Summary: A slayer barters with a demon to rescue her lover, and finds herself unwittingly projected nearly three hundred years into the future with no memory of the life she left behind.
She was trembling so hard she was certain the bed would rattle when she sat. It did not. The room didn’t spin, the ground didn’t shake, the lights in the room didn’t blink. She didn’t feel like she was being watched…well, by unwelcome eyes, anyway. She hoped it meant Giles was right—that Paimon’s power in this dimension finite. After what he’d told her of their conversation, she kept expecting the Hell King to bound around the corner and seize her debt before she and Spike could proceed.
Perhaps Paimon was planning on intervening during a crucial moment. Perhaps he would collect the daimon during the change. He’d certainly indicated he was in the know—that he was eavesdropping on every conversation and therefore trying to out-maneuver him was a wasted effort.
According to Giles, it was a lie. Paimon had to be summoned for a reason; demons of his caliber couldn’t sustain life in this realm without rites—without people offering blood to complete their manifestation. If Paimon and others like him truly could exist in this realm, there would never be any rest between the Powers.
“It’s very likely he has enough power to manifest whenever he chooses,” Giles explained. “Indeed, he must. But it’s very limited, I believe. He came to both you and me. He wasn’t with us very long…and I believe the point of his visitation was to enforce the idea that not only is he omnipotent, but to dissuade us from seeking loopholes by appearing overly confident.”
Buffy perked a brow. “So he James Bonded-himself on purpose?”
Giles frowned, ostensibly waiting for the reference to catch up with him. “Urrr. Yes. Precisely.”
Her watcher’s reassurance notwithstanding, she couldn’t simply switch off the rattling of her nerves. The facts remained unchanged; these were her last minutes as a normal, earthbound human. If she lived, she would live on as something other than what she was. If Angel was wrong—if the turning didn’t take, then she would die.
She would die.
Buffy trembled, a chilled breath rolling off her lips.
She would die.
“Buffy?”
She blinked and glanced up. Spike shadowed the doorway, dressed only in jeans, his eyes heavy with fear and weighted with reluctance. He didn’t want to do this—not when nothing was certain. Not when they were gambling everything on a hunch. On the hope that Paimon’s true reason for keeping them parted, for keeping them ignorant of the past, was to prevent what was going to happen from happening.
Giles and Angel had concluded as much; Paimon’s real reason for separating Spike and Buffy was to make his bargain bulletproof. He’d attempted to eradicate Spike’s memories by giving him another woman. He’d reconfigured Buffy’s upbringing so that she had a happy childhood rather than a miserable one. He’d done everything he could without bending the rule of freewill, and the truly frightening thing was he might have been successful were it not for the claim.
But he hadn’t been successful. It was important to remember that. Paimon had failed. Spike had always had her in his dreams. And though Buffy hadn’t been visited by visions of William at night, there were times, she knew now, when she’d known she was in love, just not with whom. They were together now. And if Angel was right and this plan worked, they would be together for a long, long time.
Paimon had failed. He’d taken their memories, but he hadn’t been able to touch them. He hadn’t been able to keep them apart, and it was the reason he had to collect her debt now. The reason he’d stepped from the shadows and made his presence known.
“Why wait at all?” Buffy had asked. “He gave me a week, Giles…why give me that week?”
Giles hadn’t had an answer. He had, however, provided vague suggestions. The New Moon was set to appear on Buffy’s last day. Perhaps there was some constellation moving into alignment. Perhaps a certain number of days had to pass before her powers were up for grabs. It was anyone’s guess.
He did, however, agree that Paimon wouldn’t have waited if it wasn’t needed. There was something keeping him from just taking the debt and getting out of Dodge.
And here they were. She was about to become a daimon.
Or die trying.
“We don’ have to do this, sweetheart,” Spike murmured. He was on his knees in front of her the next second, his hands running comforting laps up her thighs. “Not tonight, at leas’. We can try an’ find another way.”
Buffy swallowed hard and tried to put on a brave face. “Do you really think there is another way?”
