Summary: What does a pissed off vamp do when he’s dragged to the Hellmouth when he’d rather be swanning around Europe? Why, he gets inventive in order to have fun with the Slayer of course.
Rating: NC-17
Chapter 16
It only hurt when he opened his eyes.
He did it once, at the beginning when he first regained consciousness. Dru was there, her face serene in that confused little girl way of hers while she held her doll—that bloody meddlesome Miss Edith—and looked at him like he’d been the saddest most upsetting thing to happen to her in a long while. When the sword was thrust through his gut, wrenching a shout of ragged agony from his lips, he saw her tiny smile and could guess the way she would have it be made better. She stood back from her minions as they thrust more sharp blades into his broken body, wary of getting his blood spatters on her spotless filmy white dress. It was her encouraging little clap and bounce that finally did it, and Spike closed his eyes.
It didn’t hurt if he couldn’t see. He wouldn’t let it hurt. They could slice open his testicles for all he cared, on the inside of his eyeballs was a vision in the sunlight, her golden hair swept about her face in a sudden gust of wind as she giggled and the tinkling sound of her happiness gave him something to hold onto.
Something that wasn’t Dru and her disloyalty.
If he was honest with himself, he’d let go of Dru in that moment of irritation and sarcasm when they’d first rolled into town. When it became clear that his opinion was again inconsequential to her bigger plan, Spike had had enough and allowed his feelings for her to dull. And then she’d left him wandering around the town while she shacked up with the wrinkled up old git and the rest of their family. It had been, for the most part, convenient while he researched the Slayer with his unusual soul card. Until the impromptu deception turned into something else entirely. Until it became opportunity that showed him many different paths and ways toward true happiness.
Like was apparently his tradition, he’d buggered that up in no short order. His commonsense had become skewed from a century of evil thoughts and actions so he wasn’t quite aware of what was acceptable or not in this world of many alternating shades.
Buffy might be smiling in his dreams, but he knew his nightmares would be closer to reality. Each hot painful lance in his body, each and every blunt punch that shattered his bone could have been her. He knew that hatred could be the only response to what he’d done. It seemed only fitting that he realise his mistake and almost immediately being captured by Dru and her minions.
Up to now he just hadn’t wondered why.
He knew that Drusilla wouldn’t react well to rejection, but he never pictured her going this far. He’d never taken her for a hypocrite, not really. Mixed up for sure, especially if she had her git of a sire prodding her into confused loyalties. So why was he here when he could be ducking and diving into hiding spots until he was ready to face the stake that Buffy had most assuredly carved his name upon?
As holy water was thrown in his face and he felt and smelled the way his flesh burned, he gave up caring. It seemed more than apparent that whether Buffy or Dru had him, he was the proverbial toast. And as the image of a drained Jesse and a desperate Xander came to his mind, he couldn’t summon up the will to care.
To be condemned was to be condemned, didn’t much matter who took care of the sentence. At least he wouldn’t have to see her face as he fluttered into dust. At least he could die remembering her lips and her smile for him, and imagine that that one time they’d committed their feelings for one another had been more explicit and she’d said the words to his face.
His jaw clenched until his teeth felt pained, his eyes flowing water through the tightly squeezed barrier, Spike imagined how her lips could convey the words, and he felt it alright to give up.
His last moments had been an effort to do good by her, to try to turn the leaf she needed to be with him guilt free. He could pass with the knowledge that in his last he’d made peace with himself and his actions. He made peace with being a demon and killing indiscriminately until pain painted the world over.
Feeling serenity sweep over him, Spike opened his eyes and soaked in Dru’s frown. He smirked and winked at her, knowing that she could tear him apart limb by limb and he wouldn’t even feel it. Self-absolution was powerful.
He waited for the final toll to be paid and his chance to pass beyond.
Bloody hell it was slow.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
Buffy kicked Angel out of the apartment so he couldn’t stand over them with his ironic judgement about what they should or shouldn’t do with Jesse. One missing vampire was all the stress she could handle from that quarter and to have a souled yet unrepentant demon staring at them with judgemental disdain and disapproval was too much even for her.
Buffy had phoned Giles, requesting he take Willow home before meeting them with the intention of transporting Jesse somewhere they could control the situation when he rose. Not that she’d told Giles that. Only that they had a man down and needed his trusty car. It was only after as much of the plan was relayed that she felt comfortable sharing over the phone and she’d hung up the receiver that Buffy marvelled at the existence of a phone line in an evil vampire’s apartment in the first place.
And a comfy bed, though the ewwness of that discovery so didn’t want to be visited at this time. Buffy felt like she was doing pretty well at holding the consuming grief at bay, but realising the truth, she knew that she ultimately hadn’t gotten that close to him. It was that fact that upset her more than anything—even that Spike had sired him and run. This was what made her feel the tight constriction of guilt in her throat. It seemed like as soon as she’d arrived in the school she’d come between such a strong trio of friends, offering up a secret that only two of them became privy of. Oh, it had been Xander’s call, and evidence was pretty good at showing that that may not have been the best course of action to follow, but she’d still given Xander enough of a situation for him to make such hard decisions.
It was like she’d walked in and just taken his place in the group and it made Buffy feel such wrenching guilt that she almost felt the need to collapse and cry against Xander’s shirt.
“You’re not gonna stake him, are you?” Xander looked at her with big earnest brown eyes and Buffy felt the anger that had begun to rise at being put in this position falter and dive. She’d thought all vampires were black until Spike had introduced the concept of a soul. Now that she’d met the true vamp with soul, she was glad that she’d learned of it from Spike first or she might have felt the need to disbelieve the possible good in whatever incarnation. Despite the tableau spread out dead centre of the bed—and she was so ignoring that unintentional pun!—Buffy still believed it was loving motives that made Spike do something so monumentally stupid.
“What did you think was going to happen?” She couldn’t stay mad, even though she had every right to be. “Why did you ask Spike to do this, Xand? You know that vamps are evil. It’s my job to take them out.”
He hefted a crazy sounding sigh in a mix-up of laughter. “Well, thank God that’s not true or that crazy blonde bitch might have killed us all. If it was your job then you’ve slacked off with Spike—and that so isn’t a criticism right now.”
