Fic: For Keeps - Chapter 1
Title: For Keeps
Rating: PG-13; probably a few chapters will be R down the road.
Summary: When unknown demons attack Spike in autumn 2019 and infect him with what seems to be a parasite, all Slayer and Watcher hands are on deck to try to get it out of him. But what if the “parasite” could be something more?
Word Count: 3,500
A/N 1: This is, as you may be able to tell from the summary, an mpreg fic. Spike gets pregnant. If the concept of male pregnancy freaks you out, this is probably not the fic for you.
A/N 2: This is a WIP. I expect it to be a good-sized novella when all is well and done. Sadly, I am quite far from being well and done, and all I have at the moment is Chapter 1 and maybe Chapter 2 later in the week, if I can get my act together. Writing (of any kind; not just this) has been like pulling teeth lately, but I am hopeful that this story at least will take off once I get past the introductory, what-the-hell-is-inside-of-Spike chapters. In any case, this is my first time posting a WIP (in BtVS fandom at least), and my apologies if updates take a while. Please feel free to friend me if mpreg is your cup of tea and you’d like to keep up with the fic.
A/N 3: So not only is this a WIP, this is a WIP that takes place far in the future in my post-NFA verse, which I not at all ironically call the HEA-verse. In this verse Anya and Cordelia were resurrected by the PTB after NFA, the Scoobies moved back to the newly rebuilt (but no longer a Hellmouth) Sunnydale in mid-2005, and they all had children a few years later. The pairings are Buffy/Spike, Xander/Anya, Willow/Oz, Cordelia/Angel, and Dawn/Gunn. A list of fics in this verse is on my fic masterlist if you’re interested, but below the cut is a brief description of original characters and other relevant information that will tell you all you need to know.
Lastly, this is for snickfic, who wields her great power of seducing people to mpreg with great responsibility. Thank you for the inspiration, Snick.
Cast of Original Characters and Other Relevant Information:
Children:
Buffy & Spike:
Significant Others:
Felix: Andrew’s husband and a wish granting demon a la Cinderella’s fairy godmother (basically the opposite of a vengeance demon, much to Anya’s scorn); he is responsible for Buffy and Spike being able to have Aly.
Amelia Calendar: Jenny Calendar’s cousin and Giles’s long-time girlfriend. Way back in the mid-2000s when Cordelia was searching for the Gypsies to make them fix the loophole in Angel’s curse, she found Amelia Calendar, the current head of the clan. Amelia wished to meet her cousin’s last love, and she and Giles carried on a long distance friendship for a while. When Giles moved back to California, they decided to try a romantic relationship and have been together ever since.
Relevant Information:
-Sunnydale was rebuilt in 2005, and the homesick Scoobies moved back to California to run a second, American branch of the Watchers Council.
-Buffy went back to college and finally earned her degree. She continued onto grad school and became a licensed psychologist. She is a high school guidance counselor and is the unofficial Council therapist for any slayers who need someone to talk to when they can't reveal their secrets to normal psychologists.
-Spike managed the Hellmouth, Sunnydale’s new Bronze, for many years, until on a whim (and with Buffy’s permission) he wrote an urban fantasy book called Joan the Vampire Slayer. To everyone’s surprise, it sold and became an overnight hit.
-Emissaries of the PTB tried numerous times to convince Spike to be their champion, a la Angel. He refused and stayed by Buffy’s side, naturally. However, when Buffy was pregnant, Spike feared he couldn’t be a “real” father and bargained with the PTB to grant him immunity to sunlight if he completed several quests for them. Spike won his immunity and also traded his eternal youth. I.e., he ages and can go in the sun.
If I think of other relevant information, I'll mention it in later chapters. My apologies for the haphazardness of the timeline. If you have any questions about the verse, please let me know. Now onto the actual fic...
For Keeps
Chapter 1
September, 2019
He wasn’t even supposed to be there.
That was the thought that ran on agonizing repeat through Buffy’s head the night it happened (and days after; weeks): as she held Spike while he whimpered and gagged, unable to stop retching and unable to vomit; as she helplessly watched the Wiccan healers wheel his stretcher away (“I’m sorry, but your presence might disturb our energies”); as she cradled (clung to) their daughter and lied (“Daddy will be fine. He’ll be all right.”).
He wasn’t even supposed to be there.
He was supposed to make a quick run to the grocery store to buy chocolate sauce, because they’d promised Aly an ice cream sundae after her piano recital but had realized only after dinner that they were missing a key ingredient (“Dad, it can’t be a real sundae if it doesn’t have chocolate sauce. Duh.”).
He was supposed to come straight home, not pause in Barracks cemetery to say hi to the slayers on patrol (“He said he had to get home, but I asked him what he thought of the new Blood Raiders single. So he was still there when…I’m so sorry, Buffy, I’m so sorry.”).
He was supposed to pig out on ice cream with them and read Aly more of Artemis Fowl, not get caught in an ambush (“They came out of nowhere. Really, like, like they materialized from thin air; at least a dozen of them.”).
He wasn’t supposed to be dragged off during the fray-
(“He s-saved me. The demons were carrying me off, five or six of them, and he came at them. They dropped me and fought him…at first. Then they just carried him off instead.”)
-and- and injected with- with-
(“I t-think they put something in him. It w-was hard to see with all the fighting- but it looked like one of them put its…its mouth on his and…I think he was choking. I think he swallowed something.”)
She wondered what had happened to the chocolate sauce, if the bottle lay trampled and forgotten in the graveyard grass, oozing sauce as dark and sticky as blood.
