(The
Heart of the Night)
AUTHOR: 1stRab-id aka Raeann
FEEDBACK: Rabid1st@yahoo.com
Also ARCHIVED AT: www.oocities.org/drowning_inyou/
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.
Epilogue:
The Magic Box was filled to capacity with assorted dignitaries. Buffy, trying to take it all in, spotted assorted Watcher’s Council members, Xander, Anya, Willow, Oz, Faith, Angel and Fred and Cordy and Wesley and their friend, what was his name? The demon guy with the horns? Only he didn’t have horns now…he was just a man. Just like Harmony, standing by the door as if she wanted to bolt out into the street, was just a woman. Well, Buffy amended mentally, a totally shallow, self-involved bloodsucker of a woman but still…not a vampire.
There were no vampires, no demons, and no scary things to go bump in the night. Not in Sunnydale and, if the reports coming in were accurate, not anywhere else on the planet either. Every monstrous thing in the world had been cleansed, in a massive corporal conversion and the dimensional gateway had been slammed shut on demonic influence. The Slayer had fulfilled her destiny. She had eradicated Evil.
“Big time eradication,” Buffy thought, studying a chipped nail.
“Only by using the foulest of dark magicks,” Quentin Travers’ loud exclamation cut through the Buffy zone out. The WC honcho was having trouble adjusting to the new world order. “She WILLINGLY took a demon lover," he pointed out, in exasperation, "a vampire, no less.”
“But her instincts were correct,” Giles countered, just as forcefully. “Lilith must have designed the ritual as a test of both Human and Demon resolve. To determine which principles were the strongest, the Demonic ones of carnage and terror or the Human ones of compassion and forgiveness. Buffy was the only one that understood that. The Cuore Della Notte was a winnowing device to finally establish which group was worthy of claiming the planet."
Buffy's former Watcher paused and favored his old nemesis with a smile before adding, "And in case you haven’t noticed, Quentin, WE won!”
Buffy’s eyes cut back across the table to where Spike was sitting. He was dressed in his usual style, wearing his leather duster. His hair was still a tussled mess of peroxided curls and he still had the icy look of someone who had seen way too much of the world. But he wasn’t the same at all. He was human. He was a living man. His heart was beating in his chest, which meant, Buffy suddenly realized, that it could stop beating at anytime. A quick chill shot through her at the thought. Spike could die now.
“Spike could’ve died as a vampire, too,” Buffy reminded herself, silently.
And it was definitely better this way. They had a shot at a normal life, now. She frowned, slightly, as she tried to imagine what a normal life might be like for an ex-vampire and a former Chosen One. Anya and Xander might be able to help them with the details. Anya was an ex-demon after all and she’d managed to fit in. But Buffy frowned, remembering how out of place Anya had always seemed and how alien. Would it be that way for Spike? What was the human Spike like, anyway?
Buffy had no doubt of Spike, the vampire. He loved her. It was his love that allowed them to perform the Cleansing. But she didn’t even know the human Spike. What if he didn’t love her? What if he didn’t even like her? What if he was like Angelus was to Angel, a total contradiction. Or what if he hadn’t changed at all but couldn’t learn to accept the changes in her? It wasn’t like she was the Slayer, anymore. She was just ordinary Buffy Summers, twenty-something meter maid. Spike had always reveled in her supernatural strength. Fact is he liked it rough. Fact is, so did she. How could an ordinary human union ever measure up to the glory of Vampire/Slayer intercourse?
Doubts and questions bubbled up out of Buffy’s subconscious. Where would they live? What would they do for money? Did Spike have any marketable skills? For that matter, did she? The Slaying Trade was now as obsolete as the horse and buggy. She couldn't fight her way out of this. What kind of police officer would she be without her superpowers? If she was going to be Mrs. William “Spike”….
“Mrs. William “Spike”…WHAT? Oh, my God!” Buffy thought, in quiet desperation. “I don’t
even know what my last name would be.”
And then it hit her that her buggy had gotten way out there in front of her horse. Nobody had mentioned marriage or even co-habitation. In fact, since the Cleansing, everything had been moving so fast, she and Spike hadn’t had a minute to talk about the future. They were separated almost immediately. The Watcher’s Council had gone into serious study mode, poking and prodding the lovers, putting them through extensive tests, looking for clues about what exactly had happened when the Cuore Della Notte was invoked. Nobody even knew if the effect was permanent. The consensus was it would probably hold up for the next few generations but there were no clear answers.
