Chapter 24
Author's Notes: A/N: One of my betas is out of town, so there’s every chance I’ll eventually replace this chapter with a cleaner version. As it is, four pairs of eyes have already looked over it, and I’ve read through it several times to try and catch all my silly errors.
Those of you familiar with my work know how I feel about Spuffy, even at the expense of ostensibly devaluing the significance of Spike and/or Buffy’s past relationships. I don’t do this out of malice toward Drusilla or Angel or even Riley; rather, out of an artistic license of how I view the vast difference in the way my Spike and Buffy experience each other. The characters are always subject to interpretation by the person writing them; my views are very likely to be at odds with the views of someone else. I say this because I know myself, and I know the way I feel about these characters because I write how I feel. I feel Spike’s previous relationships as well as Buffy’s are very important in understanding how they react to each other—what makes them, together, work whereas others have failed.
I say this as a precursor for something I did very intentionally in this chapter. Needless to say, I’ve done it unintentionally in other chapters of other stories, but based on the premise I’ve established here—one wherein Spike and Buffy knew and loved each other before meeting in S.2—I feel it’s necessary to point out what I did before I am accused of ‘ship bashing, or downplaying the significance of Drusilla’s role in Spike’s life. Such is not at all my intention. I’m slightly more conscious of it going into this story—particularly entering into this part of the story—based on what has been established about Elizabeth and William’s relationship prior to Spike regaining his memories. This is something I discussed at length with at least two of my betas, so it was very considered and ultimately, I decided to follow my instincts.
That being said, I know it’s been a few days since I updated. Truly sorry about the delay—I give you a long chapter to make up for it. Oh, and there are more Shakespeare quotes.
Thank you all again so much for your encouragement and enthusiasm.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Sunnydale, California, 1997It was a strange sensation…remembering death. Remembering what happened after the final bow. Remembering something his memory had previously denied him.
The act of being dead was something Spike had never thought about. The gap which fell between the moments Drusilla sank her fangs into his throat and clawing out of his coffin were filled with blackness and granted little necessity for speculation. There was no telling glance of the afterlife. No puffy white clouds or hellish screams of eternal damnation. There was nothing but the awareness of falling and rising again.
His mind was all a-tangle. Colors, visions, images. Things he knew. Things he’d always known. Things he couldn’t believe his mind had kept from him. He saw her, of course…but then, he’d always seen her. Ever since infancy, it seemed his mind was a shrine for Elizabeth. For his Buffy. He’d wanted her before he’d known what wanting meant. He’d spent a century unknowingly turning over every rock in his path in search of her. Every time he caught a whiff of something which smelled like her, his head would whip up, and his eyes would scour the scene before him, trying to pinpoint the source. Trying to figure out what the bloody hell he was looking for in the first place. His breath would always catch when he saw girls of her height and stature; girls with her hair or eyes. He would blink at them in wonder, then dismiss them just as quickly. He didn’t for know what he was looking, but he hadn’t found it.
Not until he came to Sunnydale. Not until he saw her. In the Bronze. Dancing.
Buffy. His Buffy. He’d found her. His search had ended the night he first laid eyes on her—well, not first, but first to his knowledge. His double-takes at other chits had ended that night. The demon had centered its sights on her. On Buffy.
Only he’d been fool enough to think it was because she was the Slayer.
He hadn’t recognized her. Not the way he should have.
She was blonde now; then again, so was he. And before Halloween, her eyes had been kissed with sunlight, her lips turned upward in a smile he now found so familiar it nearly brought him to his knees.
She was here because
he was here. And he was here because of a deal she’d made.
It was so bloody overwhelming. The past century and a half of his life had only been so because she’d wished it. The lot of it: getting the stuffing kicked out of him at school, watching his mum fall into poor health, crumbling under Cecily’s vicious rejection only to stumble into darkness. Then the rest—Angelus shagging Dru sideways, Dru shagging everything else that moved, the splitting panic of losing his sire to an angry mob…
God. Oh God. And slayers. Christ, slayers. His never-ending obsession with slayers. Every time he heard the word, his unbeating heart would skip and his still-veins would rush with the promise of something he couldn’t name. And all he’d known was how important it was that he get to the Slayer. That he see her. Touch her. Take in her face. See if she was
something—if she was the one for which he searched.
Even if he’d had bugger-all idea for what he was looking.
At night she would be there. She always was. Caressing his face, whispering sweetly into his ear, and promising things he never remembered upon awakening.
Not until he got to Sunnydale.
Not until he found her again.
And he hadn’t remembered her. Christ, why hadn’t he remembered her?
He felt infinitely stuck in a T.S Eliot poem, grasping a peach in one hand and demanding if he dared…if he dared disturb the universe.
