(The
Heart of the Night)
AUTHOR: 1stRab-id aka Raeann
FEEDBACK: Rabid1st@yahoo.com
ARCHIVED AT: www.oocities.org/drowning_inyou/
NOMINATED AT THE VAMPED AWARDS: CLICK HERE FOR AWARDS PAGE
BETAS: Binkysab, LostAngel and ElektraWWF from FanForum
CHARACTERS: Buffy/Spike
RATING: NC-17
SPOILERS: Through the fifth Season ending episode, THE GIFT.
SYNOPSIS: This is the story of the Slayer’s final destruction, and the part played by her vampire lover, Spike. So, this is how, I would end the series. This story is set 2 years after THE GIFT. Many things have changed in the lives of the characters but do NOT be alarmed. To my knowledge there are NO spoilers in this fic. However, to avoid confusion let me bring you up to speed. In my little corner of the Buffyverse: Willow and Xander have accepted Spike into the Scoobie Gang, Spike was instrumental in bringing Buffy back from the dead in the Season 6 premiere, Xander and Anya have married and have a child, Tara has died, Dawn is, of course, 16 years old, Giles has moved back to England, Oz has moved back to Sunnydale and Buffy has a job as a traffic cop aka meter maid. This is my idea of logical progression. Hey, lots of things can happen in 2 long years.
(The Heart of the Night)
by 1stRab-id
“You mean they broke up! He just dumped Dawn!” Willow asked, incredulously, as she tossed her trademarked ‘ball of sunshine’ into a vamp’s hands and watched him poof. “With only five more days until the big dance and without any explanation?”
“Oh, there was an explanation all right,” Buffy growled, meeting Spike’s eyes over the shoulder of her own assailant as she blocked a punch.
“What?!?” Spike said, innocently. “I only had a little talk with the boy.”
The blond Vampire and Xander Harris were juggling three opponents between them. Xander managed to stake one just before he took a wrong step and went down under the other two. Spike leaped to his assistance as Buffy picked up the conversational ball.
“You told him he could lose a hand!” the Slayer said, whipping a stake around and dusting her vamp before heading over to help Xander.
“Only if he put it somewhere dangerous,” Spike assured, as he tossed one of the two remaining vamps to Buffy. He twisted the other vamps arm up and back until the joint cracked before adding, “That’s not a threat or anything…its just good advice.”
“Yeah, Buffy,” Willow said, circling and looking for a way to help without toasting Spike. “I’m sure that Spike didn’t mean for the guy to jilt Dawn, right before the Junior Prom. And why do they have a Junior Prom anyway? We didn’t get to have the Junior Prom. It was Senior or you went without, Missy.”
“Kids today! They don’t know about the sacrifice and the hardship,” Xander said, like a shocked old geezer, as he patted himself over checking for injuries. He had a small cut over one eye but was otherwise fine. “I understand you don’t even have to be genetically altered to be on the Varsity swim team these days.”
“The point is he has no business talking to Dawn’s boyfriends at all,” Buffy said as she put the stake to her vampire. “Talking is my deal and I had already cleared this guy.”
“Oh, you cleared him,” Spike sneered, sarcastically. He spun under the final vampire’s swing and shoved him toward Buffy’s stake. The demon exploded on pointy contact and Spike dusted his hands off as he continued, “He got the Buffy Summer’s seal of approval then? May I remind you, Miss Can’t Keep Track of Her Own Virginity Past the Age of 15, that your record with the opposite sex is not the sort to inspire confidence.” He turned to slap Xander in the chest, “Harris, you’ve got a daughter would you let the Slayer pick out her Prom date?”
“You are making the mistake of assuming that Melanie will EVER be allowed to date,” Xander said, casually. “My plan is to send her to the Convent of the Eternally Virginal somewhere around the age of eight.”
“Well, Dawn isn’t eight,” Buffy said, as she stormed around the room recovering her weapons. “She’s sixteen. And she doesn’t need anyone to ‘pick out’ her dates for her. But if she did, as her big sister and legal guardian, I would certainly be more qualified to do the job than a vampire with more Victorian sensibility than sense.”
The Slayer stopped slamming weapons into her shoulder bag, straightened up and addressed Spike directly as she added, “And I was seventeen when I spent the night with Angel, not fifteen.”
