Chapter Six
Sound and Fury
The night was closing in on her, and there was nowhere to run. No air to breathe. No water to drink. No food to satisfy her hunger. She saw it all from far away, watching herself tear down empty corridors and scream for help that would never come. The walls were alight with torches, but she didn’t need them to see. Her eyes were made for darkness. It was what she was now. What she had become through the nothing that surrounded her.
A flash. He stood at the end of the corridor, his eyes heavy with sorrow.
You have killed me.
“I didn’t mean to,” she gasped, vision blurring with tears. “I needed out. You wouldn’t let me out!”
A curious smile spread across his lips.
You only needed to love me a little. I would have given you the world.
Something inside her was screaming for release. Clawing at her insides, ripping her apart. Yarn by yarn. She felt she had reached the lowest form of herself. Standing there in the empty hallway, gazing at her dead sire. The voice inside screamed for retribution; screamed for her own blood for his. That she turned the stake that had landed in her hands to her chest, and end her suffering before it consumed her.
This is not right. This is not the way of things.
Dracula had known dust because she willed it so. It was what she wanted. What she had needed to escape. The things he had told her had filled her with rage and disgust. And she had killed him, because that was what she did.
She killed vampires.
It did not matter that she was one.
The force within her screamed its outrage.
You ended me. Now you know pain.
She was bleeding from the inside, and she couldn’t stop it. She couldn’t see to stop it. The walls were closing in and there was no one. Even her sire had abandoned her. Dracula’s visage from the far end of the corridor disappeared. Dissolved into the pillar of dust she had wished upon him. The torches were going out.
She would be left in darkness.
She would be left alone.
*~*~*
Buffy awoke with a muffled scream, drowning in her tears.
The room around her was unfamiliar but comforting, and the air sounded with the most gruesome sound she had ever heard. A piercing, guttural wail that pained her ears, lashing undeviating marks into her heart. She couldn’t think. Her chest ached from the weight of the air her body told her she needed. A fact buried within necessity but lost with logic. She was breaking from the inside, and no one could help her. No one could take this pain away. It was there. It consumed her. It was all she was.
“Buffy. Buffy!”
Buffy shook her head. Someone was on the bed with her. Someone who had not been there before. Strong, soothing hands grasped her flailing wrists and coaxed her battling body from the mattress. She was suddenly encased in someone’s embrace; an unbeating heart pressed against hers. Matching hers.
She wrapped her arms around him, buried her face in his shoulder, and sobbed.
“Shhhh,” Spike murmured, running a hand through her hair. “’S’okay, sweetheart. You’re safe here.”
“It hurts,” she gasped against him. Her eyes were sore from crying. “It hurts so much. I can’t make it stop.”
“You had no choice. If you hadn’t killed him, you wouldn’t’ve gotten out.”
She didn’t even have to tell him what hurt. He knew. Somehow, he knew. And he was rocking her back and forth gently, encased in the security of his arms. She had no idea how Spike had become her haven, her comforter, but he had. He gave her peace even if she could not use it. The thing living inside her was in agony. Wretched, ugly agony, and she felt the weight of its anger. It made her bleed. Wounds that time had healed were open again.
“I can’t make the hurt stop,” she cried. “It’s eating me up. I can’t breathe.”
Spike brushed a tender kiss across her forehead. “You don’ need to breathe, baby,” he murmured. “It makes the hurt worse.”
His unbidden use of pet names was a source of strange comfort. She remembered when she hated them. Remembered shivering in what she had called disgust. Recalled the wealth of memories of that brief time when his mouth had been on her; when they were in love and getting married. A time that seemed closer now that the sanctuary he offered was around her again.
Logically, she knew his words were true. She just couldn’t get her body to listen to them.
“You breathe,” she replied, her sobs beginning to quiet.
“Mmm,” he murmured in agreement. “I’ve also been a vampire a lot longer than you, an’ my body knows it.” He was still rocking her gently; somehow, her legs had found their way around his waist, and she was in his lap. Her breasts were pressed flat against his chest. Something hard was pressed against the apex of her thighs, but she refused to allow her mind to wander.
Of course he would be aroused. She was in his lap. He was a guy. Case closed.
She wouldn’t think of how her body responded to him. She was emotionally unbalanced, and she wouldn’t allow her grief to overwhelm her control. She wouldn’t ask him to comfort her with sex, though she found it strange that the idea had even manifested.
He felt familiar, still. Again, she recalled their ill-fated engagement. How he had felt then. How he had given her bliss for just a few hours before the spell waned and she was herself again.
But she wouldn’t think about that.
“What does that mean?” she asked instead, her voice hoarse. “Your body knows it, but mine doesn’t?”
