Blood soaked through the fabric of her
shirt, hastily tied to hide her
bleeding breast from the eyes of her friends. She stood silent,
determined yet shattered with tear streaks down dusty cheeks, her arms
tugging Spike at the armpits—not quite caring that his hands scraped
against rock—as Xander grabbed his feet and Willow sanctified the rear.
They escaped, but Buffy’s heart was left behind.
The lump of misery in her throat refused to dwindle, even once her
vampire was secured in the place Jesse had been not much more than an
hour previously, and then the pushy reassurances and sympathy from
Xander and Willow became too much and she felt close to totally
snapping.
“Can we just…not?” She looked up at them, her face bare of artifice but
filled with horrified reality.
“B-but Buffy, I think we should stay. And talk. ‘Cause it’s been a
really disturbing night and, well, Spike—” Willow bit her lip, brought
to a sudden end by the distinct absence of words that could describe
Spike at this point of their night.
And that was apparently all that was needed to push Buffy over the
edge, her control snapping almost loud enough to scare the pants off
them as she sobbed loudly and buried her distraught face in her hands.
Willow’s mouth snapped shut, her eyes darting to the unconscious
vampire whose name had cracked the slayer, and as one, her friends
embraced her.
Her shoulders shook and, for the first time, Willow understood the
pressure that Buffy had had to bear every single day since she’d been
chosen. It was a lot to ask of a young girl—she knew she couldn’t have
turned her back on all she knew to dedicate her nights to fighting the
bad guys. Well, maybe if she was able to use her computer she could do
it—but risking her life night after night? That was a bit much to
expect of anyone, and yet they’d not asked a question over Buffy doing
it.
“Look, I’m gonna go out on several limbs here but, what Spike did…”
Xander’s pause extended so that Willow had given up on her held breath,
worried that Xander would say something insensitive to the lovesick
slayer.
Buffy’s face was a human puddle of human misery when she pushed away
from Willow’s embrace and stared down the now silent boy. “What about
it, Xan? Come on, you’ve seen me…intimately now—” The tears were now
dripping steadily from her chin and her bottom lip wobbled
pathetically. “I’m sure you’ve been waiting for this moment. Tell me
about what Spike did?” she implored, her voice squeaky with pain and
dread and crushing disappointment.
All three turned to the subject, and so each of their true feelings
were hidden from the rest.
Xander hadn’t even flinched at the escalating hostility from Buffy,
just rubbed the back of his neck and thought things through thoroughly
in his head. “He’s a vampire, Buffy. He’s been tortured, tormented and,
I’m guessing by the hinky glow in his cheeks, probably drained. It’s my
completely uneducated and ignorant belief that the Spike we know wasn’t
quite in the driving seat.”
“H-he attacked me.” Gone was the fiery slayer and in her place was a
wounded Buffy, lost and confused on how to act now that her boyfriend
had touched her in a way she would never have believed she could be.
Not as a girl with superpowers.
Willow wrapped her arms around her friend and rubbed her arms gently.
“Maybe we should try and feed him—give him the blood we kinda forgot to
give Jesse?”
Buffy turned to her, her eyes glassy. “And what do I do then?”
Self-assurance lost, confidence shattered and feeling betrayed, the
Slayer had scattered her essence to the wind and Buffy was floundering
in a sea of unchartered territory.
Willow tossed a quick glance at Xander but found no answers. She gulped
back the lump of concern that made her want to cry right alongside
Buffy. This change in the vampire they’d thought they knew was as
shocking to her too, and she was finding it difficult to accept the
likelihood of Xander’s observations as she was offering comfort to the
girlfriend feeling vulnerable and lost.
“I-I don’t know, Buffy.”
And that highlighted the collected feeling. Nobody knew what to do, how
to act, or really even where to look.
“We need Giles,” Xander decided, and he left the huddle to make a call.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
Xander took a seat in the Summers’ living room and tried to control his
shaking hands. He couldn’t even process the relief he felt to be this
far away from Buffy. So many emotions were swirling around in his head
that he felt screaming at the top of his lungs couldn’t even get him
close to calm. Images shot through his head like staccato clicks: Buffy
shirtless, Buffy’s breasts all beautiful and tan, Spike’s fangs
embedded in the flesh around her nipple as the other breast was
uncovered and free to his gaze. And then the feelings—his arm brushing
against her skin as he tried to wrestle the big bad off his friend.