Buffy jerked in surprise. Did that mean that Xander suspected…
“I know, Buff. I know Spike is soulless and yet, I’m so not with the caring right now. I know it’s something that’s supposed to make me wig spectacularly, but he’s been nicer to us and more helpful when we’ve needed him than Angel—and he’s the one who claims to have the real soul.” He snorted, his lip curling in obvious disgust for what he saw as soulful behaviour. His friend was dead because of that soul. “Nah, I took advantage of him. Kinda goaded him into doing it. Yeah, he might be trying hard, but I could see he didn’t quite have all the knowledge the soul crowd have inbuilt to do the right thing. Strangely—not that concerned. He still seems no worse than Cordelia on a bad hair day. So yeah, he may struggle with the technicalities, but he tries to do the right thing—if he can work out what that actually is.”
They shared snickering laughter before settling with a fond smile. Buffy knew she should have been worried—should have started to prepare herself that Xander might one day take this act and hold it against her. Use it to drive a wedge between her and Spike. Ever since they all discovered her secret they’d had the badness of vampires almost beaten into them. Hopefully this relaxed and accepting attitude he held now would exist long enough for her to show them that Spike really did intend to do good, and that he was a great vamp to have around. Obviously the collar of a soul wasn’t enough to keep them safe, just using Angel as the only example they had, so it was left to their instinct and reliance on example to decide if being around any vampire could ever be considered risk free.
She so hoped nothing would happen to jeopardise the one thing she had full belief in.
The hesitant knock on the door broke her from the uncomfortable reverie and Buffy felt a tightening in her stomach. Giles poked his head around the door and found them sort of shielding the body on the bed. He stepped inside, shutting the door with a determined click before making his way around the bed and stopping at the obvious corpse.
“Oh dear lord. I-I understand why you wanted Willow home.” Giles’s eyes seemed to focus on the ragged puncture marks at Jesse’s throat and he slumped a little in sadness. “I’m so sorry, Xander. This must be tremendously difficult.”
Xander shrugged, about to open his mouth and get on with the telling of the dilemma when Buffy subtly elbowed him in the ribs and he clamped his lips shut.
“Giles, we have a bit of a sitch. Jesse’s kinda about to be undead. We need somewhere we can keep him comfortable for when he rises, but somewhere that we can chain him up and stuff.”
Giles looked at them as if they were insane. “Are you mad? Your job is to stake vampires, Buffy. Not make friends with them. We are not about conducting experiments with our friends. A-as painful as it is to lose a friend—” Giles paused and both Buffy and Xander could see the sudden hollow guilt that tinged his eyes. “You can not expect that he will rise to be anything but a monster in the body of a boy you once knew. He will not remain your friend. He will wake a vicious monster who will want nothing from you but your blood.”
Buffy swallowed hard, knowing in her heart that in this situation that was exactly what would happen. But she had to support Xander and she also owed Spike the benefit of the doubt. Besides, if he’d created a disaster it had to be one he dealt with on his own. Perfect learning opportunity for him, too.
Xander’s face was lined with tragedy and a knowledge no boy his age should have to deal with. “I know that this is probably a mistake. But I have to give him the chance, right? He’s my friend. He’d do the same for me.” He implored the Watcher to see what he meant—and hoped that he could recognise the desperation that had spurred on this act by a vampire who would now be struggling with these people to be trusted and accepted.
Rather than fight further, Giles helped them carry the dead boy out to the car, glad that rigour had not quite started to fully set in as they manipulated him into the back seat.
“I guess my place is the only one that is even half set up for something like this. He can sleep on that old bed in the basement and I have chains—plenty of chains.” She studiously ignored the raised eyebrows aimed her way. “Ooh, but we’ll need blood and—” Buffy stopped babbling, running out of things to say and the energy to say it with. The night had been exhausting and she still had a wayward vampire to find.
The look on Spike’s face had been worrying, and teemed with his rather sudden disappearing act, Buffy felt a chill settle. Something was making her feel that it wasn’t so simple—not any of it—and not having Spike there to guide them was way beyond wiggy. This was his experiment—his childe. How were three humans meant to know what to do to pave the way for a newly born demon?
The little car zoomed through the streets of Sunnydale, preparing all of them for what was yet to come. The urgency of it all escaped none of them, and an edge of apprehension settled over all of them.
The night had been forever altered; a new level of darkness had corrupted their lives and Buffy was left staring out the window, imagining what kind of future there would be for them all.
The chill in the basement made her shiver.
Buffy clung to the cardigan she’d retrieved from her room as soon as the emotionally difficult job of chaining her school friend to the wall had been taken care of. Xander and Giles had been uncharacteristically silent while they waited, not knowing exactly how long the process of turning would take for a new vampire to exist in the world.
He was stretched out on a basic cot against the wall, the chains just long enough for his hands to lie beside his body. Buffy knew that it wasn’t just the atmosphere in the dank basement that caused ice to creep through her veins. Prolonged looks at this boy that she’d once walked in the sun beside was enough to add an element of gothic horror to her night.
It was late. Spike hadn’t returned and anxiety ripped at her to go and find him. She had a bad feeling, despite suspecting that he wouldn’t come back to them quite so willingly. There was nothing to indicate a need to anticipate problems—if you could exclude the fact that a grief-stricken yet defectively ensouled vampire was gunning for dust.
“How long do these things take, Giles?” She’d always been under the impression it was a couple of days from the draining to the dusting, given that most were in the ground before she got to them. Things like funeral services took planning. But what did she know? It was probably outlined in that nifty little handbook that gave her all the nitpicky hints about being the perfect slayer, but being that she never got one, she was operating under a severe lack of knowledge.
I wonder how Giles justifies not letting me read it? Maybe he knew me and study, not so mixy.
“I’m actually not that certain. The Council was able at some point to gain access to a number of…er…bodies, and observed the length of time it took for each to regain consciousness. I rather think the length depended on the sire. O-of course, Spike is a master vampire—”
“Huh?” Xander butted in, his face a picture of confusion before understanding shifted and anger took its place. “But, isn’t he kind of young? And what did he have to do to get that honour?”