Only he hadn’t. Buffy had. Buffy had disturbed the universe to rescue him from Hell. From the place he hadn’t remembered until his fang sliced her tongue and her blood ran into his mouth.
Buffy had sacrificed herself to save him. She’d made a trade.
And he hadn’t remembered her.
He hadn’t remembered the woman he loved. Loved beyond recognition. Beyond understanding. And not only had he not remembered her, he’d turned himself heads and tails over a woman he couldn’t fathom touching now. Not when he remembered what he’d had. What he’d always had without knowing it.
He didn’t begrudge Dru for anything. It seemed she’d known from the beginning—known in her special way which guaranteed a certain amount of understanding when events around her began to unfold, but similarly kept her from voicing her secret knowledge. He couldn’t hate her now—not for the century of not loving him, not for her numerous affairs, not for regarding him more as a favored son than a lover. He couldn’t hate her. Not for anything.
But he hated himself.
He’d touched someone else. He’d had perfection in his Buffy and he’d fallen so far from it that he didn’t know if he could ever be clean.
Buffy had given up everything for him, and he hadn’t remembered her. Her precious lips had graced his, and he’d shoved her aside. She’d wept crystal tears and whispered a thousand apologies, begging him for forgiveness he hadn’t known to grant.
He’d lived a century-and-a-half without knowing how much in love he already was.
He’d touched someone else, and allowed himself to be touched.
The demon was wailing now—in mourning for something he couldn’t name. And while the rest of his mind was compact with conflicting memories, there was nothing beyond his golden understanding. He’d died at her side, watching as she wept for him, begging him to never leave her. Her eyes were the last he remembered of that life—the last before whatever was left of him was banished to the special Hell reserved for demons.
Buffy had done everything to save him.
Just as he would have done for her. God, if he’d watched Buffy die, he would have torn apart this and every world between them to get her back.
She’d begged him for forgiveness on Halloween. Begged
him. He was the one who had made her watch him die. Whatever came after—the years of emptiness, playing second fiddle to the unworthy wankers around him, enduring rejection after rejection—the lot of it would never make up for what he’d made her suffer.
His thoughts were finally clearing. He felt he could see at last.
It didn’t mean the years behind him were down the pisser, but it certainly put things in perspective. Now, knowing what he did about himself, he at last felt completely whole. As though the life he’d been living these last decades was
William the Bloody—Abridged. He was a vampire older than time now. And for all the times Angelus had gotten his jollies by shoving Spike’s youth in his face, for all the superficial lessons his so-called elders had tried to teach him, for anything and everything he’d undergone—it struck him as thoroughly laughable.
For William the Bloody wasn’t one to be mocked—it didn’t rightly matter how moon-eyed he was for the Slayer. He was a predator and he always had been. He’d tempered himself best he could for his girl the first time around, but he hadn’t quit cold turkey, and she’d never asked it of him. It was, perhaps, the only thing that wanker of a watcher had pounded into her head which wasn’t complete rubbish.
Elizabeth had understood she was there only to protect the human race. She’d viewed him as a thing from Hell at first, of course, but she hadn’t blamed him for being what he was, nor had she ever attempted to hold him to her moral code. It was a tacit understanding between them. He wasn’t human; he couldn’t be blamed for not acting human.
Just as he couldn’t blame her for
being human. For caring about the pissants she protected, even if they cared less than a damn about her.
He couldn’t blame her for wanting to see the good in everyone, no matter how ill-advised.
He couldn’t blame her for anything. It made up who she was.
His Buffy. His Buffy reborn, bearing the name he’d given her.
The fight wasn’t over—he wasn’t thick enough to think it was. His head might be clearing, the fog dissipating, but Spike knew there would always be questions. He would likely spend the rest of his days trying to reconcile with what he’d
thought was true versus what actually was. He’d lived a good chunk of life not knowing his true identity, and try as he might, there was no simple bouncing back from that.
But he couldn’t go on without seeing her. Lord knows why he’d even tried.
It had seemed important. Distancing himself. Giving himself time to think; time to mull over what her blood had revealed. The opening of his mind to an endless storm of new possibilities. The return of who he was, or who he had been before. And while he’d told her to not call him
Will anymore, there was a part of him which couldn’t help but sway with awe.
She’d known him. She always had.
Spike sucked off the last of his cigarette before consigning it to the grassy earth and extinguishing its flame under his boot. He’d been in the cemetery for God-knows-how-long now, just waiting. Waiting for her, because he knew she’d be here. After what had happened in the library, she’d need to pour her confusion and her fears into the art she called patrolling. She’d be here.
He needed her to be here.
He needed her to know he wasn’t turning away from her. He might still need time—he might still need to reconcile the question marks running rampant through his mind with answers which seemed all the more elusive, but he needed
her above all else.
