Why? Why is this happening to him? Is the whole freeway system of America conspiring to keep him from his destination? He rights himself again and rolls his shoulders. No. He’s stronger than this. No sodding tummy ache, no treacherous memories of achingly hot girl flesh are gonna keep him from his destiny as a free vampire. He turns the car and starts back, but within a mile, the cramps and shooting pains in his midriff are getting so bad he can hardly steer anymore. He stops the car again and turns it once more. Immediately some relief spreads through him.
It’s her. The Slayer’s forcing him to go back to Sunnydale. She’s been ruining his last few days there and he was too distracted to get immediately what it means. Living Slayer equals unfinished business, and his sense of honor and obligation just won’t let him rest until he’s killed her. That’s it. That’s all it is.
He rests his head on his hands and takes deep calming breaths. Never mind that he doesn’t need the oxygen, his body forgets that and is fooled into relaxation when he does it. The Slayer. He’s gonna kill the Slayer. He rolls the words on his tongue, trying them out, tasting them, and they feel good. She’s haunting him, and the only way to exorcize her scent, the feel of her on his cock, the little sounds she makes when he’s fucking her, the sight of her arse and tits jiggling just enough…Spike shakes himself out of it. That is not the way to think about her. It’s gotta be a clean kill, warrior to warrior, without a hint of the sexual, because he’d be lost if he did, he just knows he would.
He rubs his tired face with his hands and flashes on her warm hand cupping his cheek. She never did that, did she? Too tender a gesture for his forceful angry Slayer. He racks his brain but he can’t get a visual to accompany the tactile memory. She just wouldn’t. She loathes him. No matter what she said and did during their days of working together, she has nothing but contempt for him. He tries to convince himself of this, but he can’t shake off the feeling of that little hand, rough with callus, lying against his cheek.
He takes a last deep breath and then looks around, taking stock. It’s almost dawn now. He’s gonna get into a motel and drive the short leg back to Sunnydale after sundown. A ghost of the pain in his midriff starts up again, but there’s no point in trying to make it back tonight, no matter how urgent it might feel to fight her, get his hands on her throat, humiliate her and drain her dry.
*
A couple of hours after sunset, Spike glides into town, driving slowly in low gear, the rumble of the engine almost inaudible. He’s choosing the arena for his fatal meeting with the slayer. Fatal for her, he means. It’s much busier than when he left, twenty-four hours ago. There's human bustle visible everywhere, and he decides against using the playground near the Slayer’s house. He wants to be absolutely undisturbed; no one and nothing are to interfere with his kill. He plans to enjoy it and hurrying would spoil the fun. Soon, he’ll be the Slayer of Slayers again, not only in memory, but with a fresh kill to his name to make his reputation bigger than it’s ever been. Three Slayers under his belt; he bets there’s no one, except maybe that insane Greek guy, who can say the same.
He drives around to a couple of other cemeteries, but there just isn't any with as much open ground as his own home graveyard. Good. He gets out, pats the car for luck and saunters into the gates, lighting a fag. The Slayer will be out soon. He’d better make sure she’s alone; he doesn’t want any interference from the damn Scoobies.
Spike stops abruptly. He’s in luck tonight. He hears her distinctive footfalls coming in his direction. He stands still, arm crossed, facing away from her. He doesn’t want her to become aware of his purpose too soon.
“Spike?” the Slayer says. “”Hey, I knew you wouldn’t just be gone without saying anything. Thanks for getting rid of the other bodies, andI wanted to ask you…”
Spike can’t wait any longer and turns around with a growl, his true face on. He walks towards her slowly, hands spread out, ready for anything she might throw at him.
“Why are you in game face?” the Slayer asks, the first hint of her former bitchiness creeping in her voice. “I’m not exactly in the mood for sparring, if that’s what you were thinking.”
She's holding a white paper rectangle in her hand, not the stake he expected.
“Stop pretending we’re friends, Slayer. We both know better. I’m William the Bloody, Slayer of Slayers, and you’re gonna rack up the count for me to a big fat three.”
“What? Are you out of your mind? Come on, Spike, we’re allies, at least. There’s no reason to be like this. We can work together, fight evil. Like you said to Giles, you can grab the opportunity to turn your life around.”
She sounds a little irritated, possibly even slightly hurt, but nowhere near scared enough or angry enough for his liking.
“Bloody hell, Slayer, you didn’t believe that pap I spouted? I just said that to appease the sodding Watcher. Of course I’m not gonna hang up my black hat. I’m evil, I’ve always been evil and I like it.”
She peers at him through the murky evening. “You really mean this, don’t you?”
He can’t quite pin down the expression on her face. Exasperation he knows, but there’s a dash of what, disappointment, hurt? Nah.
“Finally, it’s getting through that thick skull of yours, Slayer. Yes, I really mean it. Get real, did you honestly think I wouldn’t jump at the chance to get back to my old life once I’d lost the chip? You’ve seen me try to get it out before.”
She starts circling, apparently not particularly keen on engaging him just yet. It’s fine with Spike, he needs to get some things said, anyway.
