Chapter 29
Author's Notes: A/N: I said I’d redeem Angel. (sorry, Wulfie *giggles*)
Thank you so much to everyone for your feedback, encouragement, and insight. I bring you smut to make the dire situation at least a little better.
We are nearing the end. There are 33 chapters and an epilogue. Anyone else getting excited?
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Spike came to consciousness slowly, aware but detached of his surroundings. He felt her against him. He felt the curve of her scrumptious arse pressed intimately against his hard cock—felt the steady rise and fall of her chest, the small whispers of her breath, and the hum of her heartbeat beneath his fingers. He thought it strange that he couldn’t hear birds chirping, or any of the other telltale signs of morning. He wondered why his inner demon wasn’t squirming with discomfort at the hint of sunlight, but quickly realized there was no sunlight. No sunlight to splash against the mural she’d painted on their bedroom wall. Bloody shame, that was. He loved watching light play against the color. His girl had a natural eye, even if her modesty refused to acknowledge it.
There was no sunlight because there was no window.
Because this wasn’t a cottage in colonial America. This was Giles’s flat. They were in the Watcher’s bed, and the year wasn’t 1701.
Spike’s eyes edged open, his head spinning with confusion.
That was bloody strange.
Of all the side-effects he’d anticipated since the restoration of his memories, awaking in the mindset of a different century wasn’t one of them. Though perhaps, given how nutty his life had become, it should have been. He had a lot more life behind him now. More experience under his belt. More seniority. More knowledge.
All in all, he’d lived more years as a man of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. He supposed it was only natural that he regressed.
Or perhaps it was his mind’s way of protecting him from what the night couldn’t banish. The knowledge that the goddess in his arms was slowly dying. She was dying because of him. Because of a deal she’d made to save his life while thoroughly disregarding her own. As though her life was inconsequential next to his.
As though losing her wouldn’t kill him all over again.
He remembered thinking that before he died; Hell was worth facing as long as he knew Buffy was all right.
Though perhaps it was his mistake confusing all right with alive. Perhaps he hadn’t understood, truly, how much she loved him. It had never made a lick of sense to him. Having her love struck him more as blind luck rather than anything he deserved. She’d been with him and they had been happy…but the fact that her love was something he truly had had never fully pushed beyond the boundaries of knowledge and into understanding. He’d always known it—from the first second the words crossed her lips, there was never any reason to doubt her. He’d always known it, but he’d never understood.
God, she’d given up so much for him.
He couldn’t watch her die. He couldn’t.
Spike sighed and brushed his lips across her cotton-clad shoulder. She was still wearing his tee—the one in which he’d dressed her before taking off for the watcher’s flat. He’d never seen the woman he loved in his clothing, and while he’d heard other men found it to be one of the most potent aphrodisiacs on the planet, arousal was his secondary reaction.
She’d wrapped the tee around herself like a blanket. Like a shield. Like the thing which protected her from the outside world. Like nothing could touch her as long as she had this.
She placed so much faith in him, none of which he deserved.
Spike’s lips wandered upward from her shoulder until they were brushing the bite mark he’d left on her throat. The one that made her his.
“Mmm,” she murmured, stretching languorously against him. “That tickles.”
He swallowed hard. He wanted to bury himself in her arms and will the world away. He wanted to coerce her into promises she couldn’t keep. He wanted to dissolve and have all dissolve with him.
“Sleep well?” he replied gently, his hand skimming down the length of her stomach. The question was ridiculous; he didn’t care. Right now they needed as much ridiculous as the world could afford. If these were the last days with her, he was going to make them count.
The first time, he hadn’t known death was coming. This time he did.
This time he was going to make the heavens weep for them. Perhaps then they would be kind and grant them more time.
“Like a baby,” she retorted, and her tone told him full well that she knew he could hear the lie in her words. She was pretending, too, and she was doing it for him. “Giles has a surprisingly comfy bed. I thought it’d be like the rest of him…stiff as a board, and all that.”
Spike smiled indulgently, his fingers slipping between her thighs as they parted to accommodate him. “Leas’ you slept. Wish I could say the same.”
“Yeah, well, you skipped out and went downstairs to get all chummy with your fellow Brit.”