Christ knows he always had. For two hundred years until he’d stumbled across her in that shithole of a village, and almost another two hundred before finding her again.
He’d spent nearly half a millennia completely lost for a girl he hadn’t known until the end.
Only this time it
wouldn’t be the end. He wasn’t going to let history repeat itself. Not now. Not ever.
Buffy had sacrificed herself to save him. How, he didn’t know. But he was determined to find out. After, of course, he found her, bathed her face with kisses and shagged her scrumptious body rotten, and begged for forgiveness for both dying on her and not remembering her sweet face.
Then he’d let her have it for bartering with a demon. Truly, he’d wring her neck, kiss it better, and wring it all over again.
Whatever the payment was, it would never be made. He’d find a way around it.
Then perhaps—just perhaps—they could have a go at the future.
*~*~*
How all occasions do inform against me. Buffy laughed—an achingly empty sound which echoed through her tired, emotionally crippled body and left her feeling even more lost than she had before.
The fates had given her what she wanted. What she’d wanted desperately since Halloween night—since awakening and realizing she was Buffy Summers because she’d wished herself into the future. Since awakening and realizing she was alone, because William—now Spike—didn’t remember her.
She’d wanted nothing else since that night
but to be remembered.
Paimon was right. The son of a bitch was right. She should have been careful for what she asked. He’d warned her, after all, that William could know life again only to hate her. Hate her for making him live through a human existence only to become a vampire again. Hate her for having him revisit so many things he likely wished to banish from his memory.
The idea of William ever hating her had been laughable then.
God, she was such a fool. Such a blind, arrogant fool.
There was one thing, though, which kept her from melting into despair. He loved her. He’d said so. He might have walked away but he loved her.
How much could she rely on love?
Everything was so blundered. So completely in the air. She wanted to do something but didn’t know what. Every cell in her body commanded her to run and find him, wherever he was, but he’d asked her for time and she wasn’t about to deny him
whatever he asked. She’d been living under the illusion that everything would somehow sort itself out once he remembered—not complicate itself right back up again. She’d believed it because she wanted it to be true. She wanted it.
“All right,” she murmured gently to herself, kicking at a stone, her eyes trailing its movements as it bounced across the ground. “Well…let’s list the good things. Giles is still totally on your side, not looking to be setting you up to get burned at the stake. Bonus. Ummm…friends no longer think you’re crazy. Angel’s stopped with the Trivial Pursuit: Buffy Edition. And he remembers.” She paused meaningfully, her feet having carried her to the stone she’d kicked. “Spike remembers.”
“He remembers.”
For the umpteenth time tonight, Buffy froze, and her mind immediately went into recovery mode. She was prepared to resuscitate her heart if need be. Breathe back into life every part of her which was numb in despair. She wasn’t ready for this. She wasn’t ready to look him in the eyes and see the damage her selfish wish had inflicted. She wasn’t ready to have his love only out of obligation.
Oh God. What if that was it, then? Obligation. The claim. The thing which bound them together. God, there were so many things she hadn’t considered—either out of idiocy or fear where such revelations would lead her.
Buffy swallowed hard and turned. “Spike…”
He nodded solemnly, his dark eyes a storm of unreadable emotion. “’Lo, Buffy.”
“I thought you needed time.”
“How long’s it been?”
“About ninety minutes.”
“’S about all I needed, I’d wager.” Spike drew in a deep breath and took a step forward. And another. And another. “You all right, sweetness?”
The question sounded so bizarre against the night air she almost laughed again. “All right?” she repeated. “Oh yeah. I’m fine. Real swell. Peachy with a side of keen is Buffy.”
A pained look flashed across his face. “Buffy—”
“I mean…I’ve just gone and made a royal mess of everything, haven’t I? Can’t save you for anything. Can’t make fool-proof deals with demons. Can’t please my friends. Can’t get Angel off my case. Can’t tell my mom how glad I am she’s here and not dead without her pulling a massive wig on me. Can’t tell you how sorry I am for making you…come back, ‘cause honestly? Not so much with the sorry as I am with the
Buffy’s a moron thing.” She shrugged and released another high-pitched, slightly maniacal laugh. “I can’t even pass Trig. So yes. The world is one big lemon ready to be made into lemonade. That’s pretty much how I am.”
“’m sorry, love.”
His word lent her pause. Buffy’s heart skipped. “You…
you’re sorry?” she repeated. “I made you relive—”
“Yeah? My life’s right entertainin’. It was a laugh. Really.”
If the strain in his voice wasn’t enough, the tell in his eyes betrayed him completely. It always did.
“I don’t blame you if you hate me, Spike.”
Thick silence spread between them, his eyes widening in astonishment and deepening in something she hadn’t seen in what felt like a millennia. “Hate you?” he repeated, his voice hoarse, the storm of emotion nearly taking her to her knees. “You think I’m…you think I even have the wirin’ for that?”
