Cuts Like A Knife

DISCLAIMER: All hail Joss Whedon, UPN, the WB, FOX , Mutant Enemy and 20th Century Fox Film Corporation. Theirs not mine. Everything had gone horribly wrong tonight. She'd broken up with Spike. On her way home, a gang of vampires had waylaid her. She dusted their sorry asses, but one slippery little creep got away. She had wasted over an hour playing hide and seek with him. After he was out of the way, she got home to find a distraught Willow crying at the kitchen table, grappling with withdrawal. Getting her calmed down and back in her bed had taken another hour. A bad feeling coiled tight in Buffy's stomach. Buffy made Dawn's lunch, smoothing peanut butter onto slices of bread. How could she have just let him walk away? Worse than that, told him to get away. She scrawled out a note for her sister. Grabbing her duffel bag, she ran back down to the docks to take care of some unfinished business. BAfter her errand was done,, she stuffed her purchases in the bag. She glanced at her watch. It had been nearly four hours since Spike had walked away from her. Her stomach ached, waves of uneasiness flowing over her. Angry and hurt Spike was capable of a whole lot of damage in four hours. Throwing the bag over her shoulder, she took off for Spike's crypt at a run. Breathless, she pushed open the door to his crypt. It was even worse than she had imagined. The furniture that he had chosen so carefully was reduced to wisps of stuffing and splinters of wood. Chunks of wax from broken candles lay everywhere. Shards of glass and puddles of liquid lay on the floor. Worst of all, a trail of blood meandered from the center of the crypt to the hole that led to the lower level. Buffy climbed down. Reaching the lowest rung of the ladder, Buffy stepped down onto something squishy. It was Spike, lying in a crumbled heap. She carefully picked him up and carried him to the bed. She was able to see what he had done to himself. A wooden stake protruded from his chest, blood soaking the front of his shirt. Removing the long sleeved shirt he wore, she tugged on his wrist. Feeling something damp there, she pulled up his cuff. He had slit his wrist. Pulling at his shoulders, she ripped the shirt into two pieces. Throwing it off, she grabbed his other wrist. He had slit that one too. She stared up in his face. He looked like a corpse. His lips were tinged blue, his face a bloodless white. It was wrong, deeply wrong, to see him so still. He was the most vibrant person she had ever met. Fighting down panic, she carefully pulled the stake from his chest. She pulled the top sheet off the bed and ripped it into strips, trying to remember the combat medical training Riley had taught her. Looking around, she found an open bottle of grain alcohol. Did she need to clean the wound? He was a vampire. He couldn't get an infection. Could he? She was so stupid, so stupid, so fucking stupid. She knew how to kill vamps, not fix them. What if she did the wrong thing? Wincing, she poured alcohol over the wound. Spike didn't even stir. She bound his chest and wrists tightly, doing the best job that she could. Buffy settled him back on the pillows, pulling the coverlet up over his chest. He hadn't moved since she had been there. He couldn't die, right?Spike was a vampire, so he couldn't die. Then why was he so still? She wrapped her arms around herself, shaking. What was she supposed to do? He'd been hurt badly before. Yeah, like when she dropped a church organ on him. She remembered the scars that had bubbled over the side of his face. The wheelchair he'd been in for months. Drusilla had taken care of him, cured him. How do you cure a vampire? She thought of Angel. Blood, he had taken her blood and it had cured him.That was poison. This was-. Well, a suicide attempt, really. Quite possibly a successful one. He hadn't dusted, though. Running upstairs, she finds the little refrigerator on its side, door ripped off. Inside it are three slightly warm bags of blood. Hurrying back to Spike, she sits beside him. Ripping a bag open with her teeth, she opens his mouth and slips the corner of the bag inside, squeezing it. Blood pours over the sides of his mouth, dripping down his neck. She tries again, with the same result. She starts to cry, powerless and desperate. "Don't do this to me," she whispers.She rests her head against his forehead, her tears dropping onto his face. "I need you." Buffy kisses his cold lips over and over. "Please don't leave me." She paces back and forth in the crypt. What can she do? Call Giles? Would he know what to do? She doesn't have a phone and can't leave Spike. It's up to her. Focusing, she concentrates. Blood. It's all about the blood. She has to get him to drink it. He has to wake up enough to drink. How do you get Spike's undivided attention? Hurt him, or fuck him.