Friend. Sure. That’s why he was sitting here fantasising about her
while she stood traumatised downstairs next to the guy who was her real
boyfriend.
Somewhere way down deep inside—somewhere far deeper than Xander
suspected he even went—he knew that this would devastate Spike when he
was back in his right mind. Something told him that the guy just wasn’t
the type to force himself on women and whatever that was that had
happened—that attack that had bared and claimed Buffy’s breasts for her
closest friends to see—was raw behaviour in it’s most primitive, and
with vampires, that was really kind of out of his realm of
understanding.
Buffy’s too apparently.
He felt the burn of jealousy in his gut and instead of giving in and
wallowing in those erotic images of primal vampire and slayer nudity,
Xander tried to be the bigger man. No matter how he felt about Buffy,
the girl was in love with Spike. He’d seen it in her eyes when Jesse
had started saying all those things. Which, now that he was thinking
clearly, added to the possibilities of the sense-making.
And Jesse. God, he’d really made the biggest of bad calls in that
situation and he wouldn’t be surprised that once Buffy was all okay
with the vampire lovin’ she’d come and plant her shiny fashionable
boots firmly in his rear.
A great shuddering sob rocked his body and Xander felt himself finally
crumbling under the knowledge his best friend was dead. He might still
be walking and talking, but the words and the strut proved beyond any
doubt he might have clung to that the Jesse he’d grown up with was gone
forever.
It wouldn’t help to wallow in the anger that maybe it might have been
different if Spike had been there when Jesse had first opened his amber
eyes—not that it wasn’t tempting. And there was no denying that if
Xander hadn’t seen Spike’s completely thrashed state he might well have
decided it was time to dust the vamp. But he had seen. The guy had been
kidnapped by his own kind, brought to within an inch of dust at their
unfeeling hands, and that went a long way to saying that Spike wasn’t
part of their crowd any longer in Xander’s book of wisdom.
If he could face the truth, it was a relief. Before Jesse had been
played with by this Darla chick and drained, he’d considered his
relationship with Spike pretty near friendship. He’d held out hope that
the horror of vampires as a reality wasn’t as doom and Darth Vader as
Giles had made out. Sure, they were evil and ate people and so needed
to be staked, but Spike had convinced him that there might be something
else—something less disturbing in his life with a vampire that wanted
to fight alongside them for good. All the freaky Hellmouth activity
aside, Xander enjoyed Spike’s company and he didn’t like what this
message was shoving at him. Why was this vamp different? He was
soulless, yet he loved the Slayer. He was soulless, yet none of them
had been nibbled on let alone been made dinner. Well, except for
Buffy’s succulent breast—and who wouldn’t want that as an entrée?
Right, enough on that pity train, was time to jump off and make his way
back home before it got right out of his control. Because it always had
been in his control. Yeah, right. Xander rolled his eyes at his own
idiotic confidence. He did not suit being Optimism Guy. And if it
wasn’t for the very real girl now suffering from his mistake
downstairs, he just might have chosen to make himself scarce.
Taking a deep fortifying breath, Xander stood and made his way to the
phone. If Giles didn’t know how to clean up this mess then they were
all screwed.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
It stung.
Buffy bit her lip and stared at Spike, wondering what she’d do when he
opened his eyes and looked at her accusingly—looked at her lustily.
She’d swapped the childe for the father and at this moment, she was
seeing Jesse in Spike when before she’d seen Spike in Jesse. She didn’t
like that Spike now appeared to her as the lesser vampire, merely
because she’d been the recipient of his attack.
She was trying to think of it like Xander explained. Through the
compulsive shaking, she was trying to cling to the memory of her sweet
boyfriend who could see her soul just by looking into her eyes. The
boyfriend she could see held so much potential to be more than a
vampire was supposed to be. But right now, all she was seeing was the
vampire who had ripped her clothes and marked her breast with his fangs.
God, her friends had seen her breasts, and while that might have been
acceptable for Willow, it was not something she’d ever wanted to share
with Xander. You just didn’t go there with guy friends, and whatever it
was that Spike thought he was doing, it so wasn’t okay. Not by a really
long shot.
