AUTHOR: Rabid/Raeann
RATING: NC-17 overall, this part PG
PAIRING: B/S, S/Wes, B/T friendship
SPOILERS: To As You Were, S6 and Angel S3 - Couplet
BETA BABES: Zyrya and Caia and Ladyanne
SPECIAL DETAILS I’VE FORGOTTEN CONSULTANT: Gobi Rex
DISCLAIMERS: So Buffy came to me (in a dream) and she was really upset about being half-baked. I told her not to worry. It wasn’t her fault. She was a victim of circumstance. The circumstance being I have nothing to say about how she is written on the show because I don’t own the BtVS characters. They belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, Fox TV, the WB and UPN. So what I am saying is Buffy is like Jessica Rabbit (with tiny boobs and no slinky dress) she’s not bad she’s just drawn that way.
OUR STORY SO FAR: Spike is a woman and pregnant and
he (or she depending on your P.O.V.) left Sunnydale vowing never to
return. Buffy, who in a fit of
masculinity fathered Spike’s child, heads for
PART EIGHT
Of course, Obreonic pregnancy wasn’t the answer. It couldn’t be. Pussy-Weevils, as Wesley’s less studious and more socially networked classmates had insisted on calling them, had been extinct for over a century. Every reputable source book of demonology agreed on this point. Still, his rising tide of certainty would not be easily turned. Nearly swept off his feet by the cerebral undertow, he flailed for a moment before casting aside his doubts. Reputable sources be damned. He knew this thing, recognized it from descriptions he had read long ago. Knowledge had been burned into his memory along with an associated embarrassment…the snatching of his notes…the snickers behind his back…
Wes impatiently shoved his remembered denials and sputtering outrage back into the mental metal box. This was not the time to relive old wounds. He had discovered an Obreo, a living specimen. It was the occult find of his career. His self-assurance rose accompanied, coincidentally, by an ominous crack of thunder. Lightning brightened the sky outside the kitchen window. The ethereal flash put a mad scientist glint in Wesley’s eyes as he seized Spike’s weevil banded arm.
“Hey? Oww,” Spike protested. But the convulsing fingers bruising him just bit deeper into his delicate skin.
Beauty met its limitations. It could not influence a man devoted to expanding his intellectual horizons. Gentlemanly considerations melted from Wes’ mind. Like a sailor on a fabled shore, he struggled to process the testimony of his senses while bits of half-remembered data, flotsam in the surf of memory, nudged him in the knees.
Lips moving silently, he processed the waves of arcane wisdom beating against his subconscious. The Obreo should not be here. Someone had to have imported it, at extreme risk to inter-dimensional integrity. And whoever that someone was he needed to be caught. Wes would be famous, a hero among men...as long as those men were confined to libraries and dusty museum cellars.
Unable to credit the evidence of his eyes, he ran an inquisitive thumb along Spike's wrist. The weevil was flush with the skin but had a unique texture, rubbery and rough. The distinction jolted Wes and he thought immediately of removing the specimen for a more detailed study. He peered nearsightedly at his supernatural find while he calculated its dimensions.
Spike felt like the whiteboard behind a fascinating science experiment. Not since before his becoming had he meant so little to a human being. Even Buffy cared enough to punch him every so often but Wesley had forgotten him.
Not accustomed to standing quietly about when he could be talking, Spike tried to nudge the conversation back around to his problem. “So, you recognize my…” His teeth snapped together, slicing through the query and nearly taking the tip off his tongue.
A need for greater illumination moved Wes to continue his examination in the kitchen where there was more light. He took the weevil with him, of course, apparently oblivious to the fact that the arm he was holding was attached to a hobbled vampire.
Spike kept his feet with difficulty, just managing to stay upright until Wes stopped before the sink. Considering and rejecting alternatives for removing the weevil from its host, Wes didn't look up as Spike’s unchecked forward motion and rapidly shuffling gait propelled him onward. He swung wide of the pivot of his captured arm, twirled and skipped and careened off the refrigerator. His chains chinked musically as he whipped back like a car on the Scrambler ride. Only a graceless little hop helped him avoid crashing into Wes.
“You bloody little...” Spike hiccoughed as Wes continued their bizarre ballet, lifting Spike from his feet and plopping him onto the Formica counter
“Right then, let’s not panic,” Wes declared. “Everything will be fine as long as we don’t panic.”
“I’m not panicking, Arthur,” Spike said through gritted teeth. “I’m the bloke from Betelgeuse remember?”
Wes responded to Spike's quip with absent-minded intensity, as if people from outer space dropped by everyday. “Indeed? Fascinating,” he remarked.
Spike shifted inelegantly. His bum was dangling over the sink basin while his heels drummed against the cabinet doors below. As soon as Wes let go of his waist, Spike threw his slight weight to one side in the hopes of escape. When this bid failed, he set to work prying Wesley from his arm, one finger at a time.
Wes stepped to the side to establish a secure arm lock, pinning Spike in place with the weight of his body. Then, fanning Spike’s fingers, he started yanking on them as if he expected they would pop off if he applied enough force as he inquired, “Tell me, did you stumble on the nest or…?”
Spike whimpered when Wes wrenched his wrist out of alignment. The noise slipped out easily but Spike could have choked himself for making it. He’d lost his cock not his fangs, damn it. You wouldn’t catch Darla or Dru sniveling over a human manhandling. Determined to put a stop to this indignity, he swiveled on his hip until he could land a good swat alongside Wesley’s skull. Wes barely noticed the blow but the chip fired anyway and Spike arched in agony.
“Hold still,” Wes ordered. Lightning whipped the clouds again. The sky beyond the kitchen window looked as bruised as Spike’s ego. “Perhaps heat…a natural withdrawal like a tick…” His darting hand turned on the hot water. Nearly twisting Spike’s shoulder from the socket, he plunged the weevil under the steaming stream.
“Let go,” Spike countered.