A bittersweet chord struck his insides. God, were it only that. “Sorry sweetness,” he murmured, his blunt teeth whispering across the claim mark as his fingers explored the wet flesh of her pussy, running slow, exploratory laps between her labia. “Should’ve known better than to have left you up here all by your lonesome.”
“Yeah…”
He loved the breathy little sounds she made. The way her pulse quickened and her heartbeat steadily increased in tempo. Spike released a muffled moan into the tender skin at her throat, his middle and index fingers pushing into her wet softness, his thumb finding her clit. “You’re so warm,” he murmured. “So bloody hot.”
A purely feminine whimper tickled the air. “Mmm. I try.”
Spike trembled. “I love the way you feel around me,” he whispered, adapting a steady rhythm. He wanted to go slowly—wanted to savor every second of this. Wanted to commit her every sound to memory. Wanted to drench himself in her scent. Wanted to bathe his tongue in her taste.
He wanted to fill the next five days with all the memories the past three centuries had denied them.
“Are you sore, kitten?” he asked softly, his thumb manipulating her clit so softly, her erratic gasps nearly took him by surprise. More than his fingers pushing inside her body, the gentle flicks the pad of his thumb administered to her juicy little pearl had her trembling so hard he wished the claim would let him feel what she felt…beyond the simple pleasure of feeling her.
“Not sore,” she replied breathlessly, her hips thrusting back to capture him every time his hand made to withdraw from her pussy.
“We were…I was rough with you last night.”
“I liked it.”
He grinned. “I should hope so. But…you were…”
“Virgin-but-not.” Buffy hissed as his thumb pressed down, and she wiggled her hips to create friction. “I know. God…feels so good.”
“Yeah?”
“Spike…please.”
“Please what?”
She batted her eyes shyly. “Ummm…your fingers…they feel…wonderful.” Pink deepened every inch of her skin, and his heart about exploded with love. “I want…I want you.”
Spike blinked hard, willing himself not to cry. Christ, if the girl could be brave about this, so could he. He could pretend they were enjoying the morning after they’d never had. Not the first time they made love so long ago, and not this time. He could pretend he wasn’t breaking at the thought of how his life would look in a week. How the moon would mourn for her. How the stars would weep.
And how he would make the world suffer before he joined her.
“You have me,” he replied, his fingers driving deeper inside her. “You always have.”
“I want your…thing inside me.”
Her innocence, it seemed, was in absolutely no danger at all. She was still his ray of purity. His sex goddess who could be sucking his cock like it held the antidote and blushing at his crudity. Spike chuckled so hard the vibrations had her squirming and thrusting eagerly against his hand. “My thing?”
“Don’t make me say it!”
“What happened to Forward Buffy?”
He felt rather than saw her pout. “You love all incarnations, remember?”
“I remember.”
“Spike, please…” She twisted slightly in his arms so that his eyes were suddenly lost in hers. Then her hand was at his cheek, and her soft lips were caressing his. “Need you. And don’t pretend you don’t know what I mean, or I’ll get cranky.”
A shiver raced down his spine. He loved the way she murmured his name. “You sure you’re not sore?” he whispered, his wet fingers abandoning her pussy to free his cock.
“I swear to—”
“Swear to no one.”
Somewhere in the deep recesses of his mind, Spike knew they should be talking. He knew he should tell her how much he loved her again and again, if only to negate all the time he wasted. He should have told her the first time he saw her. He should have known then.
There were other things, too. The weight of the bargain loomed above them, shadowing every caress, every kiss, every stolen glance. But as he sank inside her wet haven, there was a piece of Heaven the Hell King couldn’t hope to sully. And for now, Spike didn’t want to face the reality waiting for them downstairs. He didn’t want to meet the watcher’s eyes and see nothing but despair. He didn’t want to think about anything but the wonderful feel of her warmth. The way her flesh molded around his cock. The way her body hummed. The way she mewled and thrust back against him every time he withdrew. The way her vaginal muscles contracted around him, determined, it seemed, to keep him locked within her forever.
“I love you,” he whispered into her hair, his hand slipping between her legs again, capturing her clit between his thumb and forefinger. “I love you, Buffy.”
