dampersnspoons - Delust or Dust 10/?
Title: Delust or Dust
Rating: NC-17 for adult language and sexual situations
Warnings: Graphic sex (eventually) Probably blood play. And foul-mouthedness
Season/Pairing: BtVS Season 3, Buffy/Spike, Willow/Oz, Xander/Cordelia, Angel/his discontent, Giles/missing spatula
Spoilers: Starts with the episode Lover's Walk, so anything up until that point could be mentioned. Some lines from the episode will be used in this fic.
Genre(s): Comedy, Romance
Beta(s): xtanitx
Summary: Starts off with the episode Lover's Walk and then goes AU practically from the start. Spike has returned to Sunnydale, heartbroken that Drusilla has left him. When a love spell goes horribly wrong, how will the Scoobies react when the slayer gets involved with yet another vampire? Will Giles wipe his glasses in disapproval? Will Xander not understand but be too enamored with the visuals to say anything? Is Angel going to brood about it or will he do something more? WHAT WILL HAPPEN?
Chapter Word Count: 4,140
Disclaimer: The characters in this story are the property of Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy and I in no way mean to infringe on anyone's rights, nor do I use these names for profit. This is for entertainment and Tom-foolery only. Carry on.
For Previous Chapters Click Here!
Author's Note: Happy Holidays to everyone! I wasn't sure if I'd get another post out before the holidays, but I did and yay! I have more written and waiting for when festivities are over with. Hope you all have a very safe and very relaxing holiday season. :)
Chapter 10
Buffy’s arms were folded tightly across her chest, her head turned to the side and her face was twisted in an angry, heated mask. Her body vibrated as her dangling right leg shook rapidly from side to side and every once in a while, she’d close her eyes and inhale deeply. It was during those moments Spike thought that she might calm down but then she’d open her eyes, look at him and huff, starting the process all over again.
“I’m sorry,” he said with a hint of irritation.
They’d been sitting at a table in some seedy diner downtown, taking a break from their interrogations on patrol, when Buffy finally figured out that Spike was the one responsible for Stephanie’s death. Of course she had. Spike was a terrible liar. He thought for sure she’d stake him from the look that flashed in her eyes but then she closed them and her face turned red as she inhaled through her nose. It was fury unlike anything he’d ever seen. If she hadn’t been under a spell, he had no doubt he’d be dust right now.
“Buffy, please say something.”
Her head whipped towards his and she said, emphasizing every word by slamming her fist on the table, “No. Killing. Humans!”
He sighed, opened his mouth to speak but she cut him off.
“You can’t do that! That’s a very bad vampire! Bad, bad, bad!”
“Buff-”
“I’m the slayer, Spike! I’m supposed to protect humans and I can’t do that if you’re just going to kill them!”
“And I’m a vampire you daft bint! It’s what I do!”
She gasped incredulously, narrowing her eyes. When she looked at him that way, he almost wondered if the old Buffy was back. If the spell had lifted and she suddenly saw reason, returning to her old ways. Then again, she was always a self-righteous bitch and no amount of magic would ever weaken that little trait of hers.
“I don’t like that word!”
“What, vampire?”
“No! God, you’re...bint! What does that even mean?”
“It means girl or chick or whatever. Sometimes I say chit, you’ll notice, but I prefer the often used British slang for-”
“Spike! That was a rhetorical question.”
He rolled his eyes and sat back in his seat. “Look, I killed her before any of this between us began.” He reached in his duster and pulled out his cigarettes, popping one in his mouth. “Haven’t done another one since then,” he said as he lit it.
“Yeah, right. Like I’m supposed to believe that overnight you just stopped feeding from humans and switched over to animal blood.”
He blinked. Took a drag of his cigarette. “Well...no...”
“See? You’re still killing!”
“Am not!”
“Are too!”
“Am...” he trailed off and sighed. He licked his lips and tried again. “Buffy. I fed off this one bird the other night but I didn’t kill her.”
“You didn’t? She just let you drink from her.” She cocked her head knowingly, pursing her lips as she waited for his reply.
He took another drag of his cigarette. Shifted in his seat. “Well...no...”
“Aha! Evil!”
“Never said I wasn’t, love! But points for keeping her alive and kicking, right?” He tilted his head as he looked at her sadly.
“Don’t do that.” She looked away.
“Do what?”
“That thing with your eyes! You know I can’t resist your sapphire orbs as they silently beg me to love you.” The tension that had been in her voice earlier slowly lifted with her last statement and she swooned as she looked at him, biting her lip as she smiled sweetly.
Orbs? What awful dime store romance novels had she been reading? He tried not to laugh, though, because that slayer venom could be back in an instant.
“You still mad at me?” He was laying it on thick, now, jutting his lower lip out and batting his orblashes to see if he could save himself from receiving the sharp end of a stake.
She’d caught onto it, though. “Don’t you try to sweet talk me, mister. I may love you and want you with every cell in my body but that doesn’t mean you can just go off and kill anyone you want. Or feed from them without their permission!”
He huffed and crossed his arms, toeing the table stand with his boot as he stared at the ashtray between them. “You know, could say something nice about me not killing that girl last night.”