His eyes answered her immediately; his mouth was a little more reluctant. “No,” he said after a long minute, and the world of heartbreak resting on that one word would have been shattering if she released hold on what little hope she had left.
She nodded, glancing down. “…I die either way, you know,” she whispered. “If not today, then tomorrow. If not tomorrow, then next week.”
Spike raised a trembling hand to her bare arm and nodded, caressing the length of her skin with the backs of his curled fingers. “We can wait,” he said. “If you need…”
“I think the wait alone would kill me.” She forced a smile to her lips and shook her head. “There isn’t another choice, Will. We both know there’s not. This is it.” A pause. “And if I’m going to die, I want to die on my terms; not his.”
He nodded, shaking, and brushing a kiss across her brow. “That’s my girl.”
“I do this and the world doesn’t end. It’s a win/win.”
“It’ll only be a win for me, pet, if you wake up. If you’re still…” Spike shook his head, his jaw clenching and his nostrils flaring. He was grappling for control—fighting the outrage which had been so prevalent among his objections just hours ago. It was still there, his desire to scream in protest and tear the town apart until he was offered a more concrete alternative. It was there, but they knew collectively there was nothing else.
There was nothing else. There was only this.
“I’ll be okay,” she replied, attempting a smile which quickly faded. “You’re with me.”
Spike nodded fiercely, his fingers curling around her wrist and raising her hand to his mouth, his lips caressing her palm. “Always.”
The way his voice shook stretched to the ground itself. “Do we wanna go over the pros again?” Buffy asked. Then, without waiting, she continued, “You’re my anchor. I’m…I’m human-girl with daimon-recessiveness.”
Almost indiscernibly, he nodded again. “’m a big, bad vamp,” he replied, reaching for the hem of her shirt. It was gone the next second, and she was rendered naked save for her panties. There was no sense putting on bras when she wasn’t going outside. No sense in putting on pants if she wasn’t leaving the bedroom. She was bare before him; her small breasts filled his hands the next second, her nipples the playthings for his thumbs. “Human-recessive.”
“My human side completes your human side.”
“My demon…yours.” Spike leaned forward, his blunt teeth skimming across the claim mark. “We’ll defeat it together.”
She gasped, seizing him by the upper arms and squeezing hard. “Together,” she agreed, sighing when his mouth began a cool, steady descent. She felt him kiss the hollow of her throat. Felt his lips murmur small blessings down her skin, between the valley of her breasts until he had one of her fleshy globes consumed in his mouth.
“Spike,” she whispered, her hands wandering upward until they were wound in his hair. It was natural—the way his name rolled off her lips now. It didn’t feel strained or forced. It didn’t feel like something she said to appease him…to confirm that she knew he was as much the incarnation of this life as he was the last. His names were interchangeable because the same man lurked beneath them.
They were linked. They always had been. The claim had only turned something already known, already understood, into something concrete. It had given their connection a name and an unspoken vow in blood. A vow, like their bond, which had been there all along.
Angel and Giles believed the claim was the reason she would survive. Her daimon wouldn’t face the invading presence of a vampiric demon alone. Her daimon would have Spike—their connection completed her strength, and together, they would beat it out. Her human side would recede and her daimon side would prevail. She’d be hardened into an immortal form, something for which she’d always been prepared, anyway, as the mate of an immortal creature. Her strength would be insurmountable.
The reason Paimon wanted to keep them apart was this. And strangely, by keeping them apart, he’d led them right to the answer.
If it were indeed the answer.
If it worked at all.
“You taste so sweet,” Spike murmured around her breast, sucking hard on her nipple as his fingers trailed down her stomach. “You always have.”
Buffy inhaled sharply. “Have I?” she asked.
He nodded, a harsh breath whispering through his lips. “I remember the firs’ time I tasted you,” he replied, his tongue flicking over her rosy protrusion, eliciting from her a long, needy moan. “You were so different. No powder. No perfume. You smelled like soap…an’ the woods. Like the night.”
She chuckled, massaging his scalp lovingly. “Translation: you were sweaty and gross and covered in demon-guts.”
Spike released her breast with a wet plop, glaring up at her. “Putting words in my mouth?”