* * *
He stabilized a little after five AM. Buffy knew because she had checked the watch on her phone over a hundred times since Natasha had called at 9:30 to say that Spike had been attacked and was on his way to the Council sickbay. She paused only long enough to verify that Aly and Xander were both still asleep before running down the hall, leaving her daughter curled on the waiting room couch and Willow struggling to keep up.
Dozens of questions were on the tip of Buffy’s tongue (Is he all right? What’s wrong with him? Did he throw up?), since all Willow had had time to say was, “He’s awake- you can come,” but they flew out of mind when she burst into his room.
The first feeling to pierce her was relief when his eyes immediately found her and a wan smile stretched his lips; fear quickly dispensed with that relief, though, when she reached his side and realized how dull his gaze was, noticed the sheen of sweat above his lips. She fought back tears as she found his hand and gently squeezed.
“How do you feel?” Her voice came out raspy after so many hours of panic.
“Not trying to puke my guts out anymore.” If her voice was sandpaper rough, his sounded like nails on a chalkboard- painful to listen to. He still attempted another smile. “’S better than the alternative, right?”
“Did you throw up?” Please, please, please.
His eyes unfocused, staring through her. “No.”
“We tried all the normal methods, both medical and magical, for inducing vomiting,” said a tired-sounding voice, and Buffy turned to see a middle-aged woman with frizzy red hair step up to Spike’s other side. She hadn’t even noticed the healers when she’d entered, but now she saw a twenty-something young man and a rail-thin, gray-haired woman who looked more like she belonged in one of these hospital beds herself than in scrubs.
“Nothing worked,” continued the red-haired healer, unnecessarily. “His convulsions began slowing about two hours ago. He hasn’t had one in almost forty minutes, which is why we felt it safe to call you in.”
“Thank you,” said Buffy automatically. “Ms. Wegman.” She had finally remembered the Wiccan’s name. “Are you sure there’s something in him?” she couldn’t keep from asking, and hated how naively hopefully she sounded.
Jessica Wegman’s lips pursed, but though she looked sour, her voice was gentle. “I’m afraid that’s not a question. It’s very clear from his aura that there’s something…alien inside him.”
Buffy had a sudden vision of a giant Alien exploding out of Spike’s stomach. If she had a dime for every time she regretted letting Spike and Xander show her that movie…
She forced the image from her head. ‘Alien’ didn’t necessarily mean evil.
Oh, who was she kidding? He had been attacked in a graveyard; of course it meant evil.
She couldn’t keep from glancing at Willow and felt a new wave of despair when her best friend nodded grimly.
The gray-haired woman stepped forward. “We have X-rays that also confirm the presence of something foreign in Spike.” Despite her words, the reedy, aged voice calmed Buffy a little. Dr. Brenneman had been the Council’s chief traditional medical officer since its inception in New Sunnydale. She had seen Aly through chicken pox, multiple bouts of strep throat, and the flu, and she’d even taken a thermometer to Buffy once or twice, too.
“Do you know what it is?” asked Buffy. She glanced at Spike, saw the resignation lining his face, and knew the answer.
“Not yet,” said Willow. “But Agatha’s already hit the books, and we’ve sent out an emergency email and text for volunteers to get a research party going. We’ll figure out what happened and fix it faster than a jiffy.” Willow paused before adding delicately, “Do you know if the slayers found the demons?”
It could only be masochism that made Buffy look at Spike as she admitted, “They didn’t.” After rushing Spike and their other wounded to the hospital, the slayers had regrouped to try to track the attackers. Emphasis on ‘try.’ Two hours ago Shauna had called to tell her the trail was cold, even using locator spells.
“Oh…” At almost forty, Willow still wasn’t good at masking her dismay. “Well, no big. Spike’s described them in lots of detail in between the, uh…”
“Hacking and gagging?” said Spike
“And I’m sure the slayers got a good close-up,” continued Willow. “We’ll get everyone together with Annaise, and she can do her sketch artist thing. We’ll be able to figure out what species they are.”
(“They were humanoid- two arms, two legs, etc. Their skin was yellow and felt rough. At least I think it was yellow- hard to see in the dark. They definitely had claws. Um. I don’t know what else…oh, they had little horns and no hair. Is that- is that good? I don’t know what else to tell you.”)
Buffy prayed the Watchers would be able to cull more clues from that than she could.
“Would you like to see the x-rays?” asked Dr. Brenneman.
Buffy nodded and stepped closer to look at the sheets Dr. Brenneman lifted from a side table.
“See this white trail here?” the doctor said, before Buffy could admit she had no idea what she was looking at.
The white spots in a squiggle near the bottom of Spike’ rib cage were so faint that she would have thought they were just imperfections of the ink and paper. Her stomach turned over as she looked at them. “Yes. Is that…”
“We believe that’s the parasite,” said Dr. Brenneman matter-of-factly.
Parasite. That word was more bearable than “alien presence,” if only because it likened it to human, treatable conditions.
Less comforting was the memory of when one of the slayers had come back from a scouting trip in Africa with a parasite and had had to take debilitating antibiotics for weeks.
There certainly weren’t antibiotics for magical, demonic parasites.
Buffy moved back toward the bed, mentally estimating the hours before an answer would be found. It was Friday night- Saturday morning by now- so people would probably sleep in late and not get the emergency texts and emails for another few hours. That meant the research party wouldn’t begin in earnest until around ten or eleven, and with such scant information, who knew how long it would take to figure out what had been done to Spike…
Overwhelmed suddenly by the uncertainty of everything they faced and annoyed at herself for feeling so weak when, really, it wasn’t like this was an apocalypse or like Spike was at dust’s door (please), Buffy leaned down and pressed her lips to his clammy forehead for a long moment.