A slow, appreciative smile spread across her face as she looked up at him. “You’re right. That must have been very hard for you.”
“Was!” He sat up again and picked up his cigarette. “Could’ve drained her dry. Easy. She was so pissed it wouldn’t have taken-” he stopped when Buffy’s eyes grew wide.
He cleared his throat.
“I mean,” he said slowly, “it would have been wrong?” She smiled, and he knew he’d said the right thing.
“’Sides,” he continued, smiling flirtatiously at her, “you’ve got one hell of a hold on me, Summers.”
She blushed and ducked her head and her fingers played with the lacing on the front of her dress. “Do not.”
“Do so,” he said softly.
He crushed his cigarette butt in the ashtray and reached his hands across the table to grab hers. She looked up at him bashfully and he was unable to contain his smile. He felt a lump in his throat and he swallowed, his tone turning more serious when he said, “I may not know right from wrong. Might be an evil vamp without a soul but…you’ll keep me sorted out, right?”
Her chin trembled, she smiled and wanted to bounce in her seat with glee but instead she said, “Yeah.”
“Good.” He raised one of her hands to his mouth and kissed the back of it. “Don’t you dare tell anyone I said that.”
She giggled. “I wouldn’t dream of ruining your very evil persona, Spike.”
She tilted her head in thought, staring at a nonexistent spot on the table, hypnotized by the feel of his thumb stroking her hand. She looked at him when horror suddenly hit her. “What am I going to tell Giles? I can’t lie to him! If he knows you killed Stephanie he’ll-”
“Tell him the truth. The watcher won’t do a bloody thing to me.”
“But-”
“He can’t kill me, Buffy. We’re bound together with this spell. Who knows what’ll happen to either of us if we were harmed.”
“How can you be sure, though? Giles is very stake happy these days, thanks to Angelus.”
He shrugged. “Call it instincts, pet, but the fact that Angel hasn’t tried to take me out was my first clue. I have no doubt that I’d be dust right now if he thought that by doing so, you’d be left unharmed. You’re his bloody property in his eyes,” he said, snorting disdainfully. “Don’t like it.”
She thought about that for a minute. “But what about the forgetting spell? They could perform one and then they could kill you! I’d never know because I wouldn’t remember you and-” she was silenced by his lips and just as quickly as he’d kissed her, he pulled away, wiping her cheeks with his thumbs. She didn’t even know she’d been crying. Man, love sure made a girl cry a lot!
“We’ll figure it out.” He smiled reassuringly at her and sat back in his seat, keeping one hand entwined with hers. “Been doing a bit of research myself.”
“You have?” How was it that he managed to make all her wildest dreams come true without even having to ask her what her wildest dreams were? He knowingly resisted killing someone because of her. He wanted her to help him be good. Now he was doing research? If he ever surprised her by riding up to her house on a white horse, without a shirt on, she’d make love to him for hours and hours and hours until they passed out from exhaustion. But she didn’t think he was that intuitive.
He shrugged casually. “You bake cookies, I read. Following a pretty good trail right now. Might have an answer soon. Until then, don’t worry yourself about the watcher. You just keep that pretty head of yours held high and handle your own business, right?”
“Ok.” She nodded, taking a deep, relaxing breath. “I trust you.”
He had to pretend there was something in his eyes when she said that. If she knew the effect those words had on him, she didn’t show it, and he was grateful. No one had ever said that to him, either. If Buffy continued to make his fantasies into reality, he’d never get over it if her friends succeeded in wiping her memories before he managed to find a solution of his own.
Not even the devil was that cruel.
* * * *
Giles smiled in relief as he hung up his phone. Buffy had just called him to let him know she’d returned from patrol unscathed, knowing he’d been worrying about her being alone with Spike. There were so many questions he had about that vampire, so many things that confused him.
Why hadn’t he tried to kill her? Why hadn’t he skipped town? Why hadn’t he taken advantage of her magical trust in him and killed her friends or her mother? He couldn’t get over the fact that Joyce let him inside, that he’d been there for so long alone with her and had done nothing but tell sob stories instead of ripping her throat out. He could have, easily. And that was before any of this spell nonsense!
The first question, he thought he had an answer to. Spike must have figured that if any harm came to him, harm would befall the slayer and vice versa. It was the only reason Giles hadn’t staked the annoying bastard and the only comfort he had in letting them be alone with one another. He knew Buffy would go against his will anyway, having no choice with magic controlling her.
And yet, so many questions! If Willow was right, and Gana’s magic wouldn’t work without consent, then that would mean...
But that was impossible! Vampires couldn’t love. They were incapable of it. They didn’t have souls. In every piece of literature he’d ever read on the subject, it very clearly stated that vampires were unable to feel any emotion that wasn’t completely self-involved. Love would imply altruism, something no demon could ever possess without a twinge of artifice. Love would imply sacrifice. Love would mean so many, many things that a vampire could never feel or even comprehend. If Willow was right, and Spike loved Buffy, then he would have successfully rewritten history, disproved everything he’d ever learned, erased the lines between good and evil, and thrown Giles completely off his rocker.