She felt like what had happened had been something monumentally
private, and Buffy felt frustrated and also terrified that Willow
wouldn’t just go upstairs and leave her in peace so she could sort
through all this in her head. So she could be alone around Spike for a
while to decide how to feel. How to deal.
She couldn’t stand the concern Willow aimed at her during quick corner
eye glances, almost as if she was scared and didn’t want Buffy to know
she was under observation. It was stifling and conflicted and did
nothing to help Buffy feel settled in her own mind about what she
should do in this situation. She needed her mom, though she knew that
would rate high on the Big Old Mistakometre. She could see it now.
‘Mom, meet my vampire boyfriend. He was kidnapped, drained to within an
inch of a dusty end, and when I rescued him with my mighty superpowers,
he ripped my clothes off, bit me and more than likely would have forced
me to have sex. Oh, and I love him.’ Yeah, that would go down swell.
Another series of shudders rocked through her body and Buffy felt the
tears well up painfully in the back of her throat. It was taking
everything she had to act as normal as possible, but having Willow
there was making it harder than she would have thought possible.
“Will?” Her voice was low, weak, desperate. Her answer was a startled
widening of green eyes. “Would you mind…can you go upstairs with Xander
for a bit? I-I need to think.”
Willow stared at her like she’d lost her mind, and Buffy wondered at
the bubbling hysteria surging through her body if perhaps she actually
had. Still, the redhead slowly nodded her head and backed toward the
stairs, her eyes switching from a resolute Buffy to a damaged Spike.
Admitted defeat in each step, Willow lowered her eyes, turned, and
ascended the stairs into the kitchen.
Buffy had never felt so relieved to have her friends gone.
She stood unmoving as she soaked up the silence. Arms hugging her torn
shirt to her body, Buffy let the tears finally fall, blinking rapidly
so as to never lose sight of the one who had inspired them. On rubbery
legs, she stole closer, wanting so much to just hold the cool security
of his hand. She gasped as she reached out and felt his flesh. Even
here his knuckles were worn, torn, and Buffy felt tears for the
destruction of his beauty along with his heart.
“Buffy?” The croaked voice barely resembled Spike, yet it was enough to
seize her heart and hope for more than was reasonable. The ball of
tears grew in her throat, the discomfort now painful as more overflowed
from her eyes and slipped down damp cheeks.
“Spike?” But when she looked up, it wasn’t the sexy blue that
tantalised her senses, it was the cold calculating gaze of an
amber-flecked demon. Her hand was gripped hard as she tried to abruptly
pull away and Buffy cursed herself for being sentimental in a situation
that had no room for it.
His growl wasn’t hateful—what she saw in that demon stare was want,
need—not a desire to rip out her throat and bathe in her blood. And
yet, it chilled her to the bone. It warned her that she was not the one
in control of this, that she’d allowed the girl in her too much time on
the outside to ever be back in control of this. And as she was just
reaching the decision to shout out for help, Spike almost ripped her
arm out of the socket as he brought her down.
Buffy cracked her knee on the side of the cot and yet before the pain
could register, Spike had her wholly beneath him, rubbing his cock
ruthlessly against her inner thigh.
“Please stop.” She couldn’t force more than a saddened whisper, feeling
the hard prodding cock and feeling terrified beyond measure. “Spike?
Please stop.”
He ignored her, nuzzling hungrily at the flesh at her throat as he
continued to stimulate his cock against the heat of her still clothed
crotch. She felt his fingers prod at her heat at the same second his
fangs ripped into her neck, and all she could do was sob as her small
hands clung to the fabric spread tight over his back. While her blood
flowed from her body and into his, she experienced for the first time a
man’s trespass into her body. Spike’s fingers were uncharacteristically
gentle as he poked first one finger and then two into her scorching
passage. She didn’t want to release the moan building in her throat,
but she was so weak, getting weaker and with a tiny jerk of her hips it
came flowing out.
Just as the light swinging from the basement ceiling caught and blurred
in her unfocused vision, the fingers slowly slid out and a hand was
stroking her hair as the beast kissed at the two holes in her throat.
They burned, as did the bite marks at her breast and the stretched
muscles of her pussy. Something was trickling into her panties but
Buffy felt beyond tired to even care what it meant.
Finally he lifted his head and all she could see was the blue of the
sky, of the ocean, of the vamp that she loved. A finger traced the line
of her newest set of tears and a matching one ran down his cheek.
And her heart broke.