She could practically feel the others exchanging looks behind her back before Dr. Benneman said, “Since he seems stable for the moment, we’ll leave you alone for right now. I’ll be in my office. Press the buzzer next to the bed if you need anything. Otherwise, I’ll check back in a little while.”
“Thank you,” said Buffy, hoping the doctor could hear her gratitude. The sickbay wasn’t staffed 24/7, since emergency injuries would go straight to Sunnydale Hospital anyway, and all the healers had come in last night specifically for Spike. She knew they were now probably off to take well-deserved naps while he was stable.
“I’m going back to my house to recharge,” said Ms. Wegman more bluntly. “But here’s my number. Call me anytime if his condition changes. Otherwise I’ll be back as soon as my energy balances are restored.”
“Thank you,” Buffy repeated, just as sincerely, as she programmed the number Ms. Wegman dictated into her phone.
Dr. Brenneman, Ms. Wegman, and the boy, whom Buffy vaguely recognized as a coven apprentice, filed out.
“I’m gonna go home for a bit, too, if you don’t mind,” said Willow, her expression a little guilty as she looked between Buffy and Spike.
“Of course not,” said Buffy instantly. “Thank you for everything you’ve already done.”
Willow’s demeanor didn’t brighten. “We haven’t done much yet," she said, disgruntled. "But we will. We’ll figure out what’s wrong,” she assured Spike.
He smiled kindly at her. “Never doubted it, Red.”
“Anything happens, call me,” said Willow firmly. “I’m two minutes away.”
It was hardly an exaggeration. The Council buildings were a hop, skip, and a jump away from the Summers, Rosenberg-Osbourne, and Harris homes, designed that way on purpose way back when so Spike could go back and forth with minimal exposure to sunlight.
“We’ll call,” Buffy assured her. “Take care of yourself.” She hugged Willow, who kissed Spike’s cheek before departing as well.
Once they were alone Buffy sat in the chair next to the bed and leaned close, automatically taking his hand and interlacing their fingers. She traced his cheekbone with her other thumb, unable to speak now that the room was silent; the pressure of worry in her chest felt suffocating.
Spike leaned into her hand with a weary sigh. His eyes fluttered shut, and for a second Buffy’s heartbeat stuttered. After another second he opened them and turned his head to kiss her palm.
“Missed you,” he murmured.
Buffy felt tears pressing behind her eyes. She’d kept them at bay for most of the evening, and she had a bad feeling they were going to erupt with a vengeance sometime soon. “You, too.” She struggled to pull herself together before Spike started trying to comfort her. “How do you feel? Really.”
“Like I’ve been tossed off a cliff and run over by an eighteen-wheeler,” he said matter-of-factly. “Stomach hurts. Mostly from the heaving but it also just feels…wrong. Like I drank bad blood.”
“Tell me what happened,” whispered Buffy.
His eyes darkened, but he didn’t hesitate. “They were carrying Jayma away, so I ran after them. I got them to drop her, and they swarmed me instead. They carried me away from the others- there were five or six of them-” Embarrassment clouded his tone.
“That’s more than anyone could handle,” Buffy assured him. It was a struggle to keep anger from lacing the words as she pictured the unfair fight and faceless monsters carrying away her husband.
“They dropped me on the ground and one of them- straddled me.” He grimaced, and to her mild shame, Buffy couldn’t keep from wondering if it had been a male demon or female demon, as if it mattered.
“It leaned down and- and-” Spike’s voice trembled for the first time. He swallowed and immediately flinched. Fear tightened Buffy’s stomach. The slayer’s words echoed in her mind: It looked like one of them put its…its mouth on his…I think he swallowed something. She knew that as much as Spike didn’t want to continue his story, she didn’t want to hear what came next either. She had to, though, and he had to say it.
“It put its mouth on mine.” He paused. “It kissed me. It pushed something into my mouth. Something slimy. It wasn’t exactly a liquid, but it definitely wasn’t solid either. Like jello. I- it-” He faltered.
Buffy’s stomach churned. She hadn’t braced herself enough after all, but she knew what she had to say. She squeezed his hand. “It’s okay. Anyone would have choked and swallowed in that situ-”
“I didn’t swallow. The jello thing- it-” He took a breath. “It slid down my throat. It moved. Like it was alive.”
Buffy didn’t speak, unsure if he was done or not, let alone how to respond. Almost absent-mindedly it seemed, Spike massaged his throat with his free hand. Buffy imagined a cold, gelatinous feeling in her mouth and then imagined it sliding down her throat, no matter how much she choked. She swallowed convulsively and shuddered.
Spike didn’t miss it. He smiled tightly. “So the fact that the docs think there’s something in me isn’t too surprising. Kind of a relief. Means I’m not crazy. Just need to figure out what the hell it is and how to get it out.”
“Emphasis on the getting it out part,” murmured Buffy.
She rubbed circles into his hand with her thumb and Spike looked at nothing, seeing, remembering something Buffy couldn’t reach.
“Where’s Aly?” he said hoarsely.
“Sleeping in the lobby. Xander’s with her. Do you want me to go wake her?”
He hesitated. “Let her sleep.”
“She was really worried, too.” She spoke automatically, not to guilt him but because she couldn’t stop picturing their daughter’s bloodless face and starkly red eyes from a few hours before. Her breath hitched. He squeezed her hand this time.