He’d been studying the spell while she was out patrolling, unable to sit and do nothing about it. He was reluctant to use magic to fix magic, especially if it involved a forgetting spell. That had the potential for grave consequences should anything go wrong.
What if she forgot more than she was meant to? What if she forgot her calling or who she was? What if she forgot even her own name? There were a million things that could go wrong and Giles wanted to be certain that whatever decision they made, it would be in her best interests. However, the information he had on Gana continued to point towards Willow’s theory and that only made things even more difficult.
He’d been mulling this over for so long that he hadn’t realized how late it was. With an exhausted sigh, he rose from his seat and started his nightly ritual of turning off lights and checking windows when someone knocked on his front door. Not wanting to risk it, he opened a trunk by the sofa and pulled out a stake and a cross. Now armed, he walked to the door and opened it slightly, huffing when he saw who it was.
“Yes? What do you want at this hour?”
“We need to talk.”
Giles sighed, obviously very put out by the intruder, but he knew that there was no point in turning him away. “Make it quick. I’m very tired.”
“Don’t worry,” he said as he came inside. “I won’t keep you long.”
* * * *
Spike was still an evil bastard.
Making the slayer call her watcher while he slipped his hand down her panties and nibbled on her neck was proof enough that he still had it. He was impressed she was able to hold it together while Giles interrogated her, though; except for the moment he rammed two fingers inside her and bit down on her jugular with blunt teeth. She yelped and dropped the phone and she smothered his laughter with a pillow while she hurriedly ended the call.
“You are so dead,” she said once she hung up the phone. Her eyes were glistening with arousal and excitement, the bathrobe she had on was in danger of gaping open and her hair hung in tangled, wild tufts around her face from when he’d played with it earlier. She was gorgeous, so gorgeous he didn’t register that she’d straddled his waist on the bed and raised a pillow in the air, too entranced with the sight of her to notice. And then it crashed down on him and his ears were filled with the beautiful sound of her laughter.
“Watch the hair!” he shouted, though he didn’t really mean it. Her fingers immediately cast through his locks on a mission to mess up his slicked back do, which of course, was what he wanted. His arms banded around her waist and he pulled her down on top of him, nuzzling his face against her chest and spreading her robe open with his chin.
“Spike,” she said. And he knew he had her when she said his name like that, knew he’d succeeded in making her forget all about Rupert when she said his name like it was the only way she could breathe. All it took was a swipe of his tongue across one of her tiny, pink nipples and she was gasping for air, tightening her grip in his hair and moving her hips against him. He wondered if she’d still be this eager if she weren’t under a spell, if she’d still want him this badly, if it wouldn’t take anything at all to get her in the mood.
She felt him spread her robe open at the middle, leaving her sash tied, and then his hands coasted over her stomach, up to her breasts for a tender squeeze and his thumbs grazed her nipples. He touched her in all the right ways, did so effortlessly, as if his hands were made specifically to bring her pleasure. She knew he was her destiny. He was her champion, her knight in shining armor, the only man she would ever love like this and every moment she spent with him only solidified her feelings even more.
Spike’s hands were on her hips then, pulling her down a bit, and he let his head fall back on the pillows so he could look at her face. She opened her eyes and questioned him silently for a moment, wondering why he’d stopped. But he just smiled. Tucked her hair behind her ears and smiled. He didn’t know how long they’d stayed like that, simply looking at one another. Dru hadn’t ever allowed his appraisal of her for very long before she’d turn away and want to do something else. But Buffy let him look without question, without fear or annoyance. She smiled when his hands caressed her face.
“What is it?” he asked.
She licked her lips and furrowed her brow for a moment, taking her time to answer him. But then she did. “I just...I love you. I’m sorry.” She lay down on his chest, no doubt to hide her eyes from his scrutiny and he realized that she hadn’t said that in a while. Was that for him? Did she think he didn’t want to hear it? Was she already tired of saying it? Was he a complete girl for even caring?
“Don’t be sorry,” he said, whispering against her hair as his hands raked through it. He felt her inhale deeply and then she sighed against his neck. “What?”
“You won’t believe me until this spell is over, will you?” She lifted her head to look at him and he was crushed by the heartrending expression on her face.
He closed his eyes. “I want to believe you. You have no idea how much I want to believe that all of this is real.”
Angry, she sat up and closed her robe. “I don’t know what I have to do to prove this to you.”
“Buffy, I know that you-you love me. Spell Buffy, that is.”
Either that was the wrong thing to say due to the pained expression on her face, or the right thing, because in the next moment, she was standing up and shoving her hands beneath the mattress.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m going to show something to you.” She pulled out a diary and crawled back onto the bed beside him and started flipping through the pages. Curious, he propped himself up on his elbow beside her and waited.
“Ok, listen to this. I hate him so much!” she read aloud. “Him and his stupid girlfriend! Like I give a crap about her being sick. She’s stupid and has weird eyes and he’s such an asshole. And his stupid boots and tight jeans and ugly coat. I hate him!” Buffy looked at him expectantly and Spike could only stare at her.