Giles was suddenly shifty, looking at Buffy before quickly diverting to the floor, his hands scrabbling for the ear piece of his glasses as the nerves set in.
“I-it would seem that Spike was—is—known as the Slayer of Slayers. He’s killed two in his time, Buffy. If what Angel said is true, and Spike doesn’t have a soul, then it seems more than reasonable to assume he was here to make you his third. I’m so sorry to have to tell you this.” Compassion settled around his eyes and he let go of the stiffness that was his calling as a watcher, moving decisively to hug Buffy awkwardly around her shoulders. “I know you care a great deal for him.”
Buffy nodded, her heart beginning to ache with how much. She was scared now. Terrified about him being out on his own when he was obviously reacting emotionally to something that she had no clue about, as well as knowing that Darla’s dusting wouldn’t remain a secret for long if it hadn’t already reverberated throughout the clan, and Spike was a sitting duck for The Master.
“Giles, that whole soul thing? So not what it’s cracked up to be. And if Angel has one, it’s defective. Spike doesn’t and yet I trust him anyway. I—” She wanted to say the words to her friends, despite not having been explicit with them to Spike himself, yet the stunned look in Giles’s eyes forestalled her confession. “Look, what you just said? So not news. Spike told me everything already and I trust him. I…care about him. He didn’t do this to be evil. He did this to be good.”
Everyone looked again to the deathly pale prisoner of the Summers’ basement and Buffy felt tears prickle at her eyes. She didn’t want this to be happening. It was one thing to have this as her calling—to go out every night and stake the badness of the night so the rest could sleep safe and indulge dreams of things better. It was entirely another to have to look at one of her friends and see the life bleach from their skin only to be replaced by artificial animation in death. A horrifying monster. Despite Xander’s hopes, Buffy knew this would only end in badness.
The silence this time was a little more comfortable, though it stifled through the shared knowledge that none of them really knew what to do—what to expect. There was little to do but wait, and unfortunately none of them were much with the patience. There was nothing left but to fill the emptiness with talk, and as soon as Giles opened his mouth, Buffy felt twitchy.
“So, you knew then? That Spike made up the story of having a soul. Was it to get into the group and slaughter us all?”
Yup, straight for the jugular.
“Yes, I knew. Well, okay, I just found out, and before you hold your breath and go purple, it was my idea not to tell you. Spike thought it was over, and I wanted you to just have some time to see that he wasn’t just a monster and that he could be good if we just gave him a chance.” She stopped, held herself strong and clenched her jaw. Catching Giles shocked glance, she stared him right in the eyes and said the words that would change everything.
“I love him.”
Either her watcher would accept how they felt about each other, or not. Heart thumping wildly in that scared way it does when you wait for parental trouble, Buffy watched and took her turn at bating her breath.
He said nothing.
Looked at her for one shocked and disappointed moment, and turned away. Buffy stood confusedly to the side as Giles flopped down on an uncomfortable slab of the floor near Xander and then took a book from the duffle bag he’d carried down the basement stairs from his car after Jesse had been settled.
Well, that hook had been kind of weak—as in letting her off it really fast. Buffy sighed in relief as she took to pacing in front of the huddled pair. The older man took his time to open the book carefully, his fingers reverent of the pages as he turned them slowly. Only when his eyes widened and he sat forward, repositioning his glasses to see more closely something so entirely captivating did Buffy feel the urge to interrupt. To push her luck. She was getting a bad feeling, and added to the previous fear she’d felt welling inside at Spike’s absence, it was adding up to all sorts of scary images in her head.
Giles’s head whipped up too fast and his glasses dislodged, allowing Buffy to catch the flash of guilt there. Somehow, in the pocket of time between his disbelief of her actions and his tentative reading of the cryptic book, he’d found something that Buffy wasn’t meant to know.
“What?” she demanded, her voice all kinds of hard now that there was something other than Spike’s motivations at hand. “You’ve got ‘uhoh’ face. ‘Uhoh’ face is never good.” Beneath it all she was wide-eyed and innocent, scared of all the baddies that were out there and targeting her because she was the Slayer.
“I-it’s nothing, Buffy. Just a prophecy that I will need to do some further work on in order to translate it accurately.” He tried to brazen it out, taking to his feet and shuffling uncertainly until he quickly stuffed the book back into his bag—at complete opposites with the way he’d venerated its very existence earlier—and sat back down.
“So, Xander, how are your studies coming along?” Giles smiled at the adolescent, being both desperately encouraging and panicked.
“Ah, you know,” Xander answered as his eyes darted questioningly to Buffy’s, asking for some kind of clue. “Pretty much as non-existent as it was the last time you never asked.”
Buffy felt the dead weight of dread as it settled in her stomach. Giles was keeping something from her. He’d read something in that ancient book that probably affected her and he didn’t want her to know about it. That just felt so wrong.
Her worried eyes settled on the body on the cot and Buffy suddenly felt like the walls were closing in. It was all happening again; the evil she’d escaped by leaving LA was following and spreading, and yet here she thought it could hurt her a whole lot more than before. No matter what she did, she couldn’t escape it. Evil sought her out—and even if it was Spike and he changed for meeting her, it was never going to stop. Not until she was dead. Or all her friends were and she didn’t care anymore.
Looking at Jesse sprawled flat out on top of the sheets, she couldn’t help believing that it was starting already. Tears sprung to her eyes and Buffy felt the weight of helplessness.
One friend down, three to go.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
He felt so cold. Wasn’t meant to; wasn’t meant to feel anything. Not now that he was so beyond physically broken that the pain was just a numbing backdrop to the emotional torment.
He’d not wasted any time berating himself for getting into this mess. He couldn’t even hold on, expecting the cavalry to gallop to his rescue. Not the way he’d run out like a coward. Even if Buffy hadn’t wanted to stake him after what he’d done, after what grief he’d more than likely caused her, and she didn’t hate him as much as he was beginning to hate himself, she had no clue that he’d been caught. His girly run out the door would probably be enough for her to think he wanted to hide and that would keep her hesitant long enough for him to be dust—or fulfil whatever nasty plan the bat-faced pillock had in mind.