“We’ll just tell her I’m sick?” he said, his inflection making it a question. “That I’m infected with something and leave out the details?”
“Yeah,” said Buffy. He fell silent again, and though she could feel her body sagging deeper into the chair, all too content to simply be near him, her mind kept flicking through next steps she should be taking now that Spike had stabilized. She should wake Aly. She should call Dawn, whom she had called in mild hysterics around ten o’clock after being blocked from Spike’s room, and let her know Spike was all right. She should go to the Council library and start researching the demons. But all she wanted to do was stay right where she was, by his side.
“Did the slayers tell you what the demons looked like?” asked Spike unexpectedly.
“Yellow skin. Horns. Bald.” The description sounded even more pathetic and unhelpful in repetition. To her dismay but not surprise, her answer made a look of frustration cross his face.
“I know it’s not much to go on,” she said quickly. “Do you remember anything else about them?”
“That’s not it,” he said heavily. “That’s what most of them looked like. But that definitely wasn’t the one that-” He grimaced again. “Infected me.”
Buffy’s stomach turned over. “What do you mean?”
“The one that did this to me was blue and scaly. Plus, the others were built like rugby players, and this one was skinny and- lithe.”
“Female?” said Buffy’s mouth, without checking with her brain.
“Wasn’t exactly focusing on that,” he retorted.
She tried to look apologetic.
He sighed. “I’d hoped the slayers had seen it, too.”
“Maybe one did,” said Buffy encouragingly. “I didn’t get to poll everyone.”
“Maybe.” He didn’t sound optimistic. “This one wasn’t in the fight. It came after the others carried me away.”
The implication, that no one else could describe the demon, settled on Buffy like a physical weight. Now they had two demons to research and still very little to go on. They had no idea what was inside Spike, nor how much time they had before it began to affect him- more than it already had, anyway. Rationally, she knew the Scoobies had solved cases on less before and that Giles and his protégées were equipped to deal with this sort of emergency, but that knowledge couldn’t shake her feeling of dread. It coated her skin, oily and suffocating as sunscreen. She needed to do something to start fixing this.
Spike’s eyes were conveniently half-lidded, his breathing slowing in the way that meant he was close to sleep and would soon stop altogether.
“You should sleep while you can,” said Buffy. In case you start not-throwing-up again. “I can go to the library and start researching.”
His eyes shot back open. “You’re gonna leave?”
He sounded so indignant and pitiful that she said instantly, “Not if you stay awake. But you should sleep…”
“You could sleep, too,” he coaxed. “There’s room here. I bet you haven’t slept all night either.” He shifted under the blankets toward the far edge of the bed and smiled winningly.
She could rarely deny him on a normal day, let alone when he was laid up in the hospital. With an unexpected feeling of relief- he needed her here- she nodded in assent and carefully slid onto the bed.
“You’re sure I’m not hurting you?” she asked anxiously, since she was more-or-less half-lying on him.
“I’m fine,” he said hastily, as though worried she would change her mind.
“Are you sure you’re comfortable? Spike, I’m lying on you, and you’re the one who’s sick-”
“I’m sure! Unless you’re uncomfortable- I don’t want you to be…”
In answer, she stretched out slowly against him, sliding her arm across his torso, and settled her head in the crook of his neck. It wasn’t the most comfortable position- her backside stuck off the edge of the bed, which gave her the occasional sensation of falling- but they had been in the tighter positions before this. At least they didn’t have any IV cords to circumvent.
“Let me know if it does start to hurt. I’ll move,” she said, even though she knew he wouldn’t tell her anything of the sort.
He had clasped his hands on his stomach when she was shifting position, but now he intertwined their fingers. After a minute he whispered, “It’s better when you’re here.”
She squeezed her eyes tight against the burning sensation behind them. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Despite knowing, rationally, that his symptoms couldn’t be fatal, lying squashed on the hospital bed made it all too easy to fall into melancholy. She could count the number of times he had been in the hospital- and most of those times were pregnancy-related, hers or one of the Scoobies’. He’d gone on his own account several times when professional attention would be much more convenient than natural vampire healing, but those major injuries had become fewer and farther between once Aly was born and parenthood superseded slaying. He had never had to stay overnight in the hospital, not even when he’d come down with a mystical flu a few years ago and been laid up in bed for a week with a nose as red as Rudolph’s and the Grinch’s temperament to boot.
Spike being in the hospital- it just wasn’t right. It boded ill. And figuring out what had been done to him, with such scant evidence, seemed immeasurably daunting. In her mind’s eye he was being wheeled away from her again, thrashing and whimpering, and she could do nothing but watch helplessly.
A sniff must have escaped her because a soft “Hey” interrupted her thoughts.
“Everything’s gonna be all right, love. Don’t worry.”
“That’s a stupid thing to say,” mumbled Buffy. “You’d worry if it were me.”
“Only because you have a frail human immune system,” he said brightly. “But unless this thing is planning to grow a tree through my heart, I’ll work out in the end.”
She didn’t laugh.
After a moment he pressed a kiss to the top of her head.
She thought her fears would keep her awake, and she intended at the very least for him to sleep first, but lying nestled together had the same soporific effect it usually did. She could feel her limbs loosening, the tension in her taut muscles finally beginning to drain, if not the tension in her mind.
Don’t worry, Buffy chanted to herself. Worry when you wake up. Spike’s safe. You’re together. That’s what matters.
Worry when you wake up…
Rating: PG-13; probably a few chapters will be R down the road.
Summary: When unknown demons attack Spike in autumn 2019 and infect him with what seems to be a parasite, all Slayer and Watcher hands are on deck to try to get it out of him. But what if the “parasite” could be something more?