He shoved and wriggled like Pepe Le Pew’s petite amie until he managed to squirm out of Wes’ arms. They had a slithering, grasping sort of Mr. Bubble tussle that ended with Spike bumping down on his ass in the middle of the linoleum. He rolled to a hip and scrambled to his feet. Panting theatrically, he skittered to the center of the room and took up a defensive posture, scowling horribly as he protectively cradled his wrist.
“My soddin’ parts aren’t detachable, you ruddy bedlamite,” he growled.
Wes shut off the faucet. “That thing on your wrist,” he said, closing on Spike with the unhurried, yet tireless, tread of a madman, “is a very dangerous species of demonic parasite. The last known nest was destroyed over one hundred and forty years ago. If there’s another…” Wes hesitated, torn between a sense of urgency and the compulsion to explain his thought process. Realizing any explanation would take too long he gave up on them. “I need to remove it for further study.”
“You can have it and good riddance but not ‘til I’m done with it.”
Wes wearily shook his head. “I am sorry but we have to act quickly. A nest of Obreo can create interspecies havoc in a few weeks.” His reasonable tone was at odds with his actions. As he spoke he kept his eyes on Spike’s arm and yanked open a drawer. He patted blindly for a bit before coming up with a long, thin knife. The rainbow sparkle on the fine edged blade made Spike’s blood turn icy in his veins.
“Hang on, hang on,” he said, sharply. “You can’t cut it off.”
“It seems simple enough. Slide the blade under the skin and then….” Wes rotated the knife, digging the tip into thin air as if he were prying open an oyster.
“Have you gone completely mental?” Spike yelped. “You’ll kill her. You’ll kill my baby.”
Wes hesitated for a scant moment but then set his jaw and moved forward again. Spike’s gaze traveled the length of the bar beside him, his eyes frantically searching for a weapon. He grabbed at the first item that came in view, a cheerful yellow dishtowel.
“Stay away or so help me I’ll break your bloody neck.”
“With that?” Wes almost smiled. “Don’t you think you’re carrying the Hitchhiker’s allusion a little too…” He hadn't quite completed the thought when Spike used the towel to Indiana Jones the knife from his hand with a terry cloth flick.
They both watched the bright blade execute a series of acrobatic flips in the air. Light winked on razor-sharp steel as the knife arched to a zenith and then fell lazily on a fairly clean trajectory. It landed point first in a decorative fruit bowl, impaling a peach. The sobering bit of humor was a welcome distraction. An amazed, and slightly chastened, Wes emitted a breathy little chuckle.
Spike caught the rueful corner-of-the-eye glance Wes shot him and latched onto the fragile camaraderie it offered. “Look, there’s no nest,” he said with quick assurace. “There’s just this one weevil and one other.”
“How do you know that? You can’t know that,” Wes said
impatiently. “When the transformation occurs an Obreo
victim is taken unaware? I doubt you even remember where you were when it
happened.” Excitement hurried his speech until his words were leaving skid
marks. “But if you could give me a general idea. Anything you can remember
would be helpful. Were you in Sunnydale? Here in
“You really are all Watcher Interrupted now, aren’t you?”
“I need answers. This is an extraordinary…”
“Spare me the fainting spell and I’ll tell you everything." Spike marshalled his thoughts and then launched into his abbreviated tale. "I was in a motel room, planning to change my gender. I put the weevil on my arm and my gender changed.”
Wes drew back in alarm. “Excuse me?” The fingers of his left hand went to his ear as if he doubted his hearing. “Did you say you were…planning on changing your gender?”
“Yeah. I’m the idiot. Or at least…I was sired by the offspring of the idiot. This is all Angel's fault, if you ask me. I never would have known about the sodding weevils if it weren't for him and his..." Spike took himself in hand. "Anyway, water and bridge. I had the weevils located…at fair expense, I might add…because I knew they existed. I went to a good bit of trouble for this ruddy worm.”
“You went…you…why would anyone intentionally submit to such a process?”
“For the phenomenal fucking. Come on, pet, it’s not possible you’re that naïve.”
“You paid…to change…you…?”
“At a brothel, over there.” Spike nodded in the general direction of Sugarland as he picked up his story, “There was the foreshadowed phenomenal fucking. Then…pregnant. To sum up: no, I didn’t notice anything suspicious or unusual except…I don’t know…pregnant?”
Wes came down with a bad case of the dithers. Spike pulled a face, casting his gaze toward the ceiling vents. He didn’t know what he’d done to deserve this afterlife. Must be true what they say, Xander Harris’ remarked in his head, ‘Nature abhors a vampire.’ Spike wondered if he’d be getting a voice-over on his actions from the Slayer and her pals for the next hundred years. Ducking around Wes, he crossed the room and selected a green tumbler from the drying rack. He was getting quite good at maneuvering in the manacles. A few more hours and he could wear them as accessories to parties. After filling the glass with water he presented it to Wes who took it mechanically and dutifully swallowed the draught.
“Do you have castration issues?” Spike asked gently, causing Wes to choke and sputter.
“You did this to yourself?” Wes accused when his airway cleared.
“I had a little help. But essentially, yeah. Wasn’t supposed to be permanent. Vampires don’t get pregnant. We do this sort of thing sometimes, just for a night. Let’s a body see how the other half lives. Nobody ever got pregnant before…not as I’ve heard anyway.”
“What kind of man…?”
“Male,” Spike corrected. “Technically still a vampire.”
“Your lover was a vampire?”
“What? No. Me, I’m a vampire. She’s a Slayer.”
“Good Lord. You don’t mean…not Buffy?” Wes gulped against a surge of bile.
“Yes, Buffy. I already told you…”
“I…I think I’m going to be sick.”
“Oh, puh-leez! Don’t come over all Crying Game on me, now. Some shirtlifter you are. Weren’t you just overflowing with poofy pride about your bisexuality?”
“Changing your gender is….”