“Shame you didn’t have the remarkable control on your thigh muscles back then that you have now,” Spike snarled, before turning to stalk toward the warehouse door.
“Well, this has been a real pleasant evening,” Xander said, perkily, to Willow. “What with my bleeding head injury and the bickering old married couple, it was almost like being at my parent’s house. I feel like such a kid again.”
“Yep," Willow agreed, “that’s the whole point of the patrolling. It takes you back to those golden days of youth.”
“Do you believe him?” Buffy said, looking after Spike as she joined her two Buds. “He is out to drive me insane. This thing with Dawn is just the tip of the iceberg. You have no idea….there is just so much more iceberg there.”
Buffy puffed out a breath, shook her hair back and headed off after Spike. Willow and Xander exchanged a meaningful glance.
“So, we are all in agreement, then,” Xander said conversationally, “If those two don’t get horizontal by this weekend there’s going to be apocalyptic-like bloodshed.”
“I’ll have another talk with Buffy,” Willow sighed as she and Xander trailed after the odd couple, “After all, sex with the undead isn’t such a sinful indulgence when it’s for the public good.”
“Lilith, Mother of Darkness, Night Monster, Defiler of Innocents, may your heart be filled with this sacrifice, may we be nourished by this blood.”
The crypt was full of the sound of chanting as at least twenty red robed figures filed in to it. The strange monks moved in stately progression keeping their heads bowed in supplication.
“We have the hope that one is coming. We have the hope that he will fall and rise again. We have the hope that he is already among us. We have the hope that she will accept his seed. We have the hope that you will be reborn from their union.”
The red robed monks began to gather around an altar on which lay a little girl of about 4 or 5 years of age. The child’s eyes were filled with horror but she was too paralyzed with fear to scream. Each of the monks clutched a silver bowl. They circled closer and closer until the child was completely hidden behind a wall of red robes. One of the monks wore an ornate gold medallion with a flickering red jewel in the center. He stepped up on the altar dais and raised a knife on high.
“Let us be one with the Heart of the Night,” the assembly chanted together in Italian. “Siamo uno con il Cuore Della Notte”.
And then the knife swung in a downward arch. The chanting stopped abruptly as the knifepoint buried itself in the altar and a flow of blood filled every bowl.
Buffy entered the Magic Box the next morning a little after 10:00 am. Anya was assisting a customer and Willow was hunkered down at the round table with a huge lesson planning book open in front of her.
“Hello, Teach!” Buffy sang out. “Working on the molding of the tiny minds?”
“This lesson planning is driving me crazy,” Willow groused, tossing down her pen. “I keep wanting to do this magically but I don’t think that would be fair to the rest of the class.”
“Fair, Schmair,” Buffy said, waving one hand, dismissively. “If you can do your homework by twitching your nose, you have a sacred duty to overworked students everywhere to live out that fantasy.”
“That’s what I keep telling her,” Xander said, as he entered the shop through the training room door, holding his baby daughter in his arms. “Plus there’s the whole doing homework over Spring Break which is also wrong.”
“Hey, Papa Xander,” Buffy greeted. She twiddled her fingers at Melanie as she addressed her father. “And why aren’t you working?”
“We’re between projects,” Xander answered, shifting the baby in his arms. "We start up next Monday on the Stafford Dorm remodeling, we’re giving them Spring Break to find alternative shelter. What about you? Shouldn’t you be ticketing the jaywalkers or scarfing the jelly donuts with the rest of Sunnydale PD’s finest?
“Time off for the good behavior.” Buffy quipped. “I figured I would take a week's vacation. Do the Prom thing with Dawn, fittings and hair and salon treatments. I am a chaperoen for the shindig. We of the Scoobies should do something, too. With the fun and the frolic.”
“No frolicking until after the homework is done,” Willow, once again with pen in hand, said, indicating her stacks of notes.
“You sound like the teacher already,” Buffy smiled. “Okay, so we postpone the fun until tonight. Shall we hit the Bronze? Are they even open on Tuesdays?”
“The Bronze is always open,” Willow replied, “except…you know…for the times when they close…like at closing time.”
“I can do a quick patrol and meet you guys there,” Buffy said, “Come on…it will be just like old times.”
“I really have to stay with the baby,” Anya said, appearing as if by magic, next to Xander and leaning over to check on their child.