Buffy blinked. “I…he…he told me…a-and with earlier—”
A growl rumbled through his throat and he tore forward, his hands clamping around her forearms and walking her backward until her back collided with the harsh bark of a tree. Always against trees, they were. It was nice to have something solid like that on which to depend. “You daft li’l twig,” he snarled. “You—”
“Spike—”
“Doubt that the stars are fire, doubt that the sun doth move, doubt truth to be a liar, but never doubt I love.” He shook her hard. “How thick do I have to paint it for you?”
Buffy shook her head. It was all she could do.
“You really think I wouldn’t’ve done the same thing?” he snarled. “’F I’d known there was a way?
Any way? Y’think I’d’ve let that stupid arse
take you from me? Do you have any idea what I would give up for you?”
“I—I thought…I thought you—”
“I told you I love you, you silly chit,” Spike barked, shaking her again. “I always have. Even when I din’t know you…” His face fell at that, the anger retreating and directing itself inward. His eyes went wide with grieved-awe, his head swooping downward as though he thought himself unworthy. “I din’t know you…God, Buffy…how could I not know you?”
“The demon—”
“The demon made me forget you?” he demanded, the tornado in his eyes seizing hold of his entire being. “It shouldn’t’ve been…it shouldn’t’ve been possible. Makin’ me forget anything about you should’ve been
impossible with one touch of your skin. One kiss…” His gaze dropped to her mouth. “A thousand sodding demons shouldn’t have had the power to make me forget. Not
you, Buffy, not
you. Anything else—
everything else…but not you. I could’ve…God, kill me over an’ over again, jus’ don’t take the memory of you away.”
She didn’t realize she was crying until he reached up to brush away her tears. “I…I didn’t think…”
“You din’t think what?” His breathing was ragged, his hazy eyes wandering covetously over her face as though trying to convince himself she was real. “That I would do as much—”
“That you would ever remember.”
Spike’s eyes flashed and his grip on her arms tightened, his hips moving against hers in a manner she thought to be subconscious. It took all of her not to simply gasp and thrust herself against his denim-clad erection. Hormones battled intellect; she needed to hear this. She needed to hear everything.
“An’ if I din’t, what then?” he demanded. “Are you really so dippy that you don’ know I’m gonna be hopeless for you no matter
what I do or don’ remember? Y’know what I was thinkin’ right before we snogged an’ I got myself a taste of your blood? Before I sodding
remembered?” Buffy shook her head, choking back a sob.
“That you’re mine.” Spike’s lips just barely brushed hers, his eyes fluttering shut before focusing on her again. “You always have been.”
Then his mouth was on her, massaging her lips so sweetly there was nothing to do but collapse against him, relief beyond recognition blistering through her worn body. His hands slipped up her arms, brushing the sides of her neck and finally resting when he had her cheeks cupped in each palm. He moaned when she moaned into him, her lips parting to welcome the eager strokes of his tongue. He tasted just as she remembered—like William, but now flavored with something else. Something different but no less delicious. Something uniquely
Spike. His flavor was mixed with a dangerous rush of nicotine and alcohol. The scent of leather filled her nostrils, combined with the thrilling air of him which was wholly and distinctively male. That was William—Spike. William as he would have been in this century had they lived.
Her fingers wove through his hair, her ravenous mouth consuming everything he had to give. Every stroke of his lips sent fiery sparks down her middle. Her panties were drenched. Her heart thundered. Her pulse raced. She was in such need—so terrified the world would blink itself away and she would awake to find this nothing but a dream. “Spike…” she gasped.
He grinned against her mouth, thrusting his clad cock against her drenched center. “God, I love that.”
Buffy sucked hard on his bottom lip, eliciting a long groan. “Spike,” she said, cheekily this time, fingers massaging his scalp. “You don’t mind if I…slip every now and then? I’m gonna try to remember—”
“Sweetness, you knew me as Will for a long time. I’d hope you wouldn’t be able to forget that in a sodding blink. Not after what we had.”
“Have,” she corrected breathlessly. “What we
have.” “Yes, God yes,” Spike agreed, kissing her again. “What we have.”
“But I’ll try to remember. I’ll try.” Buffy grinned, a thrill racing up her spine—a thrill she hadn’t felt in a long, long time. “I like Spike, though.”
“Yeah?” he murmured, nudging his lips with hers. “Spike likes you, too.”
“It fits you. The hair. The leather.” Her eyes narrowed disapprovingly, though she couldn’t help the way they twinkled. “The smoking…”
Spike offered an unrepentant shrug. “’S not like I’m in danger of coughin’ up a lung, love.”