Besides, she’d likely have her hands full. He didn’t even question that Xander would be as coercive toward her as he was to Spike, convincing her to give the newly turned school mate the benefit of the doubt by letting him rise. Not for one second did Spike contemplate that she would have planted her stake in the boy’s chest—even if he had no doubts that it was exactly what she should do.
Dru had surrendered her game to the minions—to that wanker Luke—and retired to wherever it was she wallowed her loss and dreamt up her insane predictions. Spike was relieved. No matter how much he loved Buffy now, it hurt to see the face of the woman he’d spent over a hundred years worshipping and caring for wanting to do him damage. And not the kinky kind, either.
Luke’s fists hit a whole lot harder and believe it or not, his punishments were much more twisted and devastating. As it now stood, Spike couldn’t move one small part of his body. He couldn’t even crack open an eyelid without feeling a tearing pain. He was covered in blood—could feel it dried and caked on his flesh. Sometime after Luke had entered the scene, Spike had been relieved of his jacket, the leather being ripped from him to show the manacles holding him helpless wouldn’t impede them taking it. He’d been rendered shirtless, then, and they’d painted their death patterns on his chest and poked him full of holes.
When his eyes were still under his command, Spike was reminded what the bitch Darla had first seen in Angelus. The ugly forehead look seemed to be a family trait and he only could thank his lucky stars Dru had seen something else in him and made him the black sheep. Black—because he wasn’t. Plutonic hair, a heart that loved the Slayer; he’d left black way back in Europe and it was Dru’s fault entirely. If she’d let them go to Prague he’d more than likely still be happily feeding on young, innocent virgins. Anyway, bugger the rambling. He was thinking about Luke and how the nasty bastard never changed out of his demon face. The Master was surrounded by demons of the purest intentions and Spike was left regretting his jump over the fence. At least—no. He couldn’t regret it, couldn’t feel that what had happened between Buffy and himself was wro…
“Argghh!”
Something white hot and sharp sliced its way through his gut and struck the rock wall behind him. Spike screamed out in agony, his eyes shooting open against the blood crust that had hidden the view of his own attack from him. Luke, a grin from one lopsided ear to the other, watched as the pain took Spike over and he sunk as far as the chains allowed.
“You’ve been bad, Spike.” The deep, amused tones were barely heard as Spike felt the groans against such intense pain fight their way from his internal darkness. “You must be punished for your transgressions. You will not be alone in this. Not once we catch Angelus and show him that there are consequences for not protecting one’s sire. How long do you think you have, Spike, before I show you mercy and end your miserable existence?”
He couldn’t answer. He honestly didn’t know. And to top it all off, he didn’t know what to wish for. Make it quick, something screamed in his head, wanting to continue his not so courageous night and have it finally reach its end.
But then another thought barged its way to the surface, just as his head was lolling and he was fighting the onset of darkness and unconsciousness. It was the voice that had turned him in Buffy’s direction and taught him that there was sense in falling in love with her. It told him to hang on, because no matter what he thought, no matter what he expected, she was coming.
Against the agony of his position, he waited.
She would save him.
He counted those minutes suspended between agony and consciousness with an altered mind. His face too slicked with blood to allow eyes to view the world, he existed inside his head and felt things he’d never known. The first was hatred, so overwhelming that he wanted to roar with it. Wanted to shatter the stone walls of his prison as he made it so known that no one would ever risk his displeasure again. Without a doubt he no longer had any loyalty to his sire. As barmy as Dru was, she was as good as dust if he ever got free.
Just as strong was love. It coursed through his stagnant veins and slammed into his long dead heart with a shattering impact. He’d known so little of it; thought he’d felt so much of it. Really, it had all been playing and the game had come to an end. Until she’d slipped beneath his barriers when he’d had his back turned, slipped and bashed them to splintering nothingness as she took his heart and made it beat.
She was everything beautiful, and all he’d ever hoped for in his life. The one where he’d lived the life of a poet. Not this half life where he’d thought he was thrumming with it, killing and slaughtering merrily along. He’d thought it had been satisfying. His emotions had been splashed upon Dru and not once did he question her lack of intensity in her return of them. Not once had he suspected she hadn’t loved him.
Not until he’d been taught what love really was by a slip of a teenage girl that he would worship until his dust littered the cave floor.
A new sensation battered his already raw senses, filtering weakly through at first and then wakening him with a hunger that had fled him a while back. It was fresh, this sensation of rebirth. Of waking with the instincts already programmed to kill, to rejoice in the death of others that had once filled your living days with joy.
The awareness grew stronger the weaker Spike became. A thudding need within his body for blood—for first blood—made him tremble and at last he knew what he’d done. Xander’s friend Jesse was rising and that meant only one thing: the Slayer had spared her friend the pain of not trying to help the newly turned, and Spike had turned him wrong. Right, two things then. He couldn’t be expected to count and be coherent when he was on the edge of finished every false breath he took.
Dru had disappeared and taken her flunkies with her, luring Luke with promises that the revolting pug probably hadn’t experienced willingly since the day he was turned. It hadn’t ended his torment. They’d left him swinging from the chains against the wall, the resounding blunted thump of many fists going for him at once leaving his mind and body swirling and careening into the meaner side. They’d ceased the active punishment, but this was where the head tricks began.
He couldn’t keep the swell of regret from surging and drowning him in its pool of intent. He’d been snagged before he could attempt to pry open his eyes. All right, ceasing with the dramatics, that wasn’t so swift in the case of them being welded shut with dried blood. Spike barked a laugh and wondered if insanity by sire was catching. It would be nice. Give him something of a certainty to cling to, something to get him out of this mess. If he was as bug shagging crazy as the rest of his loopy family they’d maybe loosen the shackles a bit and perhaps let him free.
A bloke could dream.