“Is a matter of genetics, innit? Bees do it, birds do it…well, all right..not birds…but…” He paused frowning and then, suddenly inspired, he pointed a lecturing finger and declared, “Frogs and the Captracelip demon, once every seventeen years.”
“You’re not a frog or a bee or…
“I’m beginning to suspect you’re the vacillating sort. What’s the matter? Can’t pick a gender to fancy? Being wishy-washy’s not the same as being bisexual. Ask me, you got commitment and castration issues.”
“Sexual preference and sexual identity are two entirely different things,” Wes stated pompously. “I like men and, on occasion, I like women. But you are not a woman.”
“Got the essential equipment as it happens.”
“Equipment you weren’t born with.”
“I’m not a natural blonde either.”
“And Buffy? That she would willingly do that… no! You must have coerced her or…”
“Oh, that’s right…I made her ruin my afterlife.”
“But that would mean…she…you and…” He couldn’t seem to get the words out. “The Slayer,” he made Buffy’s title sound like a holy word. “She changed her sex and then had relations with…”
“Relations? Had relations?” Spike snorted out a laugh. “I like that. The word you are searching for, mate, is shagged. She shagged me blind.”
The news hit Wes in the lower abdomen. He doubled over, shaking his head back and forth as if he could somehow erase the last few minutes from his memory.
“Oh, dear where's the bucket?” Spike twisted his neck as if searching as he said, “I think Percy's going to chunder.”
“Shagged?” Wes gasped.
“Possibly screwed or banged or nailed or some other power tool metaphor works better for you,” Spike said with an offhanded wave. Then, he pointed two stern fingers. “And before you go off on some Rohypnol fantasy let’s get one thing straight. She was the one that got all Craftsman on my ass.”
Lifting his gaze, Wes stared at Spike. Amazement suffused his face. “This was Buffy’s idea?”
“Maybe not exactly her idea but...”
“But she didn’t object?”
“Object? Oh, well…yeah, she objected.” Spike's careless lift of one shoulder made light of the Slayer’s complaints. “Hell, she never stops objecting. She objects to my cock and my cold, dead seed and the evil that lurks in my shriveled heart. She denies me coming and going down.”
“B-but...”
“What?”
“You're a vampire.”
“And you can rest assured she objects to that.”
Wes just stared, and after a moment or two Spike took pity on him.
“Come on, pet, face it, the Slayer has needs. Ones no mortal man can satisfy. She likes us bumpy and bitey and,” he gestured toward his groin, “bent…if you catch my meaning. It’s a Slayer thing. Why do you think she gave up her cherry to Angel?”
“That was true love,” Wes declared loyally. “They were soul mates.”
“Didn’t know you could use soul mate in the past tense. Seems like it would be an eternal thing to me.”
“Circumstances beyond their control conspired…”
“Conspiring circumstances?” Spike lilted. His devilish grin expanded into a chortle. “Like him skipping town, you mean?”
“That’s hardly fair. Angel loves Buffy.”
“Oh, sure.” Spike nodded his attention drifting. “You can tell they are meant to be by the way they can’t keep their hands off each other. Where was bloody Angel when her mum was sick in hospital? Oh, I know he came for the soddin’ funeral. Came for Buffy’s service, too. But life isn’t all funerals, is it? He was gone before either one of them was cold in the grave.”
“He was in mourning.”
“Yeah?” Spike mumbled distractedly. “Well, I was in Sunnydale.”
A blood red, leaf-shaped candy dish added a splash of cheer to the otherwise utilitarian bar. The bright burst of color caught Spike’s notice as it had once caught Faith’s. He shuffled closer, momentarily diverted. A crumbled pack of smokes rested in the bowl of the dish. Spike commandeered a cigarette. It smelled stale but he didn’t care. Without a thought for the unborn child in his womb, he carried the poison to his lips.
“It was me, taking care of her sister and her friends,” Spike said, around the filter tip as he patted where he usually had pockets. “Taking care of her.”
Remembering he didn’t even have pants he expanded his search for a light. He rummaged in the drawers under the bar until he found a book of matches. The book’s black and gold embossed cover was slick under his thumb as he flicked it open.
Wes offered Angel’s habitual excuse, “There’s a curse.”
“Curse?” Spike parroted, tearing a match free of the book. He struck a flame, shielding it with both palms as he lit up. “Oh, you mean the one where he gets laid, gets happy and loses his soul.” A great draught of blue smoke engulfed him as he paused to inhale, holding the breath until his lungs burned before exhaling to extinguish the match. Pinching the cigarette from his mouth with thumb and index finger he finished his thought. “Making him all fangy and evil like…me?”
“You’re not Angelus. You have no idea what he’s capable of…the devastation…”
“Right,” Spike drawled, simulating agreement with a vigorous nod. He wafted his cigarette encumbered hand in an airy circle. “I’m a fluffy puddy tat. And he’s ‘beware of dog.’ So, that must be what’s standing in their way. It’s the fear of what Angel might do if he ever let’s loose. Buffy kicked the high and mighty ass of a fashionista hell god. She bazooka-ed the Judge to his last judgment and barbequed a primeval serpent demon in the prime of life but Angelus…he’s too bad for her.”
“He killed a Slayer.”
“Once,” Spike said his narrowed gaze full of enigmatic slyness.
“He nearly killed Buffy.”
“Let me tell you something. Nearly doesn’t count in the Slayer killin’ trade, pet. Nearly got him packed off to a hell dimension for his troubles.”
“You know about their history?”
“I lived their history. And I take your point. These last two years were torment for the both of them on account of how they hate to spend one second apart but Angelus is just so dangerous they have no other choice.”
“Judging by your tone, you think there’s another reason.”
“No, no,” Spike denied. He presented placating palms to Wes as if he wouldn't dream of contradicting. “Many’s the night I’ve had Buffy’s feet up around my shoulders, been deep inside her, pounding away, and she’s just been going on and on about her soul mate, Angel.”