Buffy sighed and tuned back in to the conversation around her. Giles had the floor and was explaining how the Cleansing differed from the Soul-Restoration Spell used to curse Angel. The Council now believed, he was saying, that the Cleansing had turned the vampires and other demons into humans by remaking them, transforming their very flesh. Somehow, separating the more humane and righteous beings from the truly wicked, it banished true evil into an alternate dimension.
It had not simply restored the souls of those who remained behind; it had “Cleansed” them, remaking their bodies, purifying them. It was as if their souls were newly minted and untouched by evil. They retained their memories but rather than being tormented by guilt for what they had done, they experienced a sort of posttraumatic stress syndrome. It was, Giles explained, as if these former Monsters had merely witnessed unspeakable violence rather than perpetrating it themselves.
“Well, hearing this for the 28th time is all very fascinating,” Buffy grumbled inwardly, stifling a yawn.
Spike caught her eye again from across the table. He mouthed the word “bored” at her and lifted a brow. Buffy smiled, giving the smallest of nods. Spike gave an almost imperceptible bob of his chin toward the training room door. Buffy frowned, shaking her head in a slight negative motion. Using just her eyes, she indicated the large crowd around them. She was deeply disappointed when Spike turned away from her to look up the table, apparently losing interest.
Stunned and hurt by this turn of events, Buffy resorted to glaring daggers at her erstwhile lover. He had slid forward to sit on the edge of his chair. Leaning one elbow on the table, Spike rested the first two fingers of his left hand against his lips, looking for all the world like a scholar absorbed in the proceedings. His dark blue eyes flickered over to meet Buffy’s hazel ones for just a moment. Then he lightly ran his tongue across his fingertips in a very suggestive manner. Buffy shivered deliciously, as her mind immediately recalled the last time she'd seen Spike lick his fingers. She had a perfect mental image of what he had been doing right before and what they had both done right afterward.
Buffy choked. It was an involuntary reaction rather than a planned distraction but she decided to take advantage of it. She pushed back from the table, coughing loudly and attracting nearly everyone’s attention. Several people moved as if to help her but she waved them off.
“Wa-at-water,” she sputtered, before noticing the full carafe sitting on the table in front of her and changing her plea, “Air! I mean…I just need some…a-air.”
With limited difficulty, Buffy extricated herself from the crowd. She moved, with casual ease, toward the back of the shop, nodding at her well wishers but shaking off their assistance. Willow started to follow and was restrained by Oz. The former werewolf was the only one who’d noticed Spike slipping away from the table. He leaned over and whispered something in Willow’s ear. The witch’s eyes went to the slightly open training room door. As she watched, Buffy disappeared into the blackness beyond and the door closed behind her.
The cool darkness enveloped Buffy, temporarily blinding her, and then there was the sudden flare of a striking match as Spike lit a cigarette. The sight brought back all of her apprehension. Lung Cancer, she thought, heart disease, birth defects and then there’s the social stigma…
“Do you have to smoke?” she asked and instantly cursed herself for trying to change him.
“Not really,” he replied, dropping the cigarette to the floor.
The red coal of it bounced twice and sprayed up sparks before he ground it out under his boot. There was a sense of movement where he’d been and Buffy strained to locate him again in the darkness. She became aware of him behind her a moment before he caught her in his arms, pulling her hard against his body.
“Do you know what day this is, Slayer?” Spike whispered, harshly, in her ear. He had one arm across her shoulders and one tight around her waist, holding her close.
“Uhm?” Buffy stalled, thinking back and doing the math, “It’s…uhm…Saturday.”
“And what happens on Saturday?”
“Oh, I know this one,” she chirped. “The Fifth Street Bakery closes at noon.”
Spike’s arm tightened on her throat. He didn't seem amused. In fact, he seemed downright deadly.
“What if he was?” Buffy thought, suddenly. A horrible chill of doubt and fear washed over her and she shuddered against him. She knew Spike didn’t have to be a vampire to hurt her. She was an ordinary woman now and men could be dangerous, too.
“What happens on Saturday?” Spike repeated, his voice low and menacing. Finally, the words stirred memories in Buffy’s brain. At their first meeting…wasn’t that what she had asked him? And he had said…the coldness gripped her heart as she remembered.
“You kill me,” she whispered.
“That’s right,” Spike breathed out, nuzzling into her hair and running demanding hands down over her body.
“But I have decided," he snarled, turning her violently around and shoving her up against the pommel horse, “to settle for your unconditional surrender.”
And then he was pressing his mouth to hers, parting her lips with his tongue, as his hands deftly unfastened her bra through the fabric of her dress. Within seconds he had divested her of all underwear. Pushing up her skirt, he exposed the bare flesh of her thighs and stomach to the rough texture of his jeans. He ground against Buffy and she moaned, arching up into him.