“Not sure what that proves, love.”
She sighed and turned the page, reading another passage. “Angel and I kissed at the ice skating rink last night and then a new slayer showed up. Kendra. She wears big jewelry.” Buffy looked at him again, raising her eyebrows to see if he’d figured it out yet. When he still remained clueless, she sighed through her teeth and flipped to another page.
“I think he’s dead now. I saw the organ fall on him. There’s no way he lived through it. I should be happy. I should be very, very happy that Spike is finally dead and no longer a threat. I almost went back to check and see but I had to take care of Angel. So much work to cure his girlfriend. All of that just to make her better. And he’d fought me every step of the way. He was good last night. Really good. If that organ hadn’t fallen on him, I don’t know how much longer I could have held out. I don’t know if I’m sad or happy that I lost an enemy.”
Without waiting for him to speak, she read a final passage. “I know he’s watching me. Either he’s an idiot and hasn’t caught on to the fact that I can sense a vampire several yards away or he wants me to know he’s there. I like knowing he’s watching. It makes me fight better. Makes me try harder. I want him to know that I’m not weak. I want him to know how easily I could end him. I don’t know why he only watches, why he doesn’t take advantage of my winded state at the end of patrol. He’d probably have a good shot if he did, but he never does. I don’t want to think about why he’s watching, just want to know that he is. I’m better, I’m faster, and I’m stronger because he watches me. One day, though, I hope he comes out, makes himself known. Because I’m totally going to kick his ass for that crap he pulled on Parent Teacher night.”
Spike remained silent as she put her diary away. He didn’t really know what to say, still stunned that Buffy had even bothered writing anything at all about him.
“That diary is filled with pages about you. About how much I hate you or fear you, depending on the day. There are entries about Angel, of course. Our first kiss and our weird dates and when he…well, when he became Angelus. I felt for him, cared for him. Maybe I loved him. But there is no passion in my entries about Angel. Whether I hated you or just wrote about whatever crossed my mind, I could fill up page after page. I might not have loved you in those entries, might not have realized it then, but you meant something to me. You irritated me and annoyed me and scared me, too. But I know now that I’m as good as I am because of you.”
“No, you aren’t,” he said, almost ashamedly. His voice was strained and he was still stunned from the realization that Willow’s theories about the spell might be real. “You’re good because you’re Buffy. You’re good because you were made to be what you are. Never seen anyone fight like you. Got nothing to do with me.”
He looked up when her hand rested on his cheek. “Trust me, Spike? I know me. Whether this is magic or not...I know who I am. I know how much I thought about you. They weren’t pretty thoughts, mind you,” she said with a smile, “but they were always there. Maybe I would have fallen for you later. I could see that happening. You’re pretty hot, you know.”
He laughed a bit at that and pulled her against him, running his hands up and down her back. “Ok, Buffy.” He kissed her. “I trust you.” He kissed her again and she melted beneath him. He didn’t try anything more, wanting to savor the feel of her lips and the taste of her tongue for as long as he could. It felt more intimate somehow, just lying on her bed like this, kissing her. He was painfully hard, could have easily turned it into something else, but he didn’t want that. He wanted this. He wanted her.
“I’ll tell you when it’s all over,” he said.
“Ok.” She smiled contentedly at him, understanding and anxiety swimming in her eyes. It was almost four in the morning and he was lying on her bed, running his hands through her hair, stealing kisses from her swollen, red lips, watching her tired eyes flutter with every caress. Then she yawned and he knew he’d stayed too long. He kissed her once more, then again when he thought better of it, and when she giggled beneath him, looked up at him with her sparkling green eyes, he knew he had to leave before he started quoting Tennyson and making a fool of himself. Reluctantly, he slipped out of her bed and smiled as he crawled out her bedroom window, hopping down onto the ground below with a happy sigh.
Spike took his time walking back to the factory. He might have started dancing at one point, but no one was looking and it was a perfectly good tombstone to twirl off of and land with his arms stretched out at his sides. He couldn’t help indulging himself in a little bit of amorous glee. His demeanor stiffened into an arrogant gait the closer he neared his factory, sensing demons about on a hunt. He wasn’t in the mood to explain his antics.
When Spike arrived at the factory, however, he noticed a package lying in front of the door. He looked around the building to see if anyone was there and found no one. Shrugging he picked it up and walked inside, tearing off the brown parchment paper.
“Page seventy-six,” he said, reading from a post-it note that was stuck to the outside of the book that he’d just unwrapped. The handwriting was almost illegible, written in haste it seemed. He frowned and turned to the suggested page and once he read the large, bold text of that chapter’s title, he collapsed into a chair with a surprised exhalation of air.
Spike had a solution. He had something tangible, a crumb of hope that he and Buffy just might make it after all. He didn’t know why they were helping him, but he had an idea who. For the first time in his life, Spike felt warmth growing inside of him that he couldn’t quite describe. It made his chest burn, it was so warm, made his eyes water, made every cell in his wretched body hum with gratitude. He didn’t deserve this. None of it.
But damn if it wasn’t the best feeling in the world.