“I assume you are being facetious?”
Spike curled his fingers into a loose fist so he could glower at the smoldering cigarette clenched between two of them. His other hand had dropped to his belly. Smoking was bad for nippers as he recalled and there was the barest tingle under his right temple. The warning hum told him he was hurting the baby. Anger and tenderness warred in his heart. He was a creature of habit and appetite and his demon demanded satisfaction even as the chip cautioned restraint. His eyes flashed amber but with a quick twist of his wrist he stubbed the cigarette out on the lid of the red leaf dish. Dusting ash from his fingertips, he turned away from temptation.
“Yeah,” he told Wes in a lazy drawl, “I’m having you on about Angel. She never mentions him.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Angel,” Buffy moaned in her sleep.
Her feet shifted, scuffling sand on the floorboards. Keeping
one hand on the wheel and both eyes on the road,
The fight with the Suvolte demon, her trip cross country from the brothel and worry over Spike had sapped Buffy’s strength. She had dozed, curled like a kitten in the
passenger seat, since they’d stopped for sodas not far from Sunnydale.
“We’ve just stopped for gas,”
“Angel, please…I need
you to come home...”
The pleading desperation in the imagined voice snapped Buffy
into wakefulness for a moment. Mind
struggling to reconcile her realities, she’d stared blankly at
“Stopped for gas….I can wake you when we get there,”
“I’m okay,” Buffy mumbled but her shoulders hunched. Her head listed to the side to pillow against
the door's armrest. Her eyelids drooped. Everything was going to be fine.
The green neon flicker
of a Vacancy sign and the occasional sweep of headlights from cars on the highway
provided the only illumination in the dingy motel room. A rank odor of spent semen and stale sweat
pervaded the supposedly clean sheets.
But Buffy and Angel were oblivious to their surroundings. They were intent on each other. Fully clothed they formed a lover’s knot of
entwined limbs in the center of the bed.
If there was a slight desperation in their clinging, they weren’t
prepared to acknowledge it. They’d been
shaken by a miracle beyond their understanding: Buffy had returned from the
dead.
“Nothing’s changed,”
Angel said softly.
“Everything’s
changed. They brought me back…and I
can’t cope…I…”
“Don’t say that. You
can. You will do this. You’re a
champion.”
“Angel…I’m just a
girl.”
He gave an indulgent
chuckle and pinched her chin a little as if he were her wise old uncle. “You’re
so much more than that.”
“I’m begging you…don’t
make me face this alone.”
She lifted her
tear-stained face from his shoulder and stared into his eyes and for a moment
he seemed to weaken in his resolve. It was
easy to fall under her spell. His mouth
quivered and his dark gaze softened. One strong, broad hand cupped her cheek,
gentle fingers stroking her skin.
“You’re breaking my
heart,” he whispered.
“I’m sorry. It’s just…it’s too much…”
“Buffy, you’re the
Slayer. You can do anything.”
“Angel…no…”
“You know what would
happen if I went back. People would die.
How long could we hold out against our need? And if I lost my soul
again…”
“I don’t care if you
have a soul.”
She felt small and
selfish and hardly recognized the quaver in her voice. As soon as she spoke she
regretted it. Her response shook him, cutting deep. Stiff and silent he pushed
away from her. He rolled onto his hip
and sat, sliding his feet off the bed.
Contrite, she reached for him, her fingers eager to touch, to reassure.
He avoided her grasping hand, shaming her.
She rose to her knees in the center of the bed and assumed a penitent
pose. Her folded hands dropped into her lap.
She studied her entwined fingers as Angel walked to the room door.
“If I lose my soul, I
die, Buffy. You know that. You want
Angelus back? He can’t love you.”
“Why?”
“Because
he’s a monster… no soul…no human feeling.”
The unthinkable
crossed her mind then. For the first time, she wondered if it was Angel who
couldn’t love. Just for a fleeting
second, she thought of Spike…declaring his devotion in strident tones…taking a
beating to protect Dawn and then keeping her safe while Buffy was gone She remembered him waiting at the foot of the
stairs the night she’d returned to this world.
His face when he saw her seemed lit from within. Spike wouldn’t leave
her all alone in the dark. Spike would
stay ‘til the end of the world.
“Maybe there’s a way
to break the curse.
“Don’t you think I’ve
considered that? I’ve consulted witches, wizards, mad oracles and sane ones.
I’ve searched for a hundred years for a way to break this curse. ”
So you could kill again,
Buffy thought, but what she said was, “It’s
just so hard to breath here. When you
hold me I almost feel alive.”
His head hung low and
his voice thickened with emotion. “I know.
But believe me it will get easier. I know things are… intense for you
right now. I remember what it was like coming back. But you’re strong, Buffy. You’ll get through
this. In a few weeks, you’ll bounce back
and…”
Anger booted Buffy out
of her despair. It surged along her arms, raising the hairs, making her
reckless and brutal. Her head came up and her eyes flashed. “Bounce back? Bounce? Were you even listening to me? I didn’t
just lose my spot on the pep squad.” She placed a hand flat against her chest
as she told him, “This world is crushing my soul.”
Hand on the door knob
Angel half- turned to look back at her and for the first time Buffy thought of
herself as his ex-girlfriend. “I can see that,” he said. His words were emphatic but his face was
impassive, his expression as mild as a priest’s. “And I’m sorry, truly sorry, for what
was done to you. I wish things were different somehow…”
“They can be different.
We can make them different.”
Sad, yet resolved, he shook his head. “These last few months
I’ve come to terms with…us, Buffy. You
have to come to terms, too. I can’t give you what you want…what you
deserve…maybe I never could. Maybe all we were meant to have is the dream of a
perfect life.”
“If you walk out that
door, Angel, I will never forgive you.”
“Don’t say that Buffy,
please!” His eyes pleaded with her. “I need to know you'll…remember me.” She
didn’t reassure him. She could see how
it hurt him to let go but he opened the door.