But, as quickly as she had given in, the former Slayer rebelled. She shoved at Spike hard, pushing him away from her. Her eyes finally adjusting to the dark, Buffy found she could see Spike quite well in the dim streetlight glow that came through the training room windows. Gasping for breath, she glared at him as she yanked down her skirt.
“You think that’s funny?” she snapped. “You think this is all some kind of game? We don’t have time for this sort of thing right now." She stabbed one finger at the door, as she admonished him, "There are a quarter of a million new people in the world that weren’t here two days ago. People with no skills, no way of supporting themselves or contributing to society. I know Angel had investments but I’d bet that most of the vampires in this world were a lot more like you. I imagine you never gave one thought to your financial security while you were…”
“Angel?” Spike interrupted, an awful suspicion lancing through his heart.
“Yes, Angel!” Buffy returned, knowing she’d hurt him but needing to get this out. “He already has a job, and a place to live and money to live on. So, what’s her face…Fred doesn’t have to worry about any of those things.”
Spike was staring at her now silent and still as she continued giving voice to her fears.
“Not that Miss Brainiac Physicist needs to worry about her future,” Buffy went on with a hopeless air. “She’s not the one who has to write ‘Former Chosen One’ and ‘Handy with the Wooden Stake’ on her resume.”
"Those aren’t your only talents,” Spike said, softly reassuring, as the worry behind her words sank in. “You already have a good job and while I may not have a shed-load of the ready, I do have skills.”
“Name one,” Buffy challenged, trying to keep the desperate edge out of her voice.
“Well,” Spike said, with a tiny shrug and grin, "I sing."
Buffy groaned remembering when he’d told her mother the same thing.
“And I can pick a lock,” the former vampire continued, ticking his skills off on his fingers, “hotwire a car, distill homebrewed whiskey, forge almost anyone’s signature and play the harmonica.”
“Oh, great!” Buffy exclaimed, waving one hand emphatically. “We can live at the prison.”
“I also speak 23 languages including 4 that just came back into standard usage.” Spike continued, his tone turning serious. “And I read another 16. I have a classical Oxford education complete with the Greek and the Latin. I can play 7 instruments besides the harmonica and I have written 12 novels, a few short stories and about 150 poems. Some of which have even been published.”
Buffy’s mouth dropped open and Spike leaned forward to kiss it. He stroked his tongue along hers. Sucking gently, he licked the sharp edges of her teeth and then began to probe into her more deeply. His hands slid up to cup her bare bottom, making his love purr in delight. After a long time, he broke free of her lips and nuzzled his way along her jaw line.
Conspiratorially, he whispered into her ear, “I am, also, rumored…to have a certain talent with my tongue.”
“At last,” Buffy sighed, taking in an unsteady breath, “a vocation this part of America really needs.”
Spike laughed against his beloved's silken skin. Seizing her waist in both hands, he lifted her up onto the pommel horse. He pushed up her skirt and dropped to his knees before her. Bracing himself with his hands against her inner thighs, Spike leaned in and put his considerable skill to work. The former Slayer gripped the wooden handles of the horse, holding on tight as wave after wave of ecstasy lapped over her and her hips began to buck and shimmy in response.
Spike’s tongue worried at Buffy driving her relentlessly toward orgasm. She spasmed before him but he kept the pressure on, licking, stroking, and probing until, forgetting the crowd outside, she cried out for him, incoherently. Standing, he entered her, in one fluid glide of movement. Sliding her pelvis forward, Buffy braced her hips against the horse. Her legs were wrapped around Spike as he rode up into her. Her toes curled up and her shoes dropped to the floor. He thrust deep, taking her mouth again to stifle her screams, devouring her whole as she came hard around him.
It was just the same as it had always been between them, not as deadly, but just as passionate. Neither of them was as capable of inflicting pain, now, but the intensity, the fire, the lustful power at the core of their union remained. They were two people who had experienced life and death and knew the value of each. They knew how to savor each other and how to make each other burn.
Spike had been cleansed of his demon but he would never be a gentleman in bed. Luckily, Buffy was no lady. Something slippery ignited between her legs as she built toward a second climax. She couldn’t get enough of her lover inside her. She took his cock, his tongue, his fingers and the bite of his teeth and still she wanted more. He was hers, her other-half, her lover, her Spike and he was alive inside her, losing his human virginity. His breath was hot and ragged in her ear. Buffy could feel the life energy crackling between them as, gasping, he gushed into her. His seed was warm, vital, and full of living promise. For a few precious seconds, Buffy was aware of nothing else but the blissful heat of him, flowing into her, surrounding her and soaking through her skin.