Word Count: 3,500
A/N 1: This is, as you may be able to tell from the summary, an mpreg fic. Spike gets pregnant. If the concept of male pregnancy freaks you out, this is probably not the fic for you.
A/N 2: This is a WIP. I expect it to be a good-sized novella when all is well and done. Sadly, I am quite far from being well and done, and all I have at the moment is Chapter 1 and maybe Chapter 2 later in the week, if I can get my act together. Writing (of any kind; not just this) has been like pulling teeth lately, but I am hopeful that this story at least will take off once I get past the introductory, what-the-hell-is-inside-of-Spike chapters. In any case, this is my first time posting a WIP (in BtVS fandom at least), and my apologies if updates take a while. Please feel free to friend me if mpreg is your cup of tea and you’d like to keep up with the fic.
A/N 3: So not only is this a WIP, this is a WIP that takes place far in the future in my post-NFA verse, which I not at all ironically call the HEA-verse. In this verse Anya and Cordelia were resurrected by the PTB after NFA, the Scoobies moved back to the newly rebuilt (but no longer a Hellmouth) Sunnydale in mid-2005, and they all had children a few years later. The pairings are Buffy/Spike, Xander/Anya, Willow/Oz, Cordelia/Angel, and Dawn/Gunn. A list of fics in this verse is on my fic masterlist if you’re interested, but below the cut is a brief description of original characters and other relevant information that will tell you all you need to know.
Lastly, this is for snickfic, who wields her great power of seducing people to mpreg with great responsibility. Thank you for the inspiration, Snick.
Cast of Original Characters and Other Relevant Information:
Children:
Buffy & Spike:
- Alyson “Aly” Joyce Summers, born December 2010; 8 years old when fic starts.
- Daniel “Danny” Rosenberg-Osbourne, born mid-2010
- Tara Rosenberg-Osbourne, born early 2016
- Halle Rose Harris, born mid-2011
- Jesse Rupert Harris, born mid-2016
- Katherine “Katie” Winifred Chase and Liam Wesley Chase, born mid-2011
- Alonna Summers-Gunn, adopted 2017
Significant Others:
Felix: Andrew’s husband and a wish granting demon a la Cinderella’s fairy godmother (basically the opposite of a vengeance demon, much to Anya’s scorn); he is responsible for Buffy and Spike being able to have Aly.
Amelia Calendar: Jenny Calendar’s cousin and Giles’s long-time girlfriend. Way back in the mid-2000s when Cordelia was searching for the Gypsies to make them fix the loophole in Angel’s curse, she found Amelia Calendar, the current head of the clan. Amelia wished to meet her cousin’s last love, and she and Giles carried on a long distance friendship for a while. When Giles moved back to California, they decided to try a romantic relationship and have been together ever since.
Relevant Information:
-Sunnydale was rebuilt in 2005, and the homesick Scoobies moved back to California to run a second, American branch of the Watchers Council.
-Buffy went back to college and finally earned her degree. She continued onto grad school and became a licensed psychologist. She is a high school guidance counselor and is the unofficial Council therapist for any slayers who need someone to talk to when they can't reveal their secrets to normal psychologists.
-Spike managed the Hellmouth, Sunnydale’s new Bronze, for many years, until on a whim (and with Buffy’s permission) he wrote an urban fantasy book called Joan the Vampire Slayer. To everyone’s surprise, it sold and became an overnight hit.
-Emissaries of the PTB tried numerous times to convince Spike to be their champion, a la Angel. He refused and stayed by Buffy’s side, naturally. However, when Buffy was pregnant, Spike feared he couldn’t be a “real” father and bargained with the PTB to grant him immunity to sunlight if he completed several quests for them. Spike won his immunity and also traded his eternal youth. I.e., he ages and can go in the sun.
If I think of other relevant information, I'll mention it in later chapters. My apologies for the haphazardness of the timeline. If you have any questions about the verse, please let me know. Now onto the actual fic...
For Keeps
Chapter 1
September, 2019
He wasn’t even supposed to be there.
That was the thought that ran on agonizing repeat through Buffy’s head the night it happened (and days after; weeks): as she held Spike while he whimpered and gagged, unable to stop retching and unable to vomit; as she helplessly watched the Wiccan healers wheel his stretcher away (“I’m sorry, but your presence might disturb our energies”); as she cradled (clung to) their daughter and lied (“Daddy will be fine. He’ll be all right.”).
He wasn’t even supposed to be there.
He was supposed to make a quick run to the grocery store to buy chocolate sauce, because they’d promised Aly an ice cream sundae after her piano recital but had realized only after dinner that they were missing a key ingredient (“Dad, it can’t be a real sundae if it doesn’t have chocolate sauce. Duh.”).
He was supposed to come straight home, not pause in Barracks cemetery to say hi to the slayers on patrol (“He said he had to get home, but I asked him what he thought of the new Blood Raiders single. So he was still there when…I’m so sorry, Buffy, I’m so sorry.”).
He was supposed to pig out on ice cream with them and read Aly more of Artemis Fowl, not get caught in an ambush (“They came out of nowhere. Really, like, like they materialized from thin air; at least a dozen of them.”).
He wasn’t supposed to be dragged off during the fray-
(“He s-saved me. The demons were carrying me off, five or six of them, and he came at them. They dropped me and fought him…at first. Then they just carried him off instead.”)
-and- and injected with- with-
(“I t-think they put something in him. It w-was hard to see with all the fighting- but it looked like one of them put its…its mouth on his and…I think he was choking. I think he swallowed something.”)