“Dawn could sit for us, Sweetie,” Xander urged, hopefully. “It would be a nice change from diapers.”
“No, I would rather stay with Melanie but you go ahead if you want to,” Anya said, giving him an encouraging smile. The bell on the shop door jangled and she went back to work. Xander frowned after her.
“I don’t know,” he said, softly, leaning in to address his best friends. “Ever since Melanie was born, I can barely budge Anya away from her. But the last few weeks it’s been unbelievable. I don’t think she would come to work if there wasn’t a place for the baby to sleep in the backroom.”
“Aren’t all new mothers nervous?” Buffy asked, casting a quick look over her shoulder at Xander's wife. “It’s probably just a phase.”
“Nervous is one thing,” Xander said, “but this is almost an obsession. It’s like Anya thinks that Melanie is just going to vanish if she isn’t watching over her all the time.”
“That reminds me did you guys read about those missing children in the paper?” Willow asked and Xander hissed at her, making a shushing motion with his one free hand. He peered anxiously over to where Anya was explaining love potions to a starry-eyed teenager.
“Will you keep it down?” Xander whispered, harshly. “I've been hiding the newspapers for the last week so that Anya doesn’t get wind of that story. I mean all I need is for her to read that some Red Robed weirdoes are making off with baby girls. She wouldn’t leave the house again until Melanie was ready for graduate school.”
“It’s that bad, huh?” Buffy said, her eyes filling with sympathy for her friend.
“You don’t know the half,” Xander sighed. “I’m thinking maybe we should go to counseling or something.”
“Hmmm!” Buffy said looking over at Anya again. She leaned in conspiratorially to whisper, “Still I need to know a little more about these guys. It smells Hellmouth-y to me. Willow, do you think you could do a little research on the sly? We don’t want to get Anya upset but we don’t want anymore disappearances either.”
“Sure,” Willow nodded, “I’ll just say I’m doing some random studying, I can let you know if I turn anything up when we meet at the Bronze.”
“Great, it's a plan,” Buffy said. “How’s 9:30 sound for you guys?”
They nodded their assent and the Slayer wandered back into the training room to workout on the free bag. She missed working out with Spike but lately that had become an impossible situation. As she shadowboxed and flipped and spun her way through her exercises, Buffy thought back to when things had gone bad.
She knew that her friends were puzzled by the sudden chilliness between her and the blond vampire. They had all been working together like a seamless unit. But she had no idea how to explain what had changed in the last two months. She only knew that having Spike close to her now caused a burning ache in her soul and the only way to stave off the pain was to harden her heart to him completely. She needed to drive him away from her and make him keep his distance.
She had finished her routine and was toweling off when Willow entered and asked her if she wanted to grab some lunch. Grateful for the interruption, Buffy agreed and the two friends set off for the local deli.
“So is Spike coming tonight?” Willow asked, innocently, after they had ordered and settled themselves in a corner booth.
“Spike?” Buffy asked, frowning. “Why would Spike be coming?”
“Oh, no reason,” Willow said, quickly forking up a bite of salad. She chewed, swallowed and then added, “I just wondered if…well…since you said it would be like old times. I thought maybe Spike would be your date.”
“Spike and I don’t date.” Buffy said, with a touch of sharpness. “There was never any dating. We worked together fighting the evil and sure sometimes he showed up for the inner circle events. But that’s because he and Dawn are close. I mean, he and I spent a little time together and maybe there was some level of attraction there but we never dated. I was talking about old times with you and me and Xander. Before there was any Spike involvement.”
“Buffy,” Willow said, leaning forward to take the other woman’s hand. “What is going on with you two. I’m not blind! I know that you and Spike are a lot more than co-workers on Project Hellmouth. You were getting very close. He was practically living at your house and then poof. He’s back in the crypt. Nobody’s talking and the two of you are both acting half-crazed. What happened? Did Spike do something to upset you?”
Buffy took a slow settling breath. She wanted to tell someone but she didn’t know how to begin. How could she explain about Slayers and Vampires and the lines that should never be crossed? How could she explain what it felt like to be forced to hunt the one you love, to strike him down as she had been forced to strike down Angel? Or how the love and the blood and the death and the sex all blended together when a vampire became the object of your desire?
“It’s not what Spike did…” Buffy finally said, softly. “It was me.”