“There are some of us who are oxygen-dependent.” Buffy’s mouth found his, her hips gyrating against his with need she barely recognized. It had been so long since she’d been touched—even with what he’d done to her the previous night, her heart hadn’t quite sung like it was singing now. For the first time since she could remember, every bit of her was at peace. The screams in her head. The pain in her chest. The prickling stabs at her gut. Things which had followed her from the eighteenth century—things she hadn’t known were pangs of separation. Of loss. Of mourning.
“Spike…”
He pulled back only slightly, his eyes burning into hers with need she knew well. “I know,” he agreed, his left hand dropping to cup her backside, anchoring her forward into the eager thrusts of his hips. “It’s been forever.”
“Literally.”
A grin tugged at his mouth. “You brought me home, love. I’ll never thank you enough for that.” He stole another kiss, trembling hard against her lips. “I’m at your mercy. Do what you will with me.” He paused and pressed himself forward, capturing her well and truly between the hard planes of his body and the tree at her back. “Jus’ do it before I bust a nut.”
Buffy’s nose wrinkled. “You were almost poetic there.”
He chuckled and nipped at her lips. “Story of my life.
Almost poetic.”
“Not out here.”
“No?”
“We’re in the cemetery.”
“Yeah? An’ we were last night, too.” The hand at her ass slipped over her hip, traveling upward until his fingers were barely grazing the fabric protecting her center. “Let me have you?”
Buffy gasped and arched under his gentle touch. “You have me. I just…” She forced her eyes open—forced herself to focus beyond the sea of his gaze, forced the screaming nerves in her body to calm so that her surroundings solidified again. So she could survey their options.
There was a mausoleum over his shoulder.
“There—”
Spike didn’t even turn around. The next instant he had his arms linked around her waist and was pulling her forward until the ground beneath her feet vanished and her weight became entirely dependent on his own. “Wrap your legs around me,” he murmured. “An’ hold on.”
Were her need not as great as his, she might have laughed at how quickly he carted her through the ornate doors. As it was, she couldn’t praise his speed enough. The wind whipped against her face and her stomach fell out at some point, but before she could blink, she found herself seated upon a large stone sarcophagus with Spike perched attentively between her thighs.
“Need you,” he gasped, shedding his duster so fast it might as well have been a mirage. “So much.”
Buffy nodded, gulping down air as though to keep herself from drowning. Her arms shot upward when his hands fisted the cotton of her tank-top, dragging the material over her head. She hadn’t had the chance to change from her standard training-attire between the impromptu meeting at the library and the night’s patrol; not that Spike seemed to mind, but she took a second to identify the irony.
It would be twice, now, that he’d taken her virginity after cornering her on patrol.
How many girls could say that?
“You’re wearin’ a bra,” Spike said, his wide, nearly-dumbfounded eyes taking in the gray fabric concealing her small breasts. “You never wore bras.”
Buffy rolled her eyes. “They didn’t have sports-bras in the eighteenth century. It’s not exactly easy to fight baddies while wearing a corset.”
“Yeah, but those buggers were sexy as hell.”
“Not to mention guaranteed anti-breathing or your money back.”
Spike smirked, his hands skimming up her belly until he had her breasts in his hands. “Well, I like it,” he purred, his thumbs caressing her hardened nipples. “It’s so…soft.”
“Helps with the…fighting.” Buffy drew her arms up again as he dragged the sports-bra over her head. “Keeps me from…bouncing.” She paused and glanced down sheepishly. “What little I have to bounce, anyway.”
“Bite your tongue. These here are perfect.”
“You have to think so or I’ll kick your ass.”
Spike glanced up, an impish gleam in his eyes. “Kinky,” he purred, taking her bare breasts in his hands, the mischief just as easily fading into reverence. “God…Buffy…” His head came forward as though magnetized, his eager mouth sucking a nipple between his teeth. He released her just as quickly, licking his lips. “Your taste…”
Buffy whimpered and arched her hips off the sarcophagus. “Will…”
He glanced up, a soft smile tugging at his mouth. “I do like that,” he murmured. “Can’t really explain it, love. It’s like I knew…all along. Jus’ a part of me was fightin’ to get out so the rest of me would stop bein’ such a dolt.” He flicked her nipples with his thumbs, his lips stealing another kiss from hers. Then his left hand had abandoned her again, skimming down her bare abdomen, his touch feather-light but unmistakable in intent. “Gotta get you outta these.”
Buffy snapped upward at the same time, her hands seizing fistfuls of his tee. “No fair,” she pouted, lifting her hips to help him drag her sweats down her legs. “You got a…head start.”
“You’re jus’ outta practice.”
Spike froze the second the words escaped his lips, his eyes immediately going wide with contrition, searching her face for forgiveness. And while his reaction aided in calming the hysterical screaming which seemed determined to turn her deaf, Buffy couldn’t help the cold shudder which commanded her system at the practically-screamed implication. Now that he remembered—God, now more than ever—the thought of him with anyone else made her want to do very violent things. Things which would give Quentin Tarantino nightmares.