“I love you,” she replied breathlessly, thrusting back against him with need she couldn’t hide. “Oh Will…”
“It’ll be all right. We’ll make it all right.”
She whimpered and wrapped a hand around his wrist. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered, squeezing him. “So—”
“Don’t—”
“Oh God, I’m so sorry.”
Spike nipped at the claim mark, a ragged breath hissing through his lips as his cock pushed deeper inside her. “Don’t be sorry,” he murmured. “Just don’t leave me.”
Buffy gasped and squeezed his wrist again, but didn’t reply.
It was a promise she couldn’t make. And despite everything, she wouldn’t lie to him.
Even when he needed it.
*~*~*
The phone call would have been late by normal standards; as it was, it came just as Angel was preparing for bed. He arrived at Giles’s home around five in the morning and left less than an hour later. Strange how one little hour could change so much; he’d learned he’d lost Buffy to another man…which was of no surprise, but it still stung. What was surprising was that she was mated to said other man.
What made his unbeating heart freeze, however, was this: she was going to die.
Anger could wait. Frustration was on hold. His feelings didn’t matter right now. All that mattered was Buffy.
There was no time to rest. No time to wait. Upon leaving the watcher’s home, Angel immediately set about picking up Spike’s scent and focused where it mingled with Dru’s. If there was an answer, he knew his unruly offspring would have it. It would be wherever they’d been staying before Buffy’s godforsaken memories were returned—before this can of worms spilled open. Where Spike had been with Dru, the alleged love of his unlife—the books would be there.
The most extensive library on the Slayer, her origin, and her power belonged to Spike. Angel knew it for a fact; he remembered taunting his disruptive somewhat-spawn for weeks after planting the Slayer seed. Remembered the way Spike had snagged the line in a way no vampire before him ever had. Angel had name-dropped the Slayer in the hope of scaring the boy into submission.
He never thought it would have the reverse effect.
Angel supposed, looking back, that as twisted as the last few days’ revelations had been, there was an undeniable logic in the way things had fallen. It was the sort of logic which made absolutely no sense, but similarly one with which he was finished arguing.
All that mattered now was Buffy. Buffy and this idiotic bargain she’d made.
This thing which would kill her and plausibly end the world. End the line of the Powers’ chosen warrior and send the cosmos spiraling toward chaos.
Moreover, Buffy would die.
It was strange, feeling his heart clench after so many years of sitting dormant. It had happened just last year when he heard she was going to die; he hadn’t been prepared for it to happen again. Not now. Buffy couldn’t die. She couldn’t. He had all eternity to feel sorry for himself—to piss and moan over the fact that his destiny had dialed a wrong number. That in fact, Spike had been her intended all along. It hurt but he would get over it. He would.
Some day.
He wouldn’t, however, ever forgive himself if he allowed his anger at Spike and his irritation with Buffy to blind him so much it got her killed.
No matter how frazzled Giles was, his original theory had to be right. If this demon Buffy had bartered with—this Paimon—was suddenly showing an interest in collecting his payment, they must be dancing dangerously close to the edge of a loophole. Perhaps the loophole would be found in Spike’s personal slayer-library. Perhaps there was a book there that Giles didn’t have or hadn’t read.
It was a stretch, but Angel had to hope.
He arrived at the factory three minutes before sunrise when most of the minions Spike had either recruited or adopted had retired for the day. Better off that way. Dusting his way to the books would only slow him down.
There was one face, though, he couldn’t avoid. She’d likely known he was coming here before he did.
Angel expelled a useless breath as he stepped onto the ground floor. “Drusilla?” he asked tentatively.
There was no response. He knew she was here. The air was thick with her scent.
“Dru…it’s me. It’s…Angel.” A pause. “I need to borrow some books.”
It had been nearly a hundred years since he saw his creation, and when she finally approached the threshold of the bedroom she’d once shared with Spike, his heart nearly skipped with the sight she presented. Her skin was paler than he remembered, her hair in a mess and her nightgown torn by what looked to be her own fingernails. It was her eyes, however, which lent him pause. Insane as she was, her eyes had always exploded with life. With the genius of her own wickedness, the malevolence entwined with her purity—the thing, he felt, which played the largest role in her mind’s collapse. The evil of her nature conflicting with the good of her human soul. The remnants of who she’d once been and who she was now.