“I just think if you really think I smelled all nice back in the days before body-wash, you’re either repressing a horrible memory of Buffystink, or really blinded by the love whammy I put on you.”
“Love whammy, eh?”
“Men should fear the powers of the Slayer love whammy.”
“Mhmm…” Spike licked the underside of her breast, then turned to give her other equal attention. “An’ how many blokes do you feature you’ve…whammied?”
“Oh, dozens.”
He snorted around a mouthful of her flesh, the hand at her stomach easing her back against the mattress. Her legs fell open as if by accident, and before she could prepare herself, she felt his fingers dancing over the thin strip of cotton guarding her pussy. “Dozens?” he asked, biting her nipple playfully. “’ll need names an’ numbers.”
“I’ve only whammied back with you, dummy.”
“Doesn’ mean these blokes don’ need to get dismantled for thinkin’ about you in the whammy sense.”
“One word: Drusilla.”
Spike snickered again. “You’re never gonna let that go, are you?” he asked, his mouth abandoning her breasts completely, making a pathway of hot, wet kisses down her stomach. “I don’ want her, kitten. I don’ think I ever did.”
She released her grip on his hair. “Yeah-huh.”
His tongue dipped into her belly-button, and he grinned when she squealed and wiggled beneath him. “I thought she was the best I could do.”
“You thought she was your everything.”
“No. I knew I wouldn’t be dreamin’ of you if she was.”
“You didn’t know it was me,” Buffy countered, arching her hips off the bed when his fingers finally slipped under the elastic of her panties and slid the soaked material down her legs. It was slightly embarrassing how wet she became at his slightest touch, but for the desire clouding his eyes, she could tell he didn’t mind. “Y-you thought I-I was…some…”
“You’ve always been my night angel, Buffy,” Spike said, his voice gentle but firm, his hands slipping upward again until he was gripping her thighs. “Accept it.”
“Mmm…”
“Always.” He dove for her center without warning, his tongue plunging into her pussy and assaulting her with lick after lick. He slurped at her, drinking her honey as though parched and she was the only thing which could quench his thirst. Sensation exploded, blazing through her veins and making her skin so hot it was a wonder when it didn’t melt right off.
“I can’t lose this, you hear?” Spike growled between licks. “You can’t die on me.”
He growled again, his mouth abandoning her opening to tease her swollen pearl. At the first flick of his tongue, she knew she wasn’t going to last.
“Spike…please…”
“Buffy…”
“Stop.”
He glanced up at her, and how he managed to pout with his lips wrapped around her clit, she didn’t know. Only that he did and it made her insides quiver with need.
“You don’ want me to…?”
“I just…I just want you.” She smiled when he took a defiant lick of her wet flesh, running her fingers through his hair again. “Please…”
“I want to commit every inch of you to memory,” he replied. “Your smell. Your taste.” Spike expelled a long breath and slowly untangled himself from her grip, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and rising to his feet. He paused to look at her, his gaze both softening with love and blazing with desire as they took her in. Lying back, her skin hot and her hair tussled, her lips swollen from his kisses, her breasts wet and tender from the attention of his amorous mouth, her legs open and her pussy drenched for him. She saw everything he saw; she saw her reflection in his eyes.
“Every inch of you,” he repeated, turning his hands to his jeans. In seconds he was as naked as she; his thick cock bobbed eagerly against his stomach. “I know it’s only been…only been days…but…” Spike shuddered and looked away, blinking rapidly. “I can’t imagine livin’ in this world without you in it.”
“Spike—”
“Without your hands. Your arms. Your sweet li’l smile. Your shampoo-commercial hair.” He shook his head, a hard sigh ripping through his shoulders. He met her eyes again but couldn’t hold her gaze. “I can’t imagine…”
“It’ll be okay.”
“We don’ know that,” Spike countered. “We don’ know that this isn’ jus’ a load of wishful thinking. If I do this…Christ, if I kill you, an’ it…we still have four days, love. We don’t—”
“You already said you don’t think there’s anything else.”