A long sigh rolled through his lips as he dropped to his knees. He’d managed to rid her of her sweats and her sneakers—though the latter, she didn’t know when—leaving her clad only in her thoroughly unremarkable white cotton panties—a twin to the pair he’d seen the night before. She was slick with desire but suddenly cold with jealousy. And while she knew Spike now would never look at anyone else, the idea that he
had made her violently ill.
She wasn’t angry; she was hurt. And she was irritated with herself for feeling something she shouldn’t over something neither of them could have known to control.
“She wasn’t you,” Spike murmured, hooking his thumbs under the elastic of her panties and slowly slipping them down her legs. “Not one piece of her was you.”
“I don’t want to hear this.”
“You need to. I don’ want you thinkin’…” He sighed again, his eyes falling to her exposed flesh. “Christ, you’re so pretty,” he gasped, tenderly running his fingers over her shaven mound. “Buffy…”
There was a pregnant pause. Spike glanced up again.
“I won’ pretend she didn’t mean anythin’ to me,” he said finally. “But bugger if I know how…how I was able to touch anyone after you. Even if I din’t remember. You were always with me, love. I told you that. My night angel.”
“It’s okay—”
“No, it’s not. I don’ want you developing some silly complex or some other rot.” His index finger slipped between her pussy lips, tenderly rubbing a lap up and down, the pad of his finger striking her clit with every stroke. It was subtle but the slightest touch had her melting—had her drenching his flesh with liquid as the rest of her burned with need. “I told you…a long time ago…I din’t know love until I knew you.”
Buffy’s vision fogged and she nodded. “I remember,” she gasped, thrusting herself wantonly against his touch. “Will, please.”
“This first.”
“I believe you.”
“I haven’t said anythin’ yet.”
“Really, I—”
“It’s true. All of it. I’ve
never known love until I knew you. Not the firs’ time. Not this time.” Spike broke off and shook his head hard, his fingers, almost subconsciously, slipping inside her wet channel and wringing a desperate gasp from her throat. “’ll always be grateful to her…for findin’ me. For knowin’ me well enough to understand I wasn’t hers an’ never would be, though blast it all if I know why she sired me in the firs’ bloody place if she knew that much. But Buffy…trust me. Will you trust me?”
Buffy met his eyes reluctantly. It was a very odd sensation; her nerves were on fire, her cells were splitting in two, his fingers were locked inside her body, and she was burning with such envy she felt liable to scream. And not from pleasure.
“I was always lost, see. Always. I thought I was complacent—or I tried to be. But every night…
every sodding night…I dreamed of you. Din’t know it was you, of course, till I got here. Din’t know what the bugger it meant till tonight.” Spike dipped his head toward her center, hesitated, then took a long lick of her clit, his fingers curling inside her. “It’s always been you, Buffy. Always. Even when I din’t know you, it was you. You think this is easy for me? Knowin’ I’ve…I was for you. I always was. Before I knew you back in the day an’ now. But it shouldn’t’ve been like this, kitten. I shouldn’t’ve been able to think of…the demon…”
To hear him speak absolutely broke her heart, and without warning, pieces came flying together in a pristine collage of absolute understanding. God, how could she be so stupid? So self-involved? So blind?
Whatever she felt—despite how sick it made her—it was in the past. It was gone. It was something that had happened because he hadn’t known her. They hadn’t known each other. There was no indiscretion. No reason for apologies. He didn’t need to tell her he hated Drusilla; what reason did he have for hating her aside from the fact that she wasn’t Buffy?
Given how icky she felt over the few boys she’d dated at Hemery, to the stolen kisses she’d shared with Angel, imagining what Spike was going through wasn’t something she wanted to entertain.
“Will…”
He licked her clit again and glanced up.
“I don’t want our future to be based on the past,” she said, her hand finding his cheek. “You didn’t know me.”
“I still loved you. All my life. You’ve always been what I want.”
“I’m not going to be all Psycho Buffy because there was this time when you didn’t remember me and were with someone else.” She smiled gently and coaxed him to his feet, her eager hands immediately going to his belt. “You still love me.”
“Always,” Spike said again, and if his voice wasn’t enough to sell her, the glaze of tears in his eyes had her thoroughly convinced. “I’ve never loved anyone else.”
The sound of the belt’s buckle hitting the stone floor reverberated through the still walls, but not as much as the definitive sound of his zipper being lowered. Buffy kept her eyes on him, even when his cock sprang eagerly into her grip. He whimpered, his eyes fluttering close even as they fought to stay with her, even as her virginal-yet-experienced hand began to pump his shaft.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about the first time we did this,” Buffy murmured. “You took me by such surprise…”
“You had no…bloody idea…what I was doing,” Spike agreed. “I had to walk you through it. Best…night of my life.”