Fact was he knew it was over. Even if Dru merely thought she was punishing him back into the fold, Spike knew what Nest really did to those that defected. Truth be told, he was a little confused why the bugger hadn’t hunted down Angelus and given him what for. The arse must serve a purpose, he thought. Something that Spike never had. He’d dealt with it a century ago. Had emerged from raging obscurity even more well known than the rest of the Aurelian flock—cemented his place in the history books so that none of them could laugh at him again. Seemed like now was as good a time as any to acknowledge that that plan had backfired. No matter what kind of rep he fostered for himself, his family couldn’t give a fuck unless there was a way to use it against him.
Spike slumped against the wall, his shoulders burning along with the numerous bloodied lances crossing his body. He only had one chance, and he was buggered if he knew whether it would work. Exhaustion was tempting him back toward blackness and carefree Buffy porn, yet the tantalising newness of his get kept unconsciousness at bay. Jesse. Time would show him just how powerful he was, and whether his mistake had been in turning a teenager into a monster, or creating an opportunity for escape by extending his kin.
Deep down the connection to this boy made him feel ill. And even deeper still he felt a rage that the connection wasn’t with someone else entirely. He’d done well to block out the impulses that had formed him for the past hundred years, but now that his body was devoid of many volumes of blood, he felt the elemental pull of his primitive urges tenfold. And he wanted Buffy. He wanted part of him inside her—his blood, his cock. He wanted her to know where she belonged, that his side was the last place she would walk before she saw the end of the world. His face her salvation before they crumbled to the ground.
As his minds eye saw her naked and with fangs, his body jerked and he cried out in horror. He was hallucinating, allowing the demon side of him too much control. This was not the kind of Buffy he wanted—even if it meant being alone for the rest of his existence. He wanted to know her as she was, feel her heart beat as they made love.
Dreamlike images flitted behind his lids, of a Buffy he’d had a crack at until he’d blown it so spectacularly. His body reacted with contradictory moans and a rigid erection as she alternated between blushing virgin and demonic temptress, a fight between the elemental sides of himself, and as the stirrings of his newest creation stirred to life somewhere under the slayer’s watchful eye, Spike lost the battle of controlling his desires. Preferences bled into an indistinct Buffy and he was lost to know which was which. As the parts that made up the total of Spike lost control, his need for blood and sex did so too.
Fury, hate, need and desperation had him surging wildly against the chains, growling with feral intensity into the silence as every muscle strained against captivity. He had things to do: a vampire to train, a woman to fuck, a town to paint red. Ideas and actions snapped like whips in his head and Spike was lost to sensation, losing clear thought and his mental stability with each ear-shattering crack.
It was time to rage.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
Xander had gone to pick-up Willow, and Giles had left to do some research. It had taken awhile to convince them all that she could cope with Jesse on her own. They conveniently forgot that she faced fledglings on a nightly basis and rid the world of them efficiently if not a trifle quickly.
On second thought, maybe that’s what they were worried about.
It had taken two hours of standing and watching before Buffy realised she should have brought down a chair. Another hour to actually go up and do it. It was obviously taking some time for Xander to break the news, and the longer they took to come back, the more relieved Buffy felt. She knew she was a coward in the way she took comfort in knowing she wouldn’t be the one seeing Willow’s face crumble with grief that her friend from childhood was no longer of the living, and depending on the very near future, possibly not of the unliving either.
It was amazingly quiet down in the basement. There was only one being drawing on breath, only one heart beating in the room, and yet they were things Buffy was so used to while being human that it felt like a betrayal beside the one who no longer could claim that affinity. Buffy looked at Jesse, already so pale before he’d gone to the lioness’s den that fatal night and submitted to a monster’s fangs.
He was an idiot.
Feeling suddenly agitated, Buffy bounced to her feet and paced away from the bed—away from the boy who was supposed to be her low-pressure friend. Like Xander, although she’d definitely picked up vibes from the newly turned demon implying a not so easygoing future with him in the group had ever been on the cards. The way he’d checked her out had been kind of slimy—not that she’d been worried about taking him on if he overstepped the very distinct friends boundary. It would have been the ensuing awkwardness that would have killed the friendship. In a way, Buffy was relieved it had happened this way as the fault fell far from her shoulders.
Twenty minutes into the fourth hour, Buffy began to feel the irritating itch creep up her spine and settle at the back of her neck. It had started so quietly, so subtly that she really hadn’t noticed until she began to feel angry at Jesse for putting them in this position. The sensation was new, unfamiliar despite Giles warning her she should have been feeling it for weeks. Been sensing vampires all along. It awoke a reaction that took her breath away with its swiftness and she felt her feet divert her pacing in search of a stake.
She was the Slayer and she was absent a weapon. It was wrong. It was foolish and a primitive urge inside her told her she needed it in her hand NOW. Looking around, Buffy discovered a distinct lack of wood. Even the chair was metal and useless in providing a makeshift weapon in this sudden urgency. She didn’t want to leave, didn’t want to go only to come back and find she’d been caught and lured into a web of a monster’s making.
A tiny part of her brain screamed at Spike for doing this to her—for creating something she’d have to kill. And she knew she would, could feel the increase in adrenaline that informed her a demon was in her presence and needed to be slayed. It was so much stronger than anything she’d felt before—much stronger than the non-existent urge she’d had to stake Spike. The difference was staggering and Buffy paused to wonder why. He was a master vampire, so much stronger and more powerful than a nerd like Jesse could have ever aspired to be, and yet he’d not sparked one single impulse to kill. This was her friend—a new and not very well known friend for sure, but still not an enemy. Not yet. Not like Spike had been when she first met him.
Desperately trying to put it in perspective, to get control of her feelings and her desire to slay, Buffy sat back on the chair and used her hands to grip the seat tightly. If she hung on fast, maybe, just maybe, it would be okay. The panic might go away and leave her to be just Buffy again.
And then a tear-soaked Willow clomped down the stairs and their world changed again.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
So loud. Ripe. Sensations overwhelming yet delicious. Crave death; crave violence. Hungry—so very hungry it hurts.
The pain of waking raced through him until he felt agony in every limb, yet desperation to keep still and not allow anyone to know he was back. He felt so different, like a thousand parties had launched in his head and the party drugs had all been sunk into his veins. He buzzed, and everything was vibrant, even behind his closed lids.