Cool desert breezes lifted the shabby curtains as he spoke, more to the
night than to her, “I want to go on dreaming. The dream of you sustained me when nothing else would. But we can’t pretend the dream is
real. If we lost our way…if I lost my
soul…my mission would be over. I have a purpose now...a reason to be here.”
His
mission. Her mission. Somewhere in the lonely center of her being, Buffy
knew he was only telling her the truth.
There was no future with Angel, only the sad ashes of their past. But
without those ashes, without even the memory of heat and light, she had nothing. Her friends had taken her hope of heaven away. When she looked up again her Angel was gone.
The night closed in around her. She
curled into a fetal huddle and let the hated world fade into numbness. The air conditioner, pushing damp chill
across the bed, made her skin as clammy as the flesh of a corpse.
The dream took her back to her grave, to the cold ground.
She lay still, alone
on the grassy sward. As she waited there,
feeling sorry for herself, she heard the harsh burr of a match striking and
noticed a faint glimmer of light in the distance. The tiny flame drew her. She came up on one elbow to stare, and then
stood and walked toward the faint glow, stopping only when she could clearly
see the shadowy figure holding the match aloft.
“Hello, cutie,” he
said. When she said nothing, he added, “I lift up my lamp…”
Buffy could only stand
and gape. She showed no sign she grasped his allusion and after a moment he shrugged carelessly and lowered his arm a trifle. They were on a street corner
somewhere in Sunnydale. Near the park, Buffy thought. The spot where he’d saved her from being
arrested so many years ago. The match burned down to his fingertips before he
let it fall to the ground. The warm
glow didn’t vanish with the extinquished match. As Spike moved toward her, his leather
duster swooping around his ankles, the circle of light came with him.
“I like this world,”
he said conversationally as he strolled past her. “You’ve got
Buffy trotted along behind him, desperate for company.
“Vampires,” Buffy muttered, tossing so violently that
“…can’t love,” Buffy
growled in her dream as Spike came rushing back at her. Springing from a fighting crouch, she smashed
her fist into his leering face.
He pushed her savagely
away, laughing as he pointed two fingers at her and declared, “I love you.”
“You’re a monster, a
killer, a…”
“Bad, bad man,” Spike
purred. He made little teasing come
hither gestures with the middle fingers of his wide spread hands as he circled
her.
“You’re not a man,”
she insisted, dodging his roundhouse kick.
“You may not like me
but you like what I do to you.” He grabbed her from behind, pinning her arms,
and brought his lips within a hair’s breadth of her ear to whisper, “Come on,
Buffy. Give it to me good.”
She did. She took him down, throwing him over her
shoulder. When he hit the ground, she
straddled him. Beat him.
Hurt him as only she
could...because only a Slayer had the power…and only she had the will.
She vetted her pain,
branding him with it. Her fury drove the
love light from his eyes. It evaporated
like fog at mid-day and his gaze iced over.
She made him suffer for the lie in his eyes, torturing him until his ice
melted. Flecks of blue burned away
before Hell’s amber fire. The monster
came to her. Spike laughed, then, the throaty chuckle of the damned. Torment made him stronger. His jaw set and
his brow furrowed and his lips curled back from sharp teeth.
With detached
patience, Buffy watched the transformation.
She stared into the face of her enemy, felt its cock coil inside her. She knew the monster…named it. This was the demon responsible for all her suffering. It had denied her a normal life...freedom, love, heaven...peace. Before it could
strike at her throat she made it irrelevant.
She was the Slayer…vampires were
nothing to her. Kissing and stroking and nuzzling she challenged the demon’s
claim on this body she’d taken to her bed.
The vampire snarled and spit. She rocked her hips in a gentle arc and
Spike’s human features returned. This
was her calling. She could vanquish the
damned with a word or a gentle sweep of her fingertips. But could she draw out the man Spike had been
a century before?
He opened his eyes and
saw something in her beyond her understanding.
He stared in mouth-gaping awe, like Mary before her divine messenger.
Love was a lamp under his skin, he glowed and Buffy nearly came. Her intimate pressure made him groan. She slid her palms over his bruised nipples
and he bridged under her with a lingering hiss of pleasure. Buffy had to turn her face away. She didn’t dare let him know the command he
had over her. He was helpless beneath her and yet always her master in
submission. Though she tried to resist the tug on her heart, his adoring regard
drew her gaze and he held her enthralled.
His sweet, bee-stung
mouth claimed her with sighs, “Won’t stop loving you…ever…can’t stop…”
God,
how it moved her to hear him speak of love. She lived for his nightly confessions,
wringing them out of him like an Inquisitionor.
The car jerked over a large bump and came to an abrupt stop. Buffy slid forward in the seat and woke, catching herself with a hand on the dashboard.
“You’re awake,”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Riley Finn studied the map in his lap. It wasn’t giving up any secrets. He’d been trained in cartography on the
“Where the hell are we, corporal?”
“I don’t know, sir. Near the waterfront…I think.”
“This fog,” Riley gestured at the silvery sheen pressing in from all sides, “It can’t be natural.” The windshield looked like an etch-a-sketch screen.
“Magic, sir?”
“Must be but I don’t know who would…”
The radio crackled and a panicked voice came from the speakers. Behind the voice, a frightful din crested in a wave. It sounded like a pride of lions attacking a village.
“…thing on. Can anyone hear me? Is this thing on? Shit. It’s as big as a house. Shoot it. SHOOT!”
There was a spray of gunfire and more of the howling roars and then a single strangled yelp.
The radio spit static. Riley grabbed for the microphone, his
thumb pressing down the call button as he brought the instrument to his mouth.
“Transport Alpha?” he barked. “Transport Alpha?
Seconds ticked by before a tremulous voice answered, “S-sir?
Private Collin, sir.
“Attack?”