“You?” Willow blinked, not understanding.
“Do you remember a couple months ago?” Buffy began. “At Dawn’s birthday party? When Spike and I were in the kitchen and I cut myself?”
Willow nodded wondering where this was going.
“You were doing the dishes and the knife slipped…” the Wiccan girl, prompted.
“The knife didn’t slip,” Buffy muttered, looking down at her plate. Her face was red with shame.
“What?” Willow exclaimed. This was not what she had been expecting.
“I cut myself,” Buffy clarified, looking up to meet her friend’s startled eyes, “...on purpose. For him. So he could drink from me without having any pain.”
“Spike asked you to do that?” Willow asked, shocked to the core. Buffy, quickly, shook her head.
“No!” she said, forcefully. “He would never have asked me to…”
Her voice trailed off for a moment when she continued, it was filled with the echo of memory, “It was me. I wanted to know. What it would be like to be with him…as a vampire. With Angel it was terrifying like a roller coaster ride into oblivion. With Dracula it was almost like a sexual assault…sickening. Both times the Slayer part of me fought against it, screaming for retaliation. But with Spike….”
Buffy’s voice faded again as she searched for the words to explain what it felt like to be consumed by the one you loved. How her instinct for survival had abandoned her. How the Slayer had faded away and only Buffy had remained. She had felt vulnerable and powerfully irresistible at the same time. She recalled the whole scene, vividly.
Spike had teased her as they worked in the kitchen, telling her he was only biding his time until he’d lulled her into a false sense of security. He intimated that he was only interested in her as a potential meal. Buffy had teased him in return, exposing her throat and then laughing when he snapped a towel at her. She had challenged him with her eyes, picking up the knife and letting the sharp blade slide along the fleshy base of her thumb. They had both watched her blood drip into the sink and blossom into red roses.
Becoming aware of Spike’s stillness beside, Buffy realized, too late, the magnitude of what she had done. She reached to turn on the faucet, planning to wash off her hand. Spike grabbed her wrist before she could plunge it under the stream of running water. In one swift movement, he brought Buffy’s hand to his lips as he snaked his right arm around her waist, pulling her close. His tongue played over her torn flesh, lapping the sticky sweetness off of her, probing the wound, and opening it further. Then he took the base of her thumb completely into his mouth.
Buffy’s knees went weak and she leaned back into the vampire as he sucked down her life’s blood, drawing it from her body. As he drank, Spike let his right hand explore the Slayer, fondling her breasts, stroking her throat, and sliding across her belly. Feeling the aphrodisiac effect of her blood, he pushed her pelvis back against his own rubbing against her from behind. The cut on the Slayer’s hand was superficial and soon ran dry but they were both too drunk with this forbidden exploration to end it.
“I can’t get close enough,” Spike whispered, hoarsely, as he transferred his attention to Buffy’s throat. “I need you to let me inside.”
It was the age-old plea of the vampire. “I need you. Unlock your doors, open your windows, abandon your defenses, and let me come closer, invite me inside.”
Spike bit down hard under the curve of Buffy's jaw, stopping just short of breaking the skin. He began to suckle against her neck drawing the rich arterial blood to the surface. She moaned softly as he bruised her, caressing his arms where they held her close. Buffy had found it easy, in that moment, to imagine Spike entering her body, his fangs sinking into her throat as she parted her thighs to him. The pain he was inflicting on her increased to a serious level but she couldn’t seem to pull away.
It was his chip firing that finally broke the spell. Spike jerked away from her, holding one hand to his temple. He grimaced with the sudden headache. Buffy saw the barest glimpse of fangs and then he stumbled against a pile of dishes sending them crashing to the tile floor. The loud noise brought everyone running from the other room and Buffy, hastily, pulled her hair forward to cover the mark on her throat.
But she had been shaken to her core by the experience and was afraid to meet Spike’s eye for the rest of the evening. It was that night that her dreams started, dreams of blood and lust that left her aching in the morning light. Night after night the Slayer dreamed of being devoured by a passion as eternal as the grave. Until finally, just being in the same room with Spike became an agony.
“So you wanted Spike to bite you,” Willow said, summing up and drawing Buffy back to the present, “but he couldn’t do it because of the chip, right?”
Buffy nodded glad that her friend finally understood, but instead of being shocked, Willow shrugged, dismissively.