There was no life to her at all. Her eyes were large and vacant. She looked abandoned by her own insanity.
“Angel,” she breathed, her voice soft and melodic. As though she walked through a dream. “Did you bring me daisies?”
He swallowed hard. “I’m here for Spike’s books,” he said.
“My water-lilies have rotted,” she continued mournfully. “I was so hoping for some daisies.” A pause. “You need my dearheart’s books?”
Angel pursed his lips and took a cautious step forward. “I think we both know he’s not yours.”
“He was supposed to make me well again.”
“You kicked him out.”
Not that logic worked with the insane, but it was worth a shot. Angel grew still, his eyes working to reconcile their revelation with his mind. Spike had told him, ultimately, what had become of Drusilla. He’d never imagined it being so real. So devastating. All this…from a mob. His favorite child weakened by limitations which had so often served as her greatest strength.
Dru was a vampire. She would heal. Eventually she would return to full strength.
Just not now. Not with the speed Spike had promised her. Not with the miracle cure for which they had allegedly come to Sunnydale to find. It would be a long, grueling process, but she would make it.
And then she would be the most dangerous thing the world had ever known. A woman twice scorned with Ophelia’s insanity but Hamlet’s intellect. The combination made the shadows tremble.
Angel shuddered at the thought.
There was a long silence. She blinked as though fighting for a memory. “He’s lost to me,” she murmured. “My William wants to dance in sunlight.”
“Your William is someone else entirely.”
For some reason, it helped admitting that much aloud to someone else. It made the truth easier to accept.
“Oh. I remember now. He’s not mine. He’s hers. He always has been. And now he mourns for her.” An insane cackle bubbled off her lips, her eyes flashing dangerously. “It’s so funny.”
Anger raced down his spine but he refused to show it. “I need the books, Dru.”
“To save her, Daddy?” Drusilla cocked her head, her eyes slanting. “Oh. That’s right. You’re not my daddy. You’re just a mask. Another mask.”
“Dru—”
“Both lost to sunlight. My William. My daddy.” Another giggle erupted through her throat. “It’s so funny.”
“Yeah…that’s the second time you’ve said that and I’m still not getting the joke.” He took another step forward. “Really, I’m just here for the books.”
“Books won’t save her, my sweet.”
Angel froze. “What?”
“Your sunlight. She’s about to go out, isn’t she? The stars were whispering all sorts of wicked things.” A sly grin spread across the insane vampire’s lips. “My knight will come back to me.”
“Again…you kicked him out.”
“Freed birds always fly home. He doesn’t know. The only thing that makes the sun rise again is the fall of night.”
Angel inhaled sharply and waited.
“He won’t do it,” Dru continued absently, pulling at her tangled hair and twisting it around her fingers. “He can’t.”
“Do what?”
She blinked as though the answer was obvious. “What he must do.” The smile on her lips stretched wider. “My Spike can’t do it, you see. He can’t save her. And when he cannot, mummy will be here. Waiting. Mummy will make everything better.”
Angel was very still. “Why not?” he asked timidly. Experience had taught him to be cautious with Drusilla. The mood of an insane woman was never easy to peg—throw in a poisoned heart and there were no safe gambles.
She blinked. “Why, why, why…”
“Why can’t he save her?”
“Because, my sweet. For the Slayer to live…she has to die.”
TBC
<< ChaptersStory Index1. Chapter One2. Chapter Two3. Chapter Three4. Chapter Four5. Chapter Five6. Chapter Six7. Chapter Seven8. Chapter Eight9. Chapter Nine10. Chapter Ten11. Chapter Eleven12. Chapter Twelve13. Chapter Thirteen14. Chapter Fourteen15. Chapter Fifteen16. Chapter Sixteen17. Chapter Seventeen18. Chapter Eighteen19. Chapter Nineteen20. Chapter Twenty21. Chapter Twenty-One22. Chapter Twenty-Two23. Chapter Twenty-Three24. Chapter Twenty-Four25. Chapter Twenty-Five26. Chapter Twenty-Six27. Chapter Twenty-Seven28. Chapter Twenty-Eight29. Chapter Twenty-Nine
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