Chapter 12 >>>
Rating: NC-17 for adult language and sexual situations
Warnings: Graphic sex (eventually) Probably blood play. And foul-mouthedness
Season/Pairing: BtVS Season 3, Buffy/Spike, Willow/Oz, Xander/Cordelia, Angel/his discontent, Giles/missing spatula
Spoilers: Starts with the episode Lover's Walk, so anything up until that point could be mentioned. Some lines from the episode will be used in this fic.
Genre(s): Comedy, Romance
Beta(s): xtanitx
Summary: Starts off with the episode Lover's Walk and then goes AU practically from the start. Spike has returned to Sunnydale, heartbroken that Drusilla has left him. When a love spell goes horribly wrong, how will the Scoobies react when the slayer gets involved with yet another vampire? Will Giles wipe his glasses in disapproval? Will Xander not understand but be too enamored with the visuals to say anything? Is Angel going to brood about it or will he do something more? WHAT WILL HAPPEN?
Chapter Word Count: 4,140
Disclaimer: The characters in this story are the property of Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy and I in no way mean to infringe on anyone's rights, nor do I use these names for profit. This is for entertainment and Tom-foolery only. Carry on.
For Previous Chapters Click Here!
Author's Note: Happy Holidays to everyone! I wasn't sure if I'd get another post out before the holidays, but I did and yay! I have more written and waiting for when festivities are over with. Hope you all have a very safe and very relaxing holiday season. :)
Chapter 10
Buffy’s arms were folded tightly across her chest, her head turned to the side and her face was twisted in an angry, heated mask. Her body vibrated as her dangling right leg shook rapidly from side to side and every once in a while, she’d close her eyes and inhale deeply. It was during those moments Spike thought that she might calm down but then she’d open her eyes, look at him and huff, starting the process all over again.
“I’m sorry,” he said with a hint of irritation.
They’d been sitting at a table in some seedy diner downtown, taking a break from their interrogations on patrol, when Buffy finally figured out that Spike was the one responsible for Stephanie’s death. Of course she had. Spike was a terrible liar. He thought for sure she’d stake him from the look that flashed in her eyes but then she closed them and her face turned red as she inhaled through her nose. It was fury unlike anything he’d ever seen. If she hadn’t been under a spell, he had no doubt he’d be dust right now.
“Buffy, please say something.”
Her head whipped towards his and she said, emphasizing every word by slamming her fist on the table, “No. Killing. Humans!”
He sighed, opened his mouth to speak but she cut him off.
“You can’t do that! That’s a very bad vampire! Bad, bad, bad!”
“Buff-”
“I’m the slayer, Spike! I’m supposed to protect humans and I can’t do that if you’re just going to kill them!”
“And I’m a vampire you daft bint! It’s what I do!”
She gasped incredulously, narrowing her eyes. When she looked at him that way, he almost wondered if the old Buffy was back. If the spell had lifted and she suddenly saw reason, returning to her old ways. Then again, she was always a self-righteous bitch and no amount of magic would ever weaken that little trait of hers.
“I don’t like that word!”
“What, vampire?”
“No! God, you’re...bint! What does that even mean?”
“It means girl or chick or whatever. Sometimes I say chit, you’ll notice, but I prefer the often used British slang for-”
“Spike! That was a rhetorical question.”
He rolled his eyes and sat back in his seat. “Look, I killed her before any of this between us began.” He reached in his duster and pulled out his cigarettes, popping one in his mouth. “Haven’t done another one since then,” he said as he lit it.
“Yeah, right. Like I’m supposed to believe that overnight you just stopped feeding from humans and switched over to animal blood.”
He blinked. Took a drag of his cigarette. “Well...no...”
“See? You’re still killing!”
“Am not!”
“Are too!”
“Am...” he trailed off and sighed. He licked his lips and tried again. “Buffy. I fed off this one bird the other night but I didn’t kill her.”
“You didn’t? She just let you drink from her.” She cocked her head knowingly, pursing her lips as she waited for his reply.
He took another drag of his cigarette. Shifted in his seat. “Well...no...”
“Aha! Evil!”
“Never said I wasn’t, love! But points for keeping her alive and kicking, right?” He tilted his head as he looked at her sadly.
“Don’t do that.” She looked away.
“Do what?”
“That thing with your eyes! You know I can’t resist your sapphire orbs as they silently beg me to love you.” The tension that had been in her voice earlier slowly lifted with her last statement and she swooned as she looked at him, biting her lip as she smiled sweetly.
Orbs? What awful dime store romance novels had she been reading? He tried not to laugh, though, because that slayer venom could be back in an instant.
“You still mad at me?” He was laying it on thick, now, jutting his lower lip out and batting his orblashes to see if he could save himself from receiving the sharp end of a stake.
She’d caught onto it, though. “Don’t you try to sweet talk me, mister. I may love you and want you with every cell in my body but that doesn’t mean you can just go off and kill anyone you want. Or feed from them without their permission!”
He huffed and crossed his arms, toeing the table stand with his boot as he stared at the ashtray between them. “You know, could say something nice about me not killing that girl last night.”