“I don’t, but that doesn’ mean—”
Buffy sat up, tucking her legs beneath her so she could rise up on her knees. “Look at me,” she said softly. When he didn’t, she seized him by the chin and jerked his head downward. “If we don’t do this now, we’ll just be doing it in four days. I don’t want to wait. I don’t want to risk the chance that…that Giles is wrong about Paimon not having the power he says he has. If not now, then—”
“Sweetness—”
“Spike…make love to me.” She lifted herself so she could reach his lips with her own. “I want you.”
A dark shudder rode through him. “I want you, too,” he all but gasped. “Always. Every minute. All the time.”
“Then take me. I’m right here.”
There were no other words. Spike moaned in defeat and swallowed her moan with a kiss, following her as she led him back. As she fell again against the mattress, welcoming him as he rolled between her legs. She thrust herself up against him, rotating her hips to tease him with the wet waiting flesh of her pussy—to tease herself crazy with need. She wanted this to be about nothing but them. Nothing but feeling him moving inside her. Nothing but his whispered kisses against her skin as his hands played with her. Nothing but him.
If she thought about everything else, she might not make it.
“Love me,” she whispered against his lips, her own hand reaching between them. She wrapped her fingers around his cock and grinned when he gasped, stroking him tenderly and rubbing his silky head against herself. “Feel me.”
“Oh Buffy…”
Her smile grew wider and she lifted her head to kiss him, at last positioning him at her vaginal opening. A little thrill raced through her when she felt her flesh draw him in, and as her muscles relaxed to welcome him home, she determined privately that the demon who tried to take this away from her would face a hell of a fight.
She wasn’t going quietly. She never did.
Long, trembling breaths collided with her lips as he sank inside her. As her flesh molded and gripped him. As his balls pressed intimately against her ass. As the comforting weight of the powerful creature above her gave way to almost choked sobs of fear-riddled pleasure. He looked at her and she touched the sky. There was nothing that could take her away.
It was a bittersweet lovemaking; she hadn’t expected any less. She held him as he rocked against her, pressing his lips to every inch of her they could reach. His hands explored without direction. One second they would be at her breasts, the next slipping up the soft underside of her arms, the next framing her cheeks to angle her into his kisses, the next rubbing her clit tenderly as his cock rocked inside her. As her body battled to keep him fastened securely within her depths. They didn’t speak, and the tempered sounds of their whimpers and pants struck her as so unspeakably intimate that she wondered if she could reach orgasm simply by listening to him moan.
Knowing she did that to him was empowering in ways she’d never known she could be empowered.
Then Spike pressed his brow to hers and their eyes locked. The walls could have fallen down and she wouldn’t have noticed. She knew nothing else. Nothing but the ocean, and the flecks of gold which reminded her of sunset. Nothing but the feel of his body stabbing inside hers as his thrusts gained speed with desperation of release. Nothing but his flesh smacking hers. Nothing but the whines of an old bed’s springs as they pushed each other toward an unfathomable edge.
The silence broke the second before she burst. The silence broke with three perfect words.
“I love you.”
His bite always came with a flash of pain before euphoria. It wasn’t different this time. His fangs locked inside her, his hips thrusting hard as she spasmed and drenched him. She felt him flood her the next instant. She thought she heard herself say something but she couldn’t be sure. She wanted to tell him she loved him, too—even if the words weren’t needed, even if he already knew. She needed him to know now. Now more than ever.
The familiar second wherein he would normally pull away and lick her wound went by without ceremony, and her body spiraled into instinctive panic. She fought the need to push him away. She fought the rising anxiety and welcomed the blanket of darkness. Her ears rang. Her head felt light. Her skin was so slick with seat it might as well have dissolved. Consciousness danced further and further away until she was hanging on by a proverbial thread.
There was a voice, but God, it was far away.
“Buffy…open up for me…”
Her mouth fell slack and she tasted liquid copper.
It was the last thing she knew before the world went black.
TBC
A/N: Yes…the process is the same. I’m not quite THAT innovative. But again…the intended outcome (what they’re trying to do) is something much, much different than turning Buffy into a vampire. Sorry - I know I'm being redundant, but I feel like I should emphasize this since I was so emphatic on the point earlier.