“Yeah, but this time it was different! We worked together, we defeated Adam together. We…”
Spike grins and shows her his tongue. “You shagged me six ways to Sunday, damn right you did. But so what? Not like I haven’t been there before. You’re a little stronger than most girls, got more stamina, I’ll give you that, a snatch that gives new meaning to the words iron fist and velvet glove. You’re a wild thing, Slayer, and given another week or so, I could have taught you to be as wanton as a vampire. Too bad you won’t have a week. You’ll be dead come dawn. We’ll have us a dance, you an’ me. A dance to the death.”
He thinks he's gonna need to taunt her a bit more, but she’s fairly quick on the uptake for once. He almost falls for her feint, but he sidesteps and boosts her flight with a well-placed kick so that she crashes in the tomb on his right.
“Hurts, doesn’t it Bu…Slayer? Got some more hurt cooking for you.”
“I don’t know why you’re doing this, Spike,” Buffy says. “But if you wanna have a fight, fine. Since you’re cooking, I’ll bake. I’m thinking vampire crumble.”
She gets up groaning and shaking her head. Spike gives her ample time to recoup. He’s in no hurry. He wants this fight to be as long and drawn out as possible; it’ll be the last he’ll see of this Slayer and he plans to enjoy it to the full.
“Out of practice, Slayer? You’re looking a bit peaked. Normal life not agreeing with you?”
“You know why I'm not happy, Spike,” she says grimly.
Why the hell is she acting like this? He prefers her quips to this dour warrior routine.
“You could put in a bit more effort,” he says, “I’m your arch enemy, ain't I? Worth a barbed word or two I should think.”
She says nothing and keeps circling him, occasionally trying for a kick, but they’re both too much aware of each other’s fighting style to attack rashly.
“Aw come on! I know life is hell, Mumsie dead, friends not being the support you’d counted on, that bra not lifting and separating half as well as you hoped…”
She feints and he’s so confident he pretends to go for it and then tries for a blow to the neck. She recovers faster than he can track and lands a blow to his nose that makes the world explode into bright sparkles. He staggers into a low tomb and grabs it for support. When he opens his eyes, the Slayer is waiting for him somberly. She could have staked him in that moment and she hasn’t. Now he's getting mad. Show him contempt? He’ll show her who’s boss.
He drives in close, crowding into her space, so she’s forced to shorten her blows to his torso and arms. She knees him, but he's ready for it, keeps coming in, and she’s not fighting effectively at all.
“Bloody hell, Slayer, I give you a couple of screaming-with-happiness moments and you turn into a marshmallow? Is this how you treated Angelus? No wonder he massacred half of Sunnydale before you finally killed him!”
About time, he thinks, as she throws him over her hip into a mausoleum wall. It rings like a gong from his impact and he’s momentarily deafened.
“I see I made a mistake, Spike. It’s one I won’t be making again. I thought you could be redeemed, I thought you had a chance of being a good person. You helped me out and you were nice to me, once or twice, and you liked Mom. I get now that’s just a front, that behind the courtesy and wicked sex…I mean, disgusting sleaze, there's just evil and soullessness. Like every other guy I ever met, by the way.”
“Oh hell, Slayer, you thought that if a guy puts his dick inside you it means he likes you? News flash! We like pussy, is all. Don’t take it personally.”
Ow. That blow broke a rib, he's fairly sure. But he broke the Slayer, because although her blows are full of fury and raining in on him, they’re not well thought out and allow him to come in way too close. He smacks her in the jaw and when she flies backward into another of those handy tombs. He's on her in a flash. He hits her again and again until blood comes out of her nose and the look in her eyes is getting dazed. He jams an elbow into her stomach and she collapses, retching and wheezing helplessly. Now he's got her.
He lifts her up by the crotch and slams her head against the marble. He comes in close, pinning her with his body. She’s so disoriented that she doesn't really fight back any longer. He licks the blood that runs from her nose and her face crinkles faintly in disgust, but she’s too dazed to quip.
“And now for your neck, Slayer. Shall I just break it, or shall I have me some dinner? Huh? No preference? And you usually so chatty.”
Her eyes regain some awareness and she kicks Spike hard on the shins, but she hasn’t got enough leverage to do serious damage. She’s desperate now, fingers grabbing painfully at his nose and ears, digging for his eyeballs, but he can evade her short reach so easily. He's laughing, grinding his hips into hers, feeling the anticipation build up to that one perfect moment that he’s been hankering after forever, prolonging it, hearing her heart beat so loud and so fast against his chest, it’s almost as if it’s his own.
“Oh, Slayer,” he says, sing-song, and dives for her neck. He licks it, luxuriating in the salty sweat of healthy frightened slayer. He nips, and laughs out loud at the reflexive jolt that passes through her body. Slayer likes it, even now, stupid bint.
"Any last words?"
He allows his true face to come out, right in front of her eyes, feeling her kick and squirm against him, making it better and better and then he can’t control himself any longer, he has to have her blood. He opens his mouth wide and descends on her jugular with a growl.
““Buffy, I love you. God, I love you so much,” he groans into her soft neck.
His whole body twitches in shock and he freezes when he hears himself say those fatal words. Where's his game face gone?
“Oh, god, no.”
Spike drops Buffy and staggers backwards, falling flat on his ass on the wet turf in his haste to get away from her.
“Please, no,” he moans, staring in delirious shock at the gobsmacked face of the Slayer.
TBC
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