A slow, appreciative smile spread across her face as she looked up at him. “You’re right. That must have been very hard for you.”
“Was!” He sat up again and picked up his cigarette. “Could’ve drained her dry. Easy. She was so pissed it wouldn’t have taken-” he stopped when Buffy’s eyes grew wide.
He cleared his throat.
“I mean,” he said slowly, “it would have been wrong?” She smiled, and he knew he’d said the right thing.
“’Sides,” he continued, smiling flirtatiously at her, “you’ve got one hell of a hold on me, Summers.”
She blushed and ducked her head and her fingers played with the lacing on the front of her dress. “Do not.”
“Do so,” he said softly.
He crushed his cigarette butt in the ashtray and reached his hands across the table to grab hers. She looked up at him bashfully and he was unable to contain his smile. He felt a lump in his throat and he swallowed, his tone turning more serious when he said, “I may not know right from wrong. Might be an evil vamp without a soul but…you’ll keep me sorted out, right?”
Her chin trembled, she smiled and wanted to bounce in her seat with glee but instead she said, “Yeah.”
“Good.” He raised one of her hands to his mouth and kissed the back of it. “Don’t you dare tell anyone I said that.”
She giggled. “I wouldn’t dream of ruining your very evil persona, Spike.”
She tilted her head in thought, staring at a nonexistent spot on the table, hypnotized by the feel of his thumb stroking her hand. She looked at him when horror suddenly hit her. “What am I going to tell Giles? I can’t lie to him! If he knows you killed Stephanie he’ll-”
“Tell him the truth. The watcher won’t do a bloody thing to me.”
“But-”
“He can’t kill me, Buffy. We’re bound together with this spell. Who knows what’ll happen to either of us if we were harmed.”
“How can you be sure, though? Giles is very stake happy these days, thanks to Angelus.”
He shrugged. “Call it instincts, pet, but the fact that Angel hasn’t tried to take me out was my first clue. I have no doubt that I’d be dust right now if he thought that by doing so, you’d be left unharmed. You’re his bloody property in his eyes,” he said, snorting disdainfully. “Don’t like it.”
She thought about that for a minute. “But what about the forgetting spell? They could perform one and then they could kill you! I’d never know because I wouldn’t remember you and-” she was silenced by his lips and just as quickly as he’d kissed her, he pulled away, wiping her cheeks with his thumbs. She didn’t even know she’d been crying. Man, love sure made a girl cry a lot!
“We’ll figure it out.” He smiled reassuringly at her and sat back in his seat, keeping one hand entwined with hers. “Been doing a bit of research myself.”
“You have?” How was it that he managed to make all her wildest dreams come true without even having to ask her what her wildest dreams were? He knowingly resisted killing someone because of her. He wanted her to help him be good. Now he was doing research? If he ever surprised her by riding up to her house on a white horse, without a shirt on, she’d make love to him for hours and hours and hours until they passed out from exhaustion. But she didn’t think he was that intuitive.
He shrugged casually. “You bake cookies, I read. Following a pretty good trail right now. Might have an answer soon. Until then, don’t worry yourself about the watcher. You just keep that pretty head of yours held high and handle your own business, right?”
“Ok.” She nodded, taking a deep, relaxing breath. “I trust you.”
He had to pretend there was something in his eyes when she said that. If she knew the effect those words had on him, she didn’t show it, and he was grateful. No one had ever said that to him, either. If Buffy continued to make his fantasies into reality, he’d never get over it if her friends succeeded in wiping her memories before he managed to find a solution of his own.
Not even the devil was that cruel.
* * * *
Giles smiled in relief as he hung up his phone. Buffy had just called him to let him know she’d returned from patrol unscathed, knowing he’d been worrying about her being alone with Spike. There were so many questions he had about that vampire, so many things that confused him.
Why hadn’t he tried to kill her? Why hadn’t he skipped town? Why hadn’t he taken advantage of her magical trust in him and killed her friends or her mother? He couldn’t get over the fact that Joyce let him inside, that he’d been there for so long alone with her and had done nothing but tell sob stories instead of ripping her throat out. He could have, easily. And that was before any of this spell nonsense!
The first question, he thought he had an answer to. Spike must have figured that if any harm came to him, harm would befall the slayer and vice versa. It was the only reason Giles hadn’t staked the annoying bastard and the only comfort he had in letting them be alone with one another. He knew Buffy would go against his will anyway, having no choice with magic controlling her.
And yet, so many questions! If Willow was right, and Gana’s magic wouldn’t work without consent, then that would mean...
But that was impossible! Vampires couldn’t love. They were incapable of it. They didn’t have souls. In every piece of literature he’d ever read on the subject, it very clearly stated that vampires were unable to feel any emotion that wasn’t completely self-involved. Love would imply altruism, something no demon could ever possess without a twinge of artifice. Love would imply sacrifice. Love would mean so many, many things that a vampire could never feel or even comprehend. If Willow was right, and Spike loved Buffy, then he would have successfully rewritten history, disproved everything he’d ever learned, erased the lines between good and evil, and thrown Giles completely off his rocker.