“Yes, sir, we…” Collin began but before he could finish the
roaring returned. His reply was garbled
by background noise, a
“Look out…Get it...Shoot it…What the HELL…In the air…Kill it…Look OUT…get down…”
Riley flipped the radio to an alternate channel and spoke into the handset. “Sam? Sam, do you copy? I need a visual on the transport. Does anyone have it in sight?”
“They were just ahead of us two blocks back,” Sam answered, her quiet confidence reassuring. “Hang on, we can hear them and are trying to assist.”
Riley opened the truck door and stepped out onto the running board to listen. The fog closed around his head like a clammy sweater, muffling all noise. Near at hand, there were ticks and drips and other gentle sounds but no hint of a battle raging. He might as well be on another planet. Overwhelmed by frustration, Riley smacked the truck roof with the flat of his palm.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Where in the seventh circle of hell are we?” Spike asked groggily, straightening out of a neck-twisting slump. His hand went immediately to his brow. “Gor, my head.”
“Waterfront,” Wes growled, trying to keep the conversation to a minimum. He’d had his fill of Beauty and the Beast in one body.
As a single man with a childless older sister, aged parents and no other siblings, Wesley Wyndam-Pryce had never had occasion to travel with a toddler and so had been completely spared the experience of loading a minimally cooperative person into a Volvo.
Where he went wrong, Wes now knew, was when he’d agreed to remove Spike’s hobble for their trip. It was an error in judgment he soon came to regret. The elevator ride to the street was uneventful. But as soon as Wes unlocked the car door with a remote beep, Spike launched a campaign of passive resistance that would have made Gandhi proud.
If his rump was in the seat his torso was not. A secured wrist meant a foot on the pavement. Both feet in the car meant head and shoulders outside. Worse, he offered the semblance of cooperation, yesing and noing to all Wesley’s instructions, while simultaneously rebelling. He seemed to sprout extra limbs like a belligerent amoeba. He wriggled. He wiggled. He pinched. He went rigid and then inexplicable limp.
At one point in the ordeal, Spike’s elbow struck Wes in the chin with chip-firing force. Blinking the stars from his eyes, Wes took advantage of Spike’s incapacity. His palm slapped down on the lock and he closed the car door. The unmistakable sound of the lock catching worked like a nerve tonic on Spike. His recovery was instantaneous.
Wes saw him smirking through the reflections in the window glass but didn’t fully understand what was happening until Spike jangled a set of keys in the air.
Bugger it all!
Wesley’s hand, too late off the mark, grabbed at his clothing to confirm what the Seal of Solomon key ring had already told him. The damned vampire had picked his pocket. Wesley’s feet started running before his mind caught on to the emergency. He rounded the front of the car, cutting too close to the bumper. He bruised his knee but ignored the pain and kept coming. Through the windscreen he could see Spike had scrambled over the gearshift and was about to engage the master lock. Wes yanked the driver’s side door open in the nick of time.
“Get off,” Spike yelped, kicking and pushing.
Wes expressed a wish that Spike die in the street and punched him in the jaw. Spike flinched, ducking from the blow but otherwise ignored all efforts to remove him from his confiscated position behind the wheel. He was fumbling with the keys, frustrated by the Volvo’s owner recognition system, when Wes reached around him to a metal box on the floorboards. Drawing a stun gun from concealment, Wes sent Spike on a short trip to dreamland.
As Spike crumpled into a pretty pile of silk skin and flannel shirt, a sharp intake of breath caused Wes to look up into the watery blue eyes of Mrs. McCullum from 5-A.
“I…uh-hel…hello,” Wes managed to stammer, first waving his weapon and then hiding it quickly behind his back, as the venerable lady drew herself to her full height of 4 feet, 8 inches, turned her walker around and started wheeling away.
Wes closed his eyes on the specter of her ramrod spine. So much for his hope of one day running for Condo Committee chairperson.
“You shocked me,” Spike accused, drawing Wes back to the present.
“Twice,” Wes admitted.
“Can’t be good for my baby.”
“Maybe you should consider that.”
Spike bit down on his first and second retorts. He vaguely recalled coming to at the bus station and discovering Wes had already claimed his duffle. Spike had protested in profane and prolific fashion about this high-handed robbery, demanding the return of his earthly possessions. Wes had silenced him with the disproportional force of a second blast of voltage to the temple.
This had put Spike in a vengeful state of mind but he couldnn't miss the meaningful flash in Wesley’s eyes. Though some might disagree, Spike wasn’t one to kid himself, except perhaps when it came to Buffy. He knew he had a well-earned reputation for lack of forethought. But anyone who considered him stupid soon reevaluated. Generally, it was the last thing they did. So, he huffed but settled into his seat and turned to stare out the window, without further comment.
They turned into a parking lot, cruised up and down the aisles and then exited without stopping. A few blocks later they repeated this maneuver. It made no sense. Spike had been sure they were on their way to the Hyperion but they were miles away from Angel. Spike could sense him but barely. Unfortunately, they were very close to daylight.
It was still dark. Rain fell in a tired drizzle, droplets catching the streetlamp light. There was no sign of the sun but Spike’s skin had that pre-dawn tingle. The urge to find shelter would build until it made him as jittery as a junkie in rehab. Let it, Spike thought rebelliously. He was used to the annoying the sensation. Hell, he made a habit of wandering about in daylight with only a blanket over his head. And if he burst into flames at least he’d have the satisfaction of setting Wesley’s car ablaze. The blighter had mistreated him, manhandled him and chained him to the floorboards like some kind of hound. Spike figured Wes deserved a hike in his car insurance premiums.
They drove along a narrow waterfront street, turning at the docks. The sea slapped the break wall to their right. To the left massive warehouses spanned the void between water and sky. On their rooftops, far above, wires crossed like the rigging of ships. Wes jerked the car to a stop outside a low, wooden building squatting between the warehouses. It was as hunched and grey and weathered as an ancient mariner. Water softened Spike’s view through the window. Rain blurred the flashing Coors and Budweiser signs proclaiming the gray wooden structure a bar.