She wondered what had happened to the chocolate sauce, if the bottle lay trampled and forgotten in the graveyard grass, oozing sauce as dark and sticky as blood.
* * *
He stabilized a little after five AM. Buffy knew because she had checked the watch on her phone over a hundred times since Natasha had called at 9:30 to say that Spike had been attacked and was on his way to the Council sickbay. She paused only long enough to verify that Aly and Xander were both still asleep before running down the hall, leaving her daughter curled on the waiting room couch and Willow struggling to keep up.
Dozens of questions were on the tip of Buffy’s tongue (Is he all right? What’s wrong with him? Did he throw up?), since all Willow had had time to say was, “He’s awake- you can come,” but they flew out of mind when she burst into his room.
The first feeling to pierce her was relief when his eyes immediately found her and a wan smile stretched his lips; fear quickly dispensed with that relief, though, when she reached his side and realized how dull his gaze was, noticed the sheen of sweat above his lips. She fought back tears as she found his hand and gently squeezed.
“How do you feel?” Her voice came out raspy after so many hours of panic.
“Not trying to puke my guts out anymore.” If her voice was sandpaper rough, his sounded like nails on a chalkboard- painful to listen to. He still attempted another smile. “’S better than the alternative, right?”
“Did you throw up?” Please, please, please.
His eyes unfocused, staring through her. “No.”
“We tried all the normal methods, both medical and magical, for inducing vomiting,” said a tired-sounding voice, and Buffy turned to see a middle-aged woman with frizzy red hair step up to Spike’s other side. She hadn’t even noticed the healers when she’d entered, but now she saw a twenty-something young man and a rail-thin, gray-haired woman who looked more like she belonged in one of these hospital beds herself than in scrubs.
“Nothing worked,” continued the red-haired healer, unnecessarily. “His convulsions began slowing about two hours ago. He hasn’t had one in almost forty minutes, which is why we felt it safe to call you in.”
“Thank you,” said Buffy automatically. “Ms. Wegman.” She had finally remembered the Wiccan’s name. “Are you sure there’s something in him?” she couldn’t keep from asking, and hated how naively hopefully she sounded.
Jessica Wegman’s lips pursed, but though she looked sour, her voice was gentle. “I’m afraid that’s not a question. It’s very clear from his aura that there’s something…alien inside him.”
Buffy had a sudden vision of a giant Alien exploding out of Spike’s stomach. If she had a dime for every time she regretted letting Spike and Xander show her that movie…
She forced the image from her head. ‘Alien’ didn’t necessarily mean evil.
Oh, who was she kidding? He had been attacked in a graveyard; of course it meant evil.
She couldn’t keep from glancing at Willow and felt a new wave of despair when her best friend nodded grimly.
The gray-haired woman stepped forward. “We have X-rays that also confirm the presence of something foreign in Spike.” Despite her words, the reedy, aged voice calmed Buffy a little. Dr. Brenneman had been the Council’s chief traditional medical officer since its inception in New Sunnydale. She had seen Aly through chicken pox, multiple bouts of strep throat, and the flu, and she’d even taken a thermometer to Buffy once or twice, too.
“Do you know what it is?” asked Buffy. She glanced at Spike, saw the resignation lining his face, and knew the answer.
“Not yet,” said Willow. “But Agatha’s already hit the books, and we’ve sent out an emergency email and text for volunteers to get a research party going. We’ll figure out what happened and fix it faster than a jiffy.” Willow paused before adding delicately, “Do you know if the slayers found the demons?”
It could only be masochism that made Buffy look at Spike as she admitted, “They didn’t.” After rushing Spike and their other wounded to the hospital, the slayers had regrouped to try to track the attackers. Emphasis on ‘try.’ Two hours ago Shauna had called to tell her the trail was cold, even using locator spells.
“Oh…” At almost forty, Willow still wasn’t good at masking her dismay. “Well, no big. Spike’s described them in lots of detail in between the, uh…”
“Hacking and gagging?” said Spike
“And I’m sure the slayers got a good close-up,” continued Willow. “We’ll get everyone together with Annaise, and she can do her sketch artist thing. We’ll be able to figure out what species they are.”
(“They were humanoid- two arms, two legs, etc. Their skin was yellow and felt rough. At least I think it was yellow- hard to see in the dark. They definitely had claws. Um. I don’t know what else…oh, they had little horns and no hair. Is that- is that good? I don’t know what else to tell you.”)
Buffy prayed the Watchers would be able to cull more clues from that than she could.
“Would you like to see the x-rays?” asked Dr. Brenneman.
Buffy nodded and stepped closer to look at the sheets Dr. Brenneman lifted from a side table.
“See this white trail here?” the doctor said, before Buffy could admit she had no idea what she was looking at.
The white spots in a squiggle near the bottom of Spike’ rib cage were so faint that she would have thought they were just imperfections of the ink and paper. Her stomach turned over as she looked at them. “Yes. Is that…”
“We believe that’s the parasite,” said Dr. Brenneman matter-of-factly.
Parasite. That word was more bearable than “alien presence,” if only because it likened it to human, treatable conditions.
Less comforting was the memory of when one of the slayers had come back from a scouting trip in Africa with a parasite and had had to take debilitating antibiotics for weeks.
There certainly weren’t antibiotics for magical, demonic parasites.