He’d been studying the spell while she was out patrolling, unable to sit and do nothing about it. He was reluctant to use magic to fix magic, especially if it involved a forgetting spell. That had the potential for grave consequences should anything go wrong.
What if she forgot more than she was meant to? What if she forgot her calling or who she was? What if she forgot even her own name? There were a million things that could go wrong and Giles wanted to be certain that whatever decision they made, it would be in her best interests. However, the information he had on Gana continued to point towards Willow’s theory and that only made things even more difficult.
He’d been mulling this over for so long that he hadn’t realized how late it was. With an exhausted sigh, he rose from his seat and started his nightly ritual of turning off lights and checking windows when someone knocked on his front door. Not wanting to risk it, he opened a trunk by the sofa and pulled out a stake and a cross. Now armed, he walked to the door and opened it slightly, huffing when he saw who it was.
“Yes? What do you want at this hour?”
“We need to talk.”
Giles sighed, obviously very put out by the intruder, but he knew that there was no point in turning him away. “Make it quick. I’m very tired.”
“Don’t worry,” he said as he came inside. “I won’t keep you long.”
* * * *
Spike was still an evil bastard.
Making the slayer call her watcher while he slipped his hand down her panties and nibbled on her neck was proof enough that he still had it. He was impressed she was able to hold it together while Giles interrogated her, though; except for the moment he rammed two fingers inside her and bit down on her jugular with blunt teeth. She yelped and dropped the phone and she smothered his laughter with a pillow while she hurriedly ended the call.
“You are so dead,” she said once she hung up the phone. Her eyes were glistening with arousal and excitement, the bathrobe she had on was in danger of gaping open and her hair hung in tangled, wild tufts around her face from when he’d played with it earlier. She was gorgeous, so gorgeous he didn’t register that she’d straddled his waist on the bed and raised a pillow in the air, too entranced with the sight of her to notice. And then it crashed down on him and his ears were filled with the beautiful sound of her laughter.
“Watch the hair!” he shouted, though he didn’t really mean it. Her fingers immediately cast through his locks on a mission to mess up his slicked back do, which of course, was what he wanted. His arms banded around her waist and he pulled her down on top of him, nuzzling his face against her chest and spreading her robe open with his chin.
“Spike,” she said. And he knew he had her when she said his name like that, knew he’d succeeded in making her forget all about Rupert when she said his name like it was the only way she could breathe. All it took was a swipe of his tongue across one of her tiny, pink nipples and she was gasping for air, tightening her grip in his hair and moving her hips against him. He wondered if she’d still be this eager if she weren’t under a spell, if she’d still want him this badly, if it wouldn’t take anything at all to get her in the mood.
She felt him spread her robe open at the middle, leaving her sash tied, and then his hands coasted over her stomach, up to her breasts for a tender squeeze and his thumbs grazed her nipples. He touched her in all the right ways, did so effortlessly, as if his hands were made specifically to bring her pleasure. She knew he was her destiny. He was her champion, her knight in shining armor, the only man she would ever love like this and every moment she spent with him only solidified her feelings even more.
Spike’s hands were on her hips then, pulling her down a bit, and he let his head fall back on the pillows so he could look at her face. She opened her eyes and questioned him silently for a moment, wondering why he’d stopped. But he just smiled. Tucked her hair behind her ears and smiled. He didn’t know how long they’d stayed like that, simply looking at one another. Dru hadn’t ever allowed his appraisal of her for very long before she’d turn away and want to do something else. But Buffy let him look without question, without fear or annoyance. She smiled when his hands caressed her face.
“What is it?” he asked.
She licked her lips and furrowed her brow for a moment, taking her time to answer him. But then she did. “I just...I love you. I’m sorry.” She lay down on his chest, no doubt to hide her eyes from his scrutiny and he realized that she hadn’t said that in a while. Was that for him? Did she think he didn’t want to hear it? Was she already tired of saying it? Was he a complete girl for even caring?
“Don’t be sorry,” he said, whispering against her hair as his hands raked through it. He felt her inhale deeply and then she sighed against his neck. “What?”
“You won’t believe me until this spell is over, will you?” She lifted her head to look at him and he was crushed by the heartrending expression on her face.
He closed his eyes. “I want to believe you. You have no idea how much I want to believe that all of this is real.”
Angry, she sat up and closed her robe. “I don’t know what I have to do to prove this to you.”
“Buffy, I know that you-you love me. Spell Buffy, that is.”
Either that was the wrong thing to say due to the pained expression on her face, or the right thing, because in the next moment, she was standing up and shoving her hands beneath the mattress.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m going to show something to you.” She pulled out a diary and crawled back onto the bed beside him and started flipping through the pages. Curious, he propped himself up on his elbow beside her and waited.
“Ok, listen to this. I hate him so much!” she read aloud. “Him and his stupid girlfriend! Like I give a crap about her being sick. She’s stupid and has weird eyes and he’s such an asshole. And his stupid boots and tight jeans and ugly coat. I hate him!” Buffy looked at him expectantly and Spike could only stare at her.