Three rhythms echoed around him, his mouth salivating until he felt bursting teeth cut the inside of his lip. A snarl was so close to the edge of his tongue and Jesse struggled to keep it in, feeling so eager to experience himself with that kind of power behind him.
He awoke with a knowledge spurring him on to impetuous activity, yet automatic caution now that he recognised the appearance of power even greater than his own. It was Buffy—he knew in a second that she was a threat, yet so far he had been left alone. There were two others—two he knew and couldn’t wait to get to know even better. He could sense Willow’s tears and felt like hitting her violently for grieving his change. He wasn’t. He gloried in it.
Until he realised he couldn’t sense HER.
Jesse could hardly believe it. She’d been draining him and he’d known it was the end. She’d refused to save him, wanting to savour the taste of his fear as she sucked it into her mouth. Wanting him to be truly dead. Meaning so little to her after all he’d given so freely hurt. Not belonging to her was a hard blow against the face. Not sensing her at all made him feel weak and cheated.
His sire’s blood coursed through his veins at a phenomenal rate, and with it was dictated a respect that he would have refused given the situation. It wasn’t possible. He could feel it, the awe that surged through his blood despite his desire to hate and destroy.
And then other things imprinted his first moments as a demon—the certainty that his sire was in trouble, that he was needed for help and that importance puffed him up more than all of Darla’s kinky rounds of sex had done.
Remnants were there; the boy who was loyal though foolish was still on the outskirts of existence, but the demon banished them as irritations well gotten rid of. Jesse couldn’t continue what he was—and he felt it possible that he liked who he was becoming a whole lot better. It was like an alien at first, invading his body and changing his thoughts and memories until it was anger and violence he was consumed with, not failed flirting and hit-and-miss study.
He was new, improved, and deadly intent on showing it to those that thought themselves friends. He could tell them apart now, and he didn’t even have to open his eyes. Sweet sweet Willow, fresh yet cloaked in grief. She was a delicate one, but she’d sing as he drank her down. Xander, tired and resigned, and yet his blood would be so good teasing the back of his throat. He’d take long gulps of him, feeling how strong he was against a boy who’d always been his equal, in all things dorky. Not anymore. Jesse could feel himself drowning in the possibilities of his sudden cool factor, even if he did get to eat everyone who thought it.
They talked around him, and then Willow sobbed. It was like he’d planned it—the perfect moment. The muscles in his face groaned and cracked and then amber eyes rested on his new world, wide and bright. A smile tilted the end of his lips and then an attempt to smoothly sit up was foiled by the chains. Despite this blow to his plan, Jesse laid back and stared.
He’d watch them scurry around him like mice.
Chapter Nineteen
It had taken courage to come back this far. He’d lost himself in the mire of guilt and grief over the past two days and it had taken tremendous effort to regroup and attempt that bold step back on the right road—and right now the road led to Rupert Giles.
It wasn’t what he might have wished. A beacon of shining blonde hair might have made the passage brighter and less fraught with catastrophe, but he thought that way could lead to instant dust. That option he’d obviously miscalculated as the Watcher stared at him down the shelf of a lethal, loaded crossbow.
“What are you doing here?” There was no concession in the Watcher’s icy glare and Angel cursed himself again for not thinking of the wider ranging consequences of his actions. Of course, this man—this man who had devoted his life to fighting on the side of good and training the one girl whose sacred duty it was to save the world and the precious lives within it—would not look well upon a misguided vampire who believed it acceptable to sacrifice the one if it meant saving the many.
He’d had no choice but to show Spike up for the lying, scheming vermin that he really was, and there had been no other way he’d seen to do it. It wasn’t as if their little friend hadn’t had a death wish in the first place—even if Angel was more firmly placed to understand the seductive personality of Darla and her erotic promises.
He had no choice now but to put forth a good argument. If he didn’t, then he didn’t fancy how many times Giles would make him try and catch the bolts shot unerringly accurate.
“I thought I could help you fight the Master.” Not needing breath aided him in stillness and he thanked whatever star had blessed him that being undead robbed him of the adrenaline that notched up fear.
“We are currently managing…if not fine then definitely adequately, from your previous version of help. My Slayer is faced with the possibility of slaying someone she called friend—and before you attempt to lay the whole blame on Spike for doing the turning, let us wonder at your less than stellar actions in not coming to the rescue of the boy. Pillock.” The crossbow wavered just slightly, but the bolt remained fixed and sharp on its intended target.
“He was too far gone under Darla’s spell. You’d have had to chain him up for weeks to get him to let her go. The power of a vampire like Darla is indescribable, indeterminate—” Angel became lost in the lure of his memory—of the night he’d succumbed to her and all her promises. He felt the blow hard when the Watcher’s voice broke in and reminded him of his difference.
“Yes, for you, perhaps. And if chaining is what it would have taken, then chaining we would have done. You had no right to make a decision of such magnitude and then claim that you are good by virtue of possessing a soul.” Giles took a crucifix off the study table and held it tight before letting the still loaded crossbow rest on the polished wood. “Were Buffy here, she would have staked yo; make no mistake of that. She still bloody might—and I would be the last to step in her way.” And then he gave into the misery of being the smart one—of being her watcher, the trained one entrusted with her safety and her skill.
Angel glanced at the now relinquished weapon and stepped closer, his eyes narrowing at the human and seeing the pain that suddenly overwhelmed him. He watched as Giles slumped into a chair, his hand clutching at his glasses as his other swept roughly through his hair. In a room filled with books, only one stood out on the table.
The Watcher was lost in his focus of it to the extent of starting when Angel took a seat opposite. The vampire tried his concerned look, but it gave quickly away to curiosity as he identified the book as the Codex he’d left behind when he’d first dropped the soulless Spike bombshell. Not that it seemed to have the widespread results he would have appreciated.