Buffy moved back toward the bed, mentally estimating the hours before an answer would be found. It was Friday night- Saturday morning by now- so people would probably sleep in late and not get the emergency texts and emails for another few hours. That meant the research party wouldn’t begin in earnest until around ten or eleven, and with such scant information, who knew how long it would take to figure out what had been done to Spike…
Overwhelmed suddenly by the uncertainty of everything they faced and annoyed at herself for feeling so weak when, really, it wasn’t like this was an apocalypse or like Spike was at dust’s door (please), Buffy leaned down and pressed her lips to his clammy forehead for a long moment.
She could practically feel the others exchanging looks behind her back before Dr. Benneman said, “Since he seems stable for the moment, we’ll leave you alone for right now. I’ll be in my office. Press the buzzer next to the bed if you need anything. Otherwise, I’ll check back in a little while.”
“Thank you,” said Buffy, hoping the doctor could hear her gratitude. The sickbay wasn’t staffed 24/7, since emergency injuries would go straight to Sunnydale Hospital anyway, and all the healers had come in last night specifically for Spike. She knew they were now probably off to take well-deserved naps while he was stable.
“I’m going back to my house to recharge,” said Ms. Wegman more bluntly. “But here’s my number. Call me anytime if his condition changes. Otherwise I’ll be back as soon as my energy balances are restored.”
“Thank you,” Buffy repeated, just as sincerely, as she programmed the number Ms. Wegman dictated into her phone.
Dr. Brenneman, Ms. Wegman, and the boy, whom Buffy vaguely recognized as a coven apprentice, filed out.
“I’m gonna go home for a bit, too, if you don’t mind,” said Willow, her expression a little guilty as she looked between Buffy and Spike.
“Of course not,” said Buffy instantly. “Thank you for everything you’ve already done.”
Willow’s demeanor didn’t brighten. “We haven’t done much yet," she said, disgruntled. "But we will. We’ll figure out what’s wrong,” she assured Spike.
He smiled kindly at her. “Never doubted it, Red.”
“Anything happens, call me,” said Willow firmly. “I’m two minutes away.”
It was hardly an exaggeration. The Council buildings were a hop, skip, and a jump away from the Summers, Rosenberg-Osbourne, and Harris homes, designed that way on purpose way back when so Spike could go back and forth with minimal exposure to sunlight.
“We’ll call,” Buffy assured her. “Take care of yourself.” She hugged Willow, who kissed Spike’s cheek before departing as well.
Once they were alone Buffy sat in the chair next to the bed and leaned close, automatically taking his hand and interlacing their fingers. She traced his cheekbone with her other thumb, unable to speak now that the room was silent; the pressure of worry in her chest felt suffocating.
Spike leaned into her hand with a weary sigh. His eyes fluttered shut, and for a second Buffy’s heartbeat stuttered. After another second he opened them and turned his head to kiss her palm.
“Missed you,” he murmured.
Buffy felt tears pressing behind her eyes. She’d kept them at bay for most of the evening, and she had a bad feeling they were going to erupt with a vengeance sometime soon. “You, too.” She struggled to pull herself together before Spike started trying to comfort her. “How do you feel? Really.”
“Like I’ve been tossed off a cliff and run over by an eighteen-wheeler,” he said matter-of-factly. “Stomach hurts. Mostly from the heaving but it also just feels…wrong. Like I drank bad blood.”
“Tell me what happened,” whispered Buffy.
His eyes darkened, but he didn’t hesitate. “They were carrying Jayma away, so I ran after them. I got them to drop her, and they swarmed me instead. They carried me away from the others- there were five or six of them-” Embarrassment clouded his tone.
“That’s more than anyone could handle,” Buffy assured him. It was a struggle to keep anger from lacing the words as she pictured the unfair fight and faceless monsters carrying away her husband.
“They dropped me on the ground and one of them- straddled me.” He grimaced, and to her mild shame, Buffy couldn’t keep from wondering if it had been a male demon or female demon, as if it mattered.
“It leaned down and- and-” Spike’s voice trembled for the first time. He swallowed and immediately flinched. Fear tightened Buffy’s stomach. The slayer’s words echoed in her mind: It looked like one of them put its…its mouth on his…I think he swallowed something. She knew that as much as Spike didn’t want to continue his story, she didn’t want to hear what came next either. She had to, though, and he had to say it.
“It put its mouth on mine.” He paused. “It kissed me. It pushed something into my mouth. Something slimy. It wasn’t exactly a liquid, but it definitely wasn’t solid either. Like jello. I- it-” He faltered.
Buffy’s stomach churned. She hadn’t braced herself enough after all, but she knew what she had to say. She squeezed his hand. “It’s okay. Anyone would have choked and swallowed in that situ-”
“I didn’t swallow. The jello thing- it-” He took a breath. “It slid down my throat. It moved. Like it was alive.”
Buffy didn’t speak, unsure if he was done or not, let alone how to respond. Almost absent-mindedly it seemed, Spike massaged his throat with his free hand. Buffy imagined a cold, gelatinous feeling in her mouth and then imagined it sliding down her throat, no matter how much she choked. She swallowed convulsively and shuddered.
Spike didn’t miss it. He smiled tightly. “So the fact that the docs think there’s something in me isn’t too surprising. Kind of a relief. Means I’m not crazy. Just need to figure out what the hell it is and how to get it out.”
“Emphasis on the getting it out part,” murmured Buffy.
She rubbed circles into his hand with her thumb and Spike looked at nothing, seeing, remembering something Buffy couldn’t reach.
“Where’s Aly?” he said hoarsely.
“Sleeping in the lobby. Xander’s with her. Do you want me to go wake her?”
He hesitated. “Let her sleep.”