“I love you,” she murmured, her lips kissing against the flickering pulse in his throat.
And then she groaned in agony and dropped her head onto Spike’s shoulder, as a horrid realization hit, “Oh, No! Live Sperm…Condoms…Birth Control…What was I thinking?” She lightly bashed her forehead against his collarbone to punctuate her words, “Stupid… stupid…thoughtless…Buffy…”
Spike took hold of her and forced her back until their eyes met. He was frowning and he had pulled out of her body leaving her shaking with the cold. Buffy felt a hard lump growing in her throat as he studied her.
"There's that morning after pill," she squeaked, "I mean, it's not too late to…" Her voice trailed off as, if anything, her lover's eyes grew even colder. After what seemed like an eternity, he spoke.
“You don’t want children?” he asked, as if shocked to his core.
“Ch-chi-children?” Buffy stammered, blinking as the idea took root for the first time. She and Spike could have children. In fact, he seemed to be expecting them to have children. Why was he expecting that? Unless…! Another thought took root and blossomed delightfully in her mind.
“Well…I…think…of course," Buffy tried to focus, feeling her way on this new ground. “Yes, I mean, when things are settled and …”
“Settled?” Spike barked, angrily, cutting her off. He stepped away from her so quickly she slid off the pommel horse, bared feet slapping against floor as he gestured broadly, “Things aren’t settled for you? Because really, Pet, I thought things were settled all right and tight.”
Buffy stepped forward, starting to reach for him but he turned and stalked toward the shop doors. She could hear the harsh sound of his zipper and the leather rustle of his duster as he adjusted his clothing. Spike was leaving. Buffy didn’t want him to leave. Her heart hammered in panic. She loved him, so very much. She searched her mind for a way to tell him how much she cared but nothing came to her. Everything was happening too fast.
The room was flooded with sudden brightness as Spike flipped on the overhead lights.
He turned, looking over at his Slayer as she squinted and shielded her eyes from the unexpected glare. Her legs were splayed slightly, her mouth was swollen from his kisses and her hair was a tangled mess. The strap of her dress had slipped down one shoulder, baring the top of her breast. She looked vulnerable and confused and at the same time savagely proud. She was a fluffy little kitten with the soul of a tiger. And she was his, Spike thought passionately. He’d be damned all over again before he’d let some well-invested poof get a crack at her.
“What is it you want then, Dutch?” he sighed, surrendering.
He’d been calling her that a lot lately, or “the Dutch”. Buffy knew it was English slang of some kind. Right after she’d returned from the dead, Spike had made Giles bristle by referring to her by the term. “I just stopped by to run an idea past the Dutch.” Spike had said and Giles told him never to call her that again. Buffy had thought, at the time, it was something extremely vulgar. Now, she was thinking she should maybe look it up.
“What do I WANT?” Buffy snapped, all of her panic going up in a burst of righteous indignation. Brushing a hand down her dress and pulling up the fallen strap, she glared at him with thinly disguised frustration, “Oh, I don’t know! How about a little time to think about what’s happened? That’s what I want! I want a minute or two of peace and quiet away from all of these people. I want to be alone with you so we can talk about what the hell we are going to do tomorrow and the next day and the day after that." Her voice rose to a crescendo as she finished, "And I want to know your bloody last name!”
“It's Gilford,” Spike supplied, immediately. He was laughing, thrilling inside, at the limited scope of her demands. He would have laid the world at Buffy's feet if she'd asked for it, but all she wanted was a little security. With an amused air, he inclined his head slightly as if just meeting her. “William Edward Augustine Gilford of the Yorkshire Gilford’s definitely not the Cornwall branch. Very much at your service, my lady.”
“And…Huh?” Buffy returned, confused by his response and losing some of her steam.
“My last name,” Spike explained, moving toward her, wanting to feel her in his arms again, “is Gilford. Or at least it was back in the day. I suppose I could change it to anything that suits you. But Buffy Anne Gilford has rather a nice ring to it. Don’t ya think?”
“Uhh-uhm,” Buffy swallowed, looking up into Spike’s eyes as he stopped within inches of her.
He caught at her left hand and pulled it up to rest against his chest. Buffy could feel his heart pounding under her fingers. Though Spike seemed as confident and cocky as ever, the beat of his heart was quick and anxious and Buffy understood, at last, what he was asking her. Understood, also, how important her answer was to him. Meeting his gaze steadily, she took in a deep breath and tried again to make with the speaking.
“Y-yes," she managed, in a soft whisper, just before their lips met, “nice ring.”
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