“This is it,” Wes said.
“This is what?”
“I’m taking you to see a friend of mine.”
“Home to meet mother, is it? This friend of yours lives in a pub?”
“He lives at the Hyperion. I thought we should meet here.”
“I have sunlight issues, you know.”
Wes reached behind Spike’s seat to pluck a blanket from the floor. “It’s still dark. But here,” he said, shoving the blanket into Spike’s lap. “This’ll keep the toasty rays off you.”
“Know what else would keep the rays off? A really big hotel.”
“Darla? Angel? Tell me how you’re connected to them and I’ll take you straight to the Hyperion”
“Funny story that. We met at bridge club. Angel brought these cheesy poofs for the monthly pot-luck and I said, ‘My isn’t that a coincidence’ and then…”
“Right,” Wes said, opening the car door with more force than was strictly necessary. “So you’ll sing for Lorne and he’ll tell me all about you.”
“Or I won’t and…
“And I’ll keep you chained up at my place until Buffy arrives. I imagine she’ll be interested in the obscene amount of cash in your kit bag.” With one foot on the pavement Wes pointed to the back seat. Spike craned his neck to see the familiar bulk of his duffle resting just out of reach.
“That money is mine. I earned it.”
“I see. Not only are you pregnant, you’re the first vampire in history to work as an investment broker.” Mouth tightening, Wes leaned closer to Spike. “Look, I know most of your story already. Why not tell me your name? I need to know your history before I can agree to help you.”
“You’re being awfully shirty about this.”
“If Buffy Summers is the father of your child…if somehow you tricked her into…”
“Oh, right! I tricked her into assaulting me.”
“Buffy assaulted…? Was she drunk?”
“Were you?”
“You were trying to steal my car.”
“And reclaim my money…and my pants. Tell me, after I was out cold, did you have a little fun with the body?” Spike challenged, running a suggestive hand over his breasts.
Wes blushed and swallowed, giving more away than he knew. Spike had looked positively radiant in repose, like something Faberge might have sculpted from egg shells and silver wire. And though he hadn’t acted the cad, Wes had lingered over the task of chaining his captive to the floor.
“Was Buffy drunk when she…fathered your child?”
“No.”
“I assumed this was a singular incident.”
“Wrong again. I’ve lost count of the times. And believe me I was keeping score for a good while there.”
“You and Buffy? Summers?”
“Now don’t start up with this again. Yes, Buffy and I. Me and Buffy. Why is it so hard for you to wrap your mind around it?”
“But you can’t be lovers.”
“She wanted me. She took me. She had me. We’ve been doing the nightly nasty going on four months now. You’ve got to figure 30 nights a month, five or six times a night that comes to…”
“Good Lord!”
“A right big number.”
“Every night?”
Spike gave a modest shrug of one shoulder. "We skip it every now and then. She gets these moods.”
“What you’re telling me is the Slayer has been…” Wes struggled with the concept and the word. “…uhm…shagging…?”
“Screwing, hammering, nailing…fucking…pick your soddin’ synonym.”
“A vampire,” Wes continued forceful, having no intention of playing Spike's thesaurus game, “for over three months and nobody put a stop to it. Where was Giles?”
“
“Oh, yes.
“Just what I was think—,” Spike began before realization struck him dumb. It couldn’t last…and didn’t. He sputtered around the conversational curve. “Wa-wait. What do you know about the resurrection spell?”
“Ah…yes….well, you see…,” Wes glanced over his shoulder and
then hitched his hip onto the seat and slid back into the car. He shut the door, creating the illusion of
intimacy. “
Spike caught the drift of the story. “It was you?” he snarled. “You helped that imbecilic bint bring the Slayer back.”
“I lent her some books. I had no idea she would be successful.”
Spike cast his gaze to the heavens in a plea for forbearance. “Did you even consider the consequences?”
“You’re going to lecture me about consequences?”
“I’m evil. What’s your excuse?”
“I don’t need an excuse. Angel was distraught….inconsolable. He left the States, abandoning…his friends, his
work." Wes didn't add himself to the list but the implication was clear. "He retreated to a monastery in
“A soddin’ monastery? In
“If the spell went wrong…if what
“I see where you’re going with this and you can put it straight out of your mind. I won’t let you hurt her. We may be over but she’s still…the one…you know?”
“What one?”
“The one!” Spike sighed at Wes’ obtuseness and then clarified, “My girl.”
“Was she…were you…feeding on her?”
“Feeding? Feeding?” Spike cocked his fist for a punch, forgetting for a moment about the stun gun. “Why you little pillow biter! I should wallop you for that.”
Wes also appeared to have forgotten the weapon in his pocket. He raised a placating palm to Spike. “Look, I’m just asking.”
“Not that I’d expect you to understand but let me tell you something. I may be Buffy Summer’s sex slave but I am nobody’s lamprey. I can get my own food. Hunt it. Kill it. Buy it at Bernie’s Butcher shop. With money I earned, see? Or stole…or conned out of someone. Doesn’t matter how I got the money…point is it’s mine.”
“You’re buying blood? Pig’s blood?”
“I’m not Jewish.”
“It’s just that…even if you are working with Buffy and she wouldn’t let you kill…there are black markets in human blood. Swine is known to have a domesticating effect.”
“I’m a home body. What’s it to you?”
“Why would a vampire forego feeding on humans?”
“Buffy doesn’t like the killing.”
“So you gave up human blood for her?”
“She’s a really good lay.”
“Yes, I’m sure…but…I doubt you just stopped.” Wes mused for a minute. “Maybe you can’t hunt. Maybe that’s why you’re here. You didn’t do very well in our little scuffle earlier. In fact, you ran away.”
“Oh, sorry, I didn’t kill you. What say you give me a second chance?”