She grinned, her thumb caressing his swollen head as her other hand skimmed up the inside of his thighs, resting his balls against her palm. “Which one?” she asked.
“Both. Either. Though this one’s gainin’ speed.” Suddenly her head was captured between his hands, his grip directing her southward until his cock was caressing the pursed line of her mouth, begging entrance. “Please…jus’ for a minute…”
Her lips parted without a fight and she suckled him eagerly into her mouth, moaning around him when he whimpered and thrust himself deeper down her throat. It was funny the way so much time could seem to have passed, yet all of this remained so fresh in her mind. If she closed her eyes, she could easily see herself back at their cottage on the outskirts of the village, laughing and battling each other for dominance. She almost always won, but she’d long assumed it was because he liked seeing her on top.
His taste was the same. The little noises he made. The way he purred when she squeezed his testicles, the way he whimpered when she suckled his head. The deferential way her name poured through his lips. How love shone through his every move, his every needless breath. It was all the same. It was as though not a day had passed.
And yet here they were.
“So hot,” he moaned. “Buffy…”
He pushed her away too soon—she was bereft of his taste, blinking in confusion until he gently guided her up his body and proceeded to kiss her breathless. Then his cock was slipping across her slick flesh, moving between her spread pussy lips and driving her out of what little mind she had left.
“I need to be inside you,” he whispered against her lips.
“I’m not stopping you.”
“Might sting a bit.”
Buffy grinned. “Didn’t the first time.”
Something dangerous flashed across his face. “You haven’t touched any blighter here, have you?” he demanded. “You’re mine. All of you. I—”
“Aren’t we the hypocrite?”
“Buffy…”
“I meant
our first time,” she assured him, wiggling her hips in a vain attempt to capture him. “It didn’t hurt then.”
“But this time—”
She pressed her index finger to his lips, her other hand slipping between them. “You’ve always been my only,” she whispered, wrapping her fingers around his cock and nudging him down to her aching entrance. “Love me, Spike.”
There were no words; she expected words. She expected him to whisper something in her ear or against her lips. She expected him to hold her to his chest. She expected a thousand things.
Spike surprised her. Instead, he buried his head in her shoulder and wrapped his arms around her middle, and she was the one holding him. Holding him as his cock began to push inside her, as her body tightened, her vaginal muscles clenching in a bizarre tug of war to both reject his invasion and draw him in deeper. It was strange and wonderful: feeling something she already knew for the first time. She relaxed with a long sigh, her eyes burning again, her arms tightly wound around his neck until the slight sting of discomfort abated and her body welcomed him completely. Her muscles clamped around him, drenching him with her desire and holding him inside; the piece of her which, for so long, had gone missing. She was remade in that moment—split between something so new yet so familiar. She knew him. Every ragged breath he stole. Every inch of his skin. Every tremble of his body.
She knew him.
“I do,” Spike whispered, “love you.”
“I know.”
“You all right?” he asked softly, hugging her tighter. “Any pain?”
She shook her head. “No pain.”
Spike’s chest rumbled against her when he chuckled. “High kicks an’ horseback?” he murmured hoarsely, his voice coated with an unmistakable sense of remembrance.
A rush of warmth filled her veins. In a blink the gap of her experience sealed, and she was made whole. “Must be it.”
“Buffy…” He pulled back just slightly—just so he could see her eyes. So he could watch her as he pulled back and slipped out of her pussy before sinking inward again. He watched her watch him, and the flash of his gaze spoke for everything he could not.
“I want to tell you things,” Spike murmured, his movements slow and tempered. “I wanna tell you how hot you are.”
“So tell me,” she replied, her hips nudging forward to reclaim him as he pulled away again. The absence of him from within her left her achingly aware of a void which hadn’t been there before. A void time had somehow forgotten. “Tell…me…”
“There aren’t words. Not for this.”
“Spike…faster…”
He blinked in surprise. “You’re not hurtin’?”
Buffy shook her head. “No. No. Please. Not hurt.”
His lips claimed hers as his body conceded. This was a dance they’d performed well, performed often, yet while sitting on the brink of knowledge, she couldn’t seem to remember her moves. She wanted to please him—wanted to rid Spike’s mind of every wayward thought of the moments they hadn’t spent together. She wanted to mark him as he’d never before been marked. Not by her…not by anyone. A mark which wouldn’t fade if time and death forced them apart a second time. A mark which would tattoo more than just her face in his memory. She wanted him so desperately, and even though she had him, his hard length pumping into her aching body, it never seemed to be enough.