“It would appear that I would need your—if not your help, then certainly your confidence.” Rupert Giles looked tired beyond measure and Angel nodded by way of acceptance, his curiosity piqued as to why this strong, knowledgeable man seemed weaker than the most oblivious human. He had information and awareness of an existence the world knew nothing about—and yet it wore on his efforts to even the fight. “It would seem that my slayer is to die in this battle against the Master. And there isn’t a damn thing I can do to prevent it.”
So that was it. Well, they hadn’t wanted his advice before now, and Angel couldn’t help the feeling of ‘I told you so’ that wanted to rocket off his tongue at their mistake.
“Why don’t you just ask Spike? He’s been more than creative in the past. Stealing my destiny was one of his more brilliant examples—and you all fell for it.” The churlish tone crossed the barrier and Giles sat up straighter, his stare harder.
“Spike would appear to have disappeared, and no, I don’t believe it is for any such nefarious purpose as setting Buffy up. I think you are more out of touch with your family than you even realise.” The suggestion that Giles knew more of Spike than Angel possibly could drifted untouched on the air and Angel felt like biting him for the audacity.
“If you’re about to ask me help you find Spike, you’ve really tipped back too much—”
“You really are blindly oblivious to the good around you, aren’t you? Spike is not the issue here, though I will admit that had he been I might have received some actual help with this awful miscarriage of justice. You claimed to be here to aid Buffy in her fight for good. So far, all I have seen in you is a vindictive streak that you bow to before all else. You sacrificed a human life so as to expose a vampire you haven’t even known for a century. Your view on this situation is wrong, and it appals me that you would rather continue on this childish expedition to change Buffy’s feelings than to actively aid in saving her life—and the world.” The passion died in the librarian’s eyes suddenly and he gave into the wave of hopelessness he’d been struggling against since the moment foreign words began to make sense to his tired brain and a prized book became his most hated possession.
The hypnotic jaw clenching almost made him snap as he took one final look at the vampire that could have become their greatest ally and decided he would be best to enclose himself in his office and contemplate the best way to circumvent these predictions.
“Just…just go, will you? There is nothing you can do here, and I rather think Buffy is far from wanting to see your face in her current predicament.” He dismissed the vampire with less than a look, just a callous wave of his hand as he stumbled to the back of the library in total preoccupation.
It’s the Codex. It’s never been wrong. The events have always come to pass. Oh God, Buffy. Whatever can I do? He mumbled, repetition of his mind and words mixing to create a horror in his heart that made it difficult for him to breathe.
And Angel slipped out as unwelcome as when he’d arrived.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
Twisted little hearts danced around her in his mind. Naked and glorious, her breasts were young and pert and just straining for the first lick of his tongue. But she was covered, covered in the bizarre caricatures of love as they flipped and slipped across her skin.
His hands itched to pluck them away, to reveal the glory of her body, taste the richness of her flesh as his fangs raped her resistance away. He understood her fear—wasn’t he scared the first night Dru had shown him the pain of forever? Hadn’t he been afraid when she’d stroked his cock and he’d gathered his wits enough to slide in his possession, to lay rights to her nights?
As life altering as that moment had been, he knew Buffy would surpass it all.
Touching her would award him the taste of freshness he himself had offered Dru—fresh untainted blood with the spice of arousal. He’d kissed Buffy and knew. Till the day he dusted, she was meant for him. As irrevocably as Dru had known that particular something the moment she’d come across him weeping in a stable, he knew that Buffy was his and he’d make sure she understood how satisfying it was to know the place you belonged.
What little awareness he had left allowed Spike to know where he was. He hung in the drafty hall between caves and he burned from overextended muscles and a bleeding heart. She would come for him. He knew that—in between the times he felt like his body was crumbling to the floor, only to jerk awake and find that Dru was just pouring dirt upon his head.
He hated her now.
Where once her cool beauty had mesmerised him completely, now he heard her voice and felt every year of strain that he’d spent with her. Every year of resentment that she’d held out for the return of her precious sire. And every second she’d made Spike clear her path with his bare hands while she swept a parade laughing around his heart.
Fanciful visions flickered between the red of his hatred and the blood of his love. Yet Drusilla whispered, saying things that were sending him not so quietly insane.
She enacted his end, showed him how many particles he’d be on the floor when Buffy had had enough of him—warning that it was a ‘when’, and not his hoped for ‘if’.
Only when she was gone would he fight to remember the look on Buffy’s face the night they’d spent curled up in each other’s arms, the reality of Dru a distant hurt that had lost all its sting the moment he’d indulged in the truth. The moments were sweet and he could clearly picture her smile, the affection in her touch and the desire in her kiss as she visited him in this hell where he hung.
Fleetingly he was soft and gentle—the moments passing into the heat of sex and power where he was eager to have her dwell. He could feel the childe of his blood rising, could sense the anger and hatred that swelled in this new abomination and the demon inside of him relished it. Revelled in the test of Buffy’s love in her response to its existence.
He’d passed beyond using the creature to free him. He knew it would be automatic, that the boy would demand they rescue him and then attempt to eat them in gratitude. The part inside Spike that had been trying—no, succeeding to be good for Buffy, quailed at the notion that she and her friends could perish for trusting his get. It was the part that was being suppressed more and more as visions of his goddess nude and covered in marks seduced him to his darker side.
Fangs bursting from his gums, Spike slumped against his wall and swallowed up the image of his Buffy coming for him. She looked older, smaller, yet bore the ravages of time enormously well. As she walked closer, he could see her hands clenched, her jaw ticking as her eyes swept over his demon’s face and screwed up in disappointment.
“I don’t want YOU,” she said. Her lip curled in disgust as she swept a glance over his broken and pale body, noticing every small prick of his skin that had pained him, destroyed his flesh while he’d been waiting for a miracle.
Primal violence welled up within and Spike felt like he’d blacked out. It must have only been for seconds but by then he felt strength flow through him, felt anger at being rejected renew his efforts to break out, and he roared in reaction to his loss.
“Too fucking bad, Goldilocks. I’m what you’ve got.”
The creak of shattering rock and stretching chains filled his ears as he tried to hold in the snarl—and then he was free and on her, ripping her clothes from her body and punishing her for daring to discard any part of who he was. He bruised her and ripped her open as many times as he could find places, defying her treacherous mouth to open and tell him more lies.