“You aren’t the demon you once were…you said it yourself.”
“I say a lot of things in the heat of the moment…can’t take me seriously.”
“No, this is starting to make a kind of sense to me.”
“I need a cigarette. Trying to quit, see, for the nipper? But if you’re going to drone on until dawn I don’t see how I’ll hold out. Can we move along with this visit to your musical friend and…”
“Military types hijacked your brain. Somebody left you…you told me the name.” Wes frowned trying to recall part of the endless babble he’d endured since Miss Spivey came into his life.
“Also, I think I need a piss. We could go inside, spare your upholstery.”
“Drusilla? Drusilla.” Wes savored the name, wrapping his tongue around it and drawing it out like buttery toffee. Suddenly his head knocked into the headrest. A spasm of self-recrimination pinched his eyes closed and twisted his lips into a grimace as he hissed, “Of course, I’ve been a fool.”
“No argument here.”
“Drusilla killed Kendra.” Wes had it. His chin dropped and he targeted Spike with a piercing gaze. “Angel sired her. She sired you. You’re William the Bloody.”
“What? The Slayer Killer?” Spike
gave what he fervently hoped was a carefree snort. “Not likely.
And…besides…I heard he died or…went to
“I heard he was working with Buffy. And that he’d been neutered by some quasi-military organization called The Initiative.”
“Neutered?” Spike squeaked. He cleared his throat and lowered his voice an octave, repeating, “Neutered? That’s a bit harsh.”
“Spike,” Wes breathed, in a tone that Spike might have considered flattering if he’d had a few more minutes to ponder it. Unfortunately, Wes ruined the moment by raking his gaze over Spike’s fine-boned, generously endowed form and snorting, “You killed two Slayers?”
“I did have a tad more height to me at the time.”
“You sound proud of it.”
Lifting his brows and giving the word a duh spin, Spike said, “Slayers.”
“And now you’re…?”
“Days of Our Lives cliché number sixteen?” Spike suggested.
Mind racing like a mouse collecting stray morsels of Camembert from a maze, Wes was putting all the information into order. His gaze strayed up the street again to the black S.U.V. he’d noticed earlier. It was parked parallel but Wes was willing to bet the engine was running. The driver sat stoically behind the wheel, watching, waiting.
“Finn?” Wes said quietly. “Riley Finn? Wasn’t he Buffy’s boyfriend? The one with the Initiative?”
“Yeah, what of it?”
“He was with her,” Wes said, distractedly. “When I called.”
“What? With Buffy? No, he’s long gone.”
“That was the number
“Fuck,” Spike spat and then because he could think of nothing else to say he repeated himself, “Fuck!”
“Yes,” Wes said softly. “This could be a problem.”
“What mission? What was she doing with him?”
Wes shrugged. “Maybe they were looking for you.”
Icy tendrils of dread crept down Spike’s spine. This was horrible news. If Riley Finn was back, he could be crawling all over Buffy, putting his farm-boy hands on her. Spike wouldn’t stand for any reconciliation talk. He’d kill Riley first, chip and Buffy aside. He drew his feet up, locking his arms around his knees. Every time he thought it couldn’t get worse, it got worse. Riley Finn was in Sunnydale with the Slayer, filling her mind with…what? Self-righteous indignation? She had enough of that already. Had Buffy called in the toy soldier to help her get the baby back? Surely she wouldn’t trust Riley after what he’d done to her. And she would never let the Initiative know about the baby. They might take it, torture it. No, Buffy wouldn’t let them do that. Deep in thought, Spike lowered his head and pulled the blanket Wes had provided over his hunched shoulders.
“Why do you care about Riley Finn?” he muttered.
“Ah, well…it’s just that we’re being followed.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
He picked up on the first ring.
“Finn here!”
“Hey, Riley. It’s
“
She held the phone away from her ear as a cacophony of
unlikely noises blared down the line.
“No, don’t shoot it,” he barked. “Fall back. Where the hell are the tranquilizer guns?” There was an indistinct gargle of response from his men. “Well get a net, then. And can someone, please, tell me where the damned eggs are? Yes, I see the fog, corporal. What I don’t see is my wife. Yeah…I know…but it’s a huge fucking transport. How can it just disappear?”
“Riley? Is Buffy with you?”
“It sounds like you’re in a war zone.”
“You think?” Riley said sarcastically. “Christ! Hang
on…again! Please…I really need to talk
to you.” He spoke savagely to someone. “NO, private, I don’t think we should
ram the barricade. Get back under
cover.” Riley sighed out her name as he
came back on the line, “
“I can’t, Riley,”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“Where’s Buffy?”
“Buffy? She left me hours ago. I assumed she went home.”
“How many hours?”
“Two, three maybe. This isn’t good. If she’s not back… Have you seen or heard from Spike?”
“Spike?”
“Vampire. Bleached-blonde really into the Goth look.” He spoke to someone off line again, though in a milder tone than he’d been using, “Oh for the love of…just get me a working radio or a compass…anything. And find Sam.”
“Ye-yeah, I-I know Spike. Why are you looking for him?”
“He’s got to be behind this,” Riley said. “He’s an arms dealer, Buffy found out earlier tonight. He’s been smuggling some nasty demon eggs into human settlements. I told Buffy all about it. She and I raided his place. Now you’re telling me she’s disappeared.”
“Y-you don’t think…”
“Please! Willow, don’t tell me you fell for that line, too? You of all people should know what love means to a monster like that,” Riley spoke matter-of-factly. “Didn’t he try to kill you? Twice?”
“That was a long time ago. And the second time…”
“He kidnapped you. Forced you to brew up some potion for his
sire?” Love potion,
“But there’s a chip in his head.”
“There are ways around the chip. I think he’s found one of them.”
“No…you don’t know how much he missed…” Her voice and her certainty wavered and then faded away. “Buffy wouldn’t…”
“
“Yes…yes…alright,”
END THIS PART