“So, it’s not really a problem then is it?” the red-haired witch asked. “I mean, it doesn’t matter if you want it to happen because it just can’t. Not as long as Spike has that chip in his head.”
“But what if something happens to the chip?” Buffy countered. “What if it falls out, or short circuits or the batteries go dead?”
“Buffy,” Willow sighed, at her friend’s lack of technical expertise, “are you forgetting, I’ve seen those Initiative chips. If Spike’s is anything like Riley’s, and why wouldn’t it be, then it’s magnetically shielded and built to last a hundred years. By the time it breaks down you’ll be the old and wrinkly Slayer and Spike won’t even be interested in biting you.”
Buffy grimaced at the idea of being old and wrinkly. She was probably the only woman her age that became wistful at the idea of needing a face-lift. She already held the record as the oldest living Slayer, having earned that distinction by turning 22 this year. The fact was that in her line of work you started early and died young. The average Slayer shelf life was something like 3 years. Buffy, having held the office for 8 years now, was kind of the Michael Jordan, the Wayne Gretsky or even the Secretariat of Slayers. She was a genuine phenomenon having come back from the dead twice to kick the evil boo-tay.
“The point is I shouldn’t even think about Spike biting me,” Buffy insisted. “I’m the Chosen One. How can I pursue my sacred duty if I’m thinking about vampires in that way?”
“Well, you’re not thinking about OTHER vampires are you?” Willow asked, carefully. “I mean this is just happening with Spike, right? It’s not like you’re going all Riley on us. You haven’t started hanging out at Willie’s bar making eyes at the local bloodsucking talent, have you?”
“Uhurgh!” Buffy said, with a shudder. She looked like she might retch at the very thought. “No way!”
“Okay, then,” Willow sighed, gesturing with her fork. “What I think we are talking about here is a classic case of transference.”
“You mean, I want someone else to bite me?” Buffy asked, playing intentionally dumb, but frowning at the direction the conversation appeared to be headed. “And I just think that it’s Spike?”
“I mean that you don’t want to be bitten at all,” Willow corrected, knowing that Buffy wasn’t really that slow. “You want something else entirely. Something the biting only represents.”
“Yeah!” Buffy said, with false perkiness as she looked over at the dessert case. “Like pumpkin cheesecake!”
Willow gave her a steady no nonsense look. After a long pause, the Slayer met her friend’s eyes and sighed.
“Okay, not cheesecake,” Buffy said, resignedly. “We’re talking about the necrophilia, here.”
“It’s not that bad, Buffy,” Willow said, quickly. “I mean, okay, Spike isn’t exactly alive but he’s not exactly dead either. He has self-awareness and feelings and he really cares about you. You know that he does.”
“I know,” Buffy pouted, half-heartedly. “But first Angel and now Spike. What does that say about me, Will? That I can’t get no satisfaction without the undead creatures of the night being involved?”
“Well…maybe that IS what it says,” Willow agreed. “But is that such a horrible thing? I mean, let’s face it, Buffy, you’re REALLY not like the other girls. So, why pretend that you are? Why not seize a little bit of the pleasure to go along with all the big pain of Slayerdom?”
Buffy considered the idea. For the first time outside her dreams she let herself really think about having sex with Spike. It seemed almost too decadent to contemplate.
“I don’t know if I can…” she, finally, admitted. “I mean, I don’t know if I can just let go…with Spike.”
“You don’t have to do it all at once,” Willow said, hastily. “You can ease into it. A little dancing, a little dinner, a couple of innocent dates…”
“Assuming he’ll go along with this…” Buffy cautioned. “I still can’t guarantee that I will be able to…you know…let things go that far. Spike may love me but regardless of what’s between us, he’s still dangerous. That chip doesn’t change anything. It only keeps him from physically hurting people, you know?”
“You think that he’ll hurt you in some other way?” Willow realized. “You think that he still wants to harm you on some level? Like Angelus did?”
“He’s a demon, Willow,” Buffy reminded. “It’s not like he’ll ever be domesticated. Part of him will always want to see me bleed. And I don’t know if I can open up my heart in the face of that kind of potential betrayal.”
“But haven’t you already opened up your heart to Spike?” Willow asked her gently.
“Only in the sense of having lost it completely,” Buffy confessed, with a small self-deprecating smile.