“Not sure what that proves, love.”
She sighed and turned the page, reading another passage. “Angel and I kissed at the ice skating rink last night and then a new slayer showed up. Kendra. She wears big jewelry.” Buffy looked at him again, raising her eyebrows to see if he’d figured it out yet. When he still remained clueless, she sighed through her teeth and flipped to another page.
“I think he’s dead now. I saw the organ fall on him. There’s no way he lived through it. I should be happy. I should be very, very happy that Spike is finally dead and no longer a threat. I almost went back to check and see but I had to take care of Angel. So much work to cure his girlfriend. All of that just to make her better. And he’d fought me every step of the way. He was good last night. Really good. If that organ hadn’t fallen on him, I don’t know how much longer I could have held out. I don’t know if I’m sad or happy that I lost an enemy.”
Without waiting for him to speak, she read a final passage. “I know he’s watching me. Either he’s an idiot and hasn’t caught on to the fact that I can sense a vampire several yards away or he wants me to know he’s there. I like knowing he’s watching. It makes me fight better. Makes me try harder. I want him to know that I’m not weak. I want him to know how easily I could end him. I don’t know why he only watches, why he doesn’t take advantage of my winded state at the end of patrol. He’d probably have a good shot if he did, but he never does. I don’t want to think about why he’s watching, just want to know that he is. I’m better, I’m faster, and I’m stronger because he watches me. One day, though, I hope he comes out, makes himself known. Because I’m totally going to kick his ass for that crap he pulled on Parent Teacher night.”
Spike remained silent as she put her diary away. He didn’t really know what to say, still stunned that Buffy had even bothered writing anything at all about him.
“That diary is filled with pages about you. About how much I hate you or fear you, depending on the day. There are entries about Angel, of course. Our first kiss and our weird dates and when he…well, when he became Angelus. I felt for him, cared for him. Maybe I loved him. But there is no passion in my entries about Angel. Whether I hated you or just wrote about whatever crossed my mind, I could fill up page after page. I might not have loved you in those entries, might not have realized it then, but you meant something to me. You irritated me and annoyed me and scared me, too. But I know now that I’m as good as I am because of you.”
“No, you aren’t,” he said, almost ashamedly. His voice was strained and he was still stunned from the realization that Willow’s theories about the spell might be real. “You’re good because you’re Buffy. You’re good because you were made to be what you are. Never seen anyone fight like you. Got nothing to do with me.”
He looked up when her hand rested on his cheek. “Trust me, Spike? I know me. Whether this is magic or not...I know who I am. I know how much I thought about you. They weren’t pretty thoughts, mind you,” she said with a smile, “but they were always there. Maybe I would have fallen for you later. I could see that happening. You’re pretty hot, you know.”
He laughed a bit at that and pulled her against him, running his hands up and down her back. “Ok, Buffy.” He kissed her. “I trust you.” He kissed her again and she melted beneath him. He didn’t try anything more, wanting to savor the feel of her lips and the taste of her tongue for as long as he could. It felt more intimate somehow, just lying on her bed like this, kissing her. He was painfully hard, could have easily turned it into something else, but he didn’t want that. He wanted this. He wanted her.
“I’ll tell you when it’s all over,” he said.
“Ok.” She smiled contentedly at him, understanding and anxiety swimming in her eyes. It was almost four in the morning and he was lying on her bed, running his hands through her hair, stealing kisses from her swollen, red lips, watching her tired eyes flutter with every caress. Then she yawned and he knew he’d stayed too long. He kissed her once more, then again when he thought better of it, and when she giggled beneath him, looked up at him with her sparkling green eyes, he knew he had to leave before he started quoting Tennyson and making a fool of himself. Reluctantly, he slipped out of her bed and smiled as he crawled out her bedroom window, hopping down onto the ground below with a happy sigh.
Spike took his time walking back to the factory. He might have started dancing at one point, but no one was looking and it was a perfectly good tombstone to twirl off of and land with his arms stretched out at his sides. He couldn’t help indulging himself in a little bit of amorous glee. His demeanor stiffened into an arrogant gait the closer he neared his factory, sensing demons about on a hunt. He wasn’t in the mood to explain his antics.
When Spike arrived at the factory, however, he noticed a package lying in front of the door. He looked around the building to see if anyone was there and found no one. Shrugging he picked it up and walked inside, tearing off the brown parchment paper.
“Page seventy-six,” he said, reading from a post-it note that was stuck to the outside of the book that he’d just unwrapped. The handwriting was almost illegible, written in haste it seemed. He frowned and turned to the suggested page and once he read the large, bold text of that chapter’s title, he collapsed into a chair with a surprised exhalation of air.
Spike had a solution. He had something tangible, a crumb of hope that he and Buffy just might make it after all. He didn’t know why they were helping him, but he had an idea who. For the first time in his life, Spike felt warmth growing inside of him that he couldn’t quite describe. It made his chest burn, it was so warm, made his eyes water, made every cell in his wretched body hum with gratitude. He didn’t deserve this. None of it.
But damn if it wasn’t the best feeling in the world.
Chapter 12 >>>