“How’s that feel, Slayer?” And he thrust himself hard beyond her restricting passage, feeling her rip; loving her tears. Celebrating the song of her screams.
He was brought back to reality with a hard fist to his gut, and Spike choked and dry wretched into Luke’s hideous face.
“You were looking far too happy, Spike.”
There was no shame in the tears he shed for Buffy. The lapse would cost him as his control slipped well beyond his grasp.
Spike only hoped Dru staked him before she arrived.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
Willow hadn’t believed the story that Xander had told her. He had a busted bottom lip to prove it when she’d been so overwhelmingly angry with what he was trying to say. Making jokes about Jesse becoming a vampire was really not funny.
It had taken hours for him to convince her he wasn’t lying and to come to Buffy’s basement to see for herself. And now she stood at the bottom of the stairs, tasting her dinner in the back of her throat as she fought to decide between throwing up, staking her friend, or running all the way back home.
He was staring at her. No, leering and licking his lips and it was the most unnerving—terrifying—experience she’d ever had. Jesse had never looked at her like that before. Oh, once she might have hoped he’d take an interest in her—for the five minutes before she’d pegged all her hopes on Xander—but not for a long time had she had the slimmest thought of him as anything but a friend. Now she could see why—because his lewd interest was making her sensitive skin crawl.
Though it was wrong of her to blame him now that he’d been taken over by a demon. Wasn’t it?
This was a friend—a friend Xander was apparently so fond of that the thought of letting him die with his soul intact and travelling to the good place people went when they were murdered by vampires, was just unbearable. That he’d actually encouraged—no wait, she remembered his explanation, emotionally blackmailed—Spike to do this was almost too much to process. Still, friend as human. Surely the example of Spike showed them that it was possible to have a friend as a vampire as well?
“J-Jesse?” She took one tentative step forward then felt a part of her childhood die at his callous laugh.
“Awwww, Willow. You didn’t even dress up for me.” His eyes lowered and stayed on the fabric gently stretched across her breasts and he laughed at her gasp of humiliation.
He’d never made her feel inadequate before—not enough to be uncomfortable around him. Until now. Just one foul opening of his demon’s mouth and she was shuddering and whimpering in confusion and fear. Where was sweet—do-anything-for-his-Willow Jesse?
“I-I didn’t know I had to,” the flustered red-head fumbled as an excuse—always feeling like she owed it even when commonsense told her she didn’t. Buffy and Xander were there with her, intellectually she knew that, but the experience of this Jesse overwhelmed her senses and she couldn’t recognise the security of knowing her friends—one super-powered at that—were right at her side.
Her eyes could focus on nothing but the vampire—and that’s what he was now. Willow could see the changes immediately—and not just the lumpies and the sharp fangs that were being traced by a roughened tongue.
“So sad. Poor fashion-challenged Will. I live in hope. Or not. Get it?” He cracked up at his less-than-funny pun and Willow felt the numbness take over, ignored the cracks at her composure as a river of tears flowed down her frozen cheeks.
“Stop it.” Xander stepped forward, horrified, yet clinging to one last hope that the change could be reversed. If only Spike would show; he could control his new little vampire recruit and make him the Jesse they all knew and loved.
“Stop it,” the evil demon mimicked before automatically flinching at Buffy’s authoritative step forward.
“I’m only letting your ass remain undusty until Spike gets here. If he can’t improve your manners for you, it’s bye-bye cruel world. Capische?” Despite the tough words, Buffy knew he could hear her heart beating faster, could, perhaps, smell her fear as she bluffed her way through this first conversation with the evil in her basement. If only her mom could see her now, she’d be certified crazy with her ass back in a pretty white cell faster than you could scream ‘vampire’.
“Yeah, should probably do something about that. Daddy Spike is kinda—all tied up? Well, you know what it’s like when the evil enemy vampnaps you and tortures you for days? Ah, guess you don’t. My bad,” Jesse mocked coldly, his tone betraying his lack of interest in the real fate of his sire.
Pure cold horror raced through Buffy’s nervous system at his implication and she felt the loss of control in several parts of her body. Bile rose in her throat, disgust at her own naïve ignorance barely allowed her to continue standing and she at last faced the reason why Spike had disappeared and not returned.
“H-how do you know? How can you know where he is?” Her tone held as much disbelief as she could muster, despite the building sense of terror that it made too much sense and Spike—even if scared of her reaction—wasn’t such a coward that he wouldn’t face this mistake. And one hard look at Jesse and his almost dripping fangs told her it was absolutely a mistake.
“I can feel it,” he said confidently. “In here,” he said with a grin as he tapped his head, and then continued with a jerk of his hips and a defined bulge in his jeans. “And most definitely here. He’s thinking of you, little pretty. He wants to fuck you raw.”
Willow gasped and Buffy vaguely heard Xander’s shocked placating ‘that’s so not nice, man’ before she could control the urge she had to step forward and rip his foul head off.
“Do you know how to find him?” she ground out, a burgeoning hatred developing in her heart, and yet a hesitant belief that maybe it wouldn’t be too late. Hoping, but not quite believing, that with Spike, this vampire could redeem himself.
She watched as Jesse tipped his head to the side, her stomach clenching in revulsion that he’d emulated one of Spike’s signature characteristics, and saw his contemplative nod.
“Think so. He’s kinda been calling for me for the past few hours at least. Sending some pretty interesting daydreams, too. Hey Buffy, how do you look with fang marks and cum dripping from your—”
Xander beat her to the punch; she was too weakened by the need to empty everything she’d ever eaten onto the floor.
“Y-you’re disgusting,” Willow sobbed at the boy she’d spent years growing up with, sharing sandpits and sandwiches, and then in a show of strength all of them were unaware of, grabbed Buffy’s arm and tugged her to the stairs.
The demoralised slayer stumbled her way upward to sanity and collapsed against the kitchen island, feeling the return of her strength only when she could finally push her lungs into accepting air.
Xander stood silent as he shut the basement door and watched his friends—these girls. And he offered silent penance for his selfish mistake.
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