“I missed you,” Spike panted against her, his voice rising as his thrusts grew quicker. He was still going slow, his pace increasing in fragments. Giving her the time to ask him to stop. To tell him if she hurt. If it was too fast. Need strained every corner—she felt it because it was a need shared—but he fought it. He fought it while giving in. He was the only man who could. “I missed you so bloody much. Even when I…din’t know you…I missed you.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Never. Never be sorry for it.” A kiss burned her lips. “Never be sorry…”
Buffy couldn’t help what she felt; no amount of wishful thinking could make it otherwise. But similarly, she remained true to what she’d told him just minutes before. This wasn’t about the past; this was about the future. Their future. Death had ripped them apart but time was piecing them back together.
“Look at us, baby,” Spike moaned, directing her attention downward, his hips crashing harder against hers. “Watch us dance.”
She did as she was told; her eyes taking in the sight of his cock, glistening with her juices, pushing in and out of her warm body. Watching as her feminine folds molded around him, welcoming him inside her and fighting him whenever he tried to leave. It was the most erotic thing she’d ever seen, and at first glance she found she was mesmerized. She didn’t want to look away; she didn’t think she could.
In all the times they’d been together before, she’d never watched. Only felt. Now she was watching and feeling, and every time his length disappeared inside her pussy, a new, previously undiscovered bundle of nerves erupted and she felt herself break into tremors.
“Buffy,” Spike moaned into her hair. “My Buffy.”
She nodded hard. “Your Buffy.”
“Faster. Need…”
“Yes.”
“Don’…wanna hurt…”
“Don’t care. Just need.”
His pace heightened in intensity so rapidly it took a few seconds to reconcile the bolts of ecstasy shooting through her veins with the glances of his cock plunging ruthlessly into her wet flesh. Ecstasy laced with pain. Pain she grasped. Pain she didn’t mind. And without warning, it became too fast to watch. Too fast to merge together the bliss of sensation with what her eyes were telling her. Buffy blinked hard and glanced up, and found herself instantly absorbed in his gaze.
“You feel it?” he asked thickly, one of his hands somehow managing to worm between their battling bodies, finding her clit with ease which nearly seemed unfair. The smack of their flesh stung the air around them, melting into the foreground of his voice until she nearly heard naught but a distant ringing. It took a few seemingly endless seconds to work her way back to herself. “You feel it buildin’ inside you?”
Buffy mewled and nodded before her brain could even process the question.
“Tell…me,” he gasped, massaging her clit with tenderness which offset the sudden fury of his body’s assault. How they had gone from slow to fast so quickly, she didn’t know, nor did she care. This was what she needed—what she knew, despite this body’s inexperience. His quick reclaiming of everything that was his, if only so she could do the same. “Tell me…how I feel.”
“Hot.”
“That’s…you, sweetness.”
“You feel hot.” She paused for emphasis—or possibly for air. It didn’t matter. “I…feel…hot.”
“Buffy, Buffy, Buffy…”
Then suddenly, the proverbial light switch flicked upwards and she remembered something. Something important. And without warning, she began contracting her slayer muscles with every plunge of his cock, squeezing around him so tightly that something closely resembling a howl tore through his throat and his hips bucked against her with maddened desperation.
“Oh fuck. Oh yes. Oh
yes oh
yes yes yes. Buffy.
Buffy Buffy Buffy…”He was rubbing her clit so hard and striking into her pussy with ferocity which dissolved her knowledge of the line between pleasure and pain. Somehow it had ceased to matter. All she knew was she was crying and whispering a thousand things into his skin, battling him for custody of his cock every time he tried to leave her. When they kissed, it was all teeth and tongue. She tasted blood but she didn’t know whose. At some point, the crystal blue of his eyes melted into the burning yellow of a demon’s, and just when the pressure mounting her insides became too much to bear, his fangs split into her neck and the world around her exploded.
She fell but he caught her, thrusting desperately into her still as she spasmed and trembled into orgasm. The name she screamed was
William. Not Spike. Not Will.
William. The embodiment of the two clear memories merged into one man.
“Mine!” he growled against her bloodied flesh, and somewhere deep inside her, a raging pain at last fell to peace.
This. This was what she needed. What she’d always needed.
To belong.
“Yours,” she sobbed eagerly, clinging to him madly.
“Take me,” he demanded.
And she did. Her blunt teeth sank hard into his neck and she felt him spill inside her, cooling the fire but starting a new one in the same stroke. “Mine,” she whispered.
Something within her locked and held.
“Yours. Oh God, Buffy,
always.” The inner screaming stopped and every inch of her burned with light.
And the last thought before consciousness left her completely was a reminder to herself.
He’d asked her what he felt like. She hadn’t had the words then. Not to articulate what she really wanted to say. What she felt he truly needed to hear.
She’d have to remember when she awoke. He needed to know.
He needed to know that he felt like home.
He always had.
TBC