“She was really worried, too.” She spoke automatically, not to guilt him but because she couldn’t stop picturing their daughter’s bloodless face and starkly red eyes from a few hours before. Her breath hitched. He squeezed her hand this time.
“We’ll just tell her I’m sick?” he said, his inflection making it a question. “That I’m infected with something and leave out the details?”
“Yeah,” said Buffy. He fell silent again, and though she could feel her body sagging deeper into the chair, all too content to simply be near him, her mind kept flicking through next steps she should be taking now that Spike had stabilized. She should wake Aly. She should call Dawn, whom she had called in mild hysterics around ten o’clock after being blocked from Spike’s room, and let her know Spike was all right. She should go to the Council library and start researching the demons. But all she wanted to do was stay right where she was, by his side.
“Did the slayers tell you what the demons looked like?” asked Spike unexpectedly.
“Yellow skin. Horns. Bald.” The description sounded even more pathetic and unhelpful in repetition. To her dismay but not surprise, her answer made a look of frustration cross his face.
“I know it’s not much to go on,” she said quickly. “Do you remember anything else about them?”
“That’s not it,” he said heavily. “That’s what most of them looked like. But that definitely wasn’t the one that-” He grimaced again. “Infected me.”
Buffy’s stomach turned over. “What do you mean?”
“The one that did this to me was blue and scaly. Plus, the others were built like rugby players, and this one was skinny and- lithe.”
“Female?” said Buffy’s mouth, without checking with her brain.
“Wasn’t exactly focusing on that,” he retorted.
She tried to look apologetic.
He sighed. “I’d hoped the slayers had seen it, too.”
“Maybe one did,” said Buffy encouragingly. “I didn’t get to poll everyone.”
“Maybe.” He didn’t sound optimistic. “This one wasn’t in the fight. It came after the others carried me away.”
The implication, that no one else could describe the demon, settled on Buffy like a physical weight. Now they had two demons to research and still very little to go on. They had no idea what was inside Spike, nor how much time they had before it began to affect him- more than it already had, anyway. Rationally, she knew the Scoobies had solved cases on less before and that Giles and his protégées were equipped to deal with this sort of emergency, but that knowledge couldn’t shake her feeling of dread. It coated her skin, oily and suffocating as sunscreen. She needed to do something to start fixing this.
Spike’s eyes were conveniently half-lidded, his breathing slowing in the way that meant he was close to sleep and would soon stop altogether.
“You should sleep while you can,” said Buffy. In case you start not-throwing-up again. “I can go to the library and start researching.”
His eyes shot back open. “You’re gonna leave?”
He sounded so indignant and pitiful that she said instantly, “Not if you stay awake. But you should sleep…”
“You could sleep, too,” he coaxed. “There’s room here. I bet you haven’t slept all night either.” He shifted under the blankets toward the far edge of the bed and smiled winningly.
She could rarely deny him on a normal day, let alone when he was laid up in the hospital. With an unexpected feeling of relief- he needed her here- she nodded in assent and carefully slid onto the bed.
“You’re sure I’m not hurting you?” she asked anxiously, since she was more-or-less half-lying on him.
“I’m fine,” he said hastily, as though worried she would change her mind.
“Are you sure you’re comfortable? Spike, I’m lying on you, and you’re the one who’s sick-”
“I’m sure! Unless you’re uncomfortable- I don’t want you to be…”
In answer, she stretched out slowly against him, sliding her arm across his torso, and settled her head in the crook of his neck. It wasn’t the most comfortable position- her backside stuck off the edge of the bed, which gave her the occasional sensation of falling- but they had been in the tighter positions before this. At least they didn’t have any IV cords to circumvent.
“Let me know if it does start to hurt. I’ll move,” she said, even though she knew he wouldn’t tell her anything of the sort.
He had clasped his hands on his stomach when she was shifting position, but now he intertwined their fingers. After a minute he whispered, “It’s better when you’re here.”
She squeezed her eyes tight against the burning sensation behind them. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Despite knowing, rationally, that his symptoms couldn’t be fatal, lying squashed on the hospital bed made it all too easy to fall into melancholy. She could count the number of times he had been in the hospital- and most of those times were pregnancy-related, hers or one of the Scoobies’. He’d gone on his own account several times when professional attention would be much more convenient than natural vampire healing, but those major injuries had become fewer and farther between once Aly was born and parenthood superseded slaying. He had never had to stay overnight in the hospital, not even when he’d come down with a mystical flu a few years ago and been laid up in bed for a week with a nose as red as Rudolph’s and the Grinch’s temperament to boot.
Spike being in the hospital- it just wasn’t right. It boded ill. And figuring out what had been done to him, with such scant evidence, seemed immeasurably daunting. In her mind’s eye he was being wheeled away from her again, thrashing and whimpering, and she could do nothing but watch helplessly.
A sniff must have escaped her because a soft “Hey” interrupted her thoughts.
“Everything’s gonna be all right, love. Don’t worry.”
“That’s a stupid thing to say,” mumbled Buffy. “You’d worry if it were me.”
“Only because you have a frail human immune system,” he said brightly. “But unless this thing is planning to grow a tree through my heart, I’ll work out in the end.”
She didn’t laugh.
After a moment he pressed a kiss to the top of her head.
She thought her fears would keep her awake, and she intended at the very least for him to sleep first, but lying nestled together had the same soporific effect it usually did. She could feel her limbs loosening, the tension in her taut muscles finally beginning to drain, if not the tension in her mind.
Don’t worry, Buffy chanted to herself. Worry when you wake up. Spike’s safe. You’re together. That’s what matters.
Worry when you wake up…