Spike shook his head. “’S the soul, sweetness,” he replied softly. “Sired Slayers keep their souls. The human soul isn’t s’posed to know what vampirism feels like. Why on bloody earth do you think Peaches spent the better part of the last century in the sodding gutter?”
“I always thought it was the guilt.”
His lips found her temple. “That was part of it,” he admitted. “Not the whole.”
“I feel so cold.” She shivered. “God, Spike, it hurts so much.”
“I know, kitten.” He brushed another kiss across her forehead. “I’d do anythin’ to make it better.”
“I still don’t understand.”
“Understand what?”
“Why you’re here. Why you let me stay.” Buffy was trembling when she glanced up, eyes meeting his. He burned her with his gaze, melting away the cold. “Why you came after me. Was it…did Giles…he gave you money?”
Spike smiled warily. “He came by here,” he replied honestly. “He told me you were gone, an’ that Dracula was the one that had you. He asked me to go.”
“So you came after me because Giles wanted you to.”
“No.”
“Spike—”
“I came after you because I wanted to. Rupert offered me money, but I…” He released a breath and shuddered. “I din’t save you, Buffy. You got out yourself.”
“I got out because you were there.”
“Buffy—”
“You gave me what I needed to get out. I don’t know what it was, but it wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t been there.” The Slayer pressed her brow to his. It was so strange. She remembered hating him. She remembered it so clearly. She remembered wanting to stake him half a dozen times. She had bruised his body with her fists more times than she could imagine. She had done nothing to deserve his kindness, or want it when offered. She thought of herself; the shade of a girl that had been alive just two days before. The girl that had hated Spike with the prejudice of a slayer that hated all vampires.
There was no place right now that she would feel safer. Spike’s arms were around her. She was dressed in a skimpy negligee that showed more than it concealed, she was in the bed of her former enemy, and she was sitting on his erection. And it didn’t bother her.
Not at all.
Everything had changed. She didn’t want to be anywhere but where she was.
“You came for me and you don’t want the money?”
She felt him smile against her. “Never said I don’ want the money,” he replied. “’m jus’ not takin’ it.”
“Why?”
“Because I din’t save you.”
“You could say you did. I’d tell Giles to—”
“I don’t want money for savin’ you, Buffy. I never even…” Spike expelled a deep breath. “I went after you because I wanted to get you out. Because somethin’ happened to me when he told me that you were gone.”
“What happened?”
He froze. “I about lost my head.”
“Why?”
“Buffy—”
“You’re calling me by my name. You’re telling me that you came after me because you wanted to, and not for the money.” She drew back again. “You’re different. I’m not the only one here who’s different. You came after me. You hate me, Spike.”
A smile crossed his lips. “Not anymore.”
“What happened?”
“Dracula took you away.”
“And?”
His eyes flooded with that emotion that had crippled her when she had turned around upstairs. When their gazes had met, and he had known what happened. That she was a vampire. That she had come to him. He had known it all, and he hadn’t said a word.
He had just looked at her and broken her heart.
She didn’t know it was possible for people she didn’t love to break her heart.
“An’ my world about ended,” he said, and then glanced off with a heavy sigh. “You don’ need this right now, sweetheart. You don’ need to hear from me all the…all you need to know is that I’m here. An’ you can stay with me as long as you need.”
“I want to know.”
“Slayer—”
She smiled. “There it is.”
“I jus’—”
“I want to know.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Why not?”
A mordant look crossed his face. “You won’ like me anymore.”
“What makes you think I like you now?”
There was something in his eyes that made the cold melt completely. And then there was only heat. “Oh, I don’t know,” he replied, thrusting his hips forward just a little so that his erection prodded the wet warmth between her legs. “Call it a hunch.”
“Spike…”
“Yeh. I think you might like me jus’ a li’l.”
“I…” She tore her eyes away from his, though it did little good as there was nowhere to look that didn’t lead back to him. “I just…I…”
It felt good when he chuckled. He was still pressed against her, and she felt the movement rumble through her skin. Rattle her insides. It fed the heat he gave her with softer warmth. It made her feel loved.
Warmth made her feel loved. And he gave her warmth.
“’S okay,” he said softly. “Don’ be embarrassed. Vampires feel it more fiercely than humans.”
“Feel it?”
“Your sex drive is more…it feels more.” He paused and cocked his head, studying her intently. “Are you blushing?”
“Spike—”
“I din’t think vampires could blush, but I’d swear—”
“I’m not blushing.”
Spike smiled. “It’s okay, sweetheart,” he told her honestly. “I’m not reachin’ for anythin’. I’m holding you because I want to. Because you need someone to hold you right now. Jus’ because I feel like this…’m not askin’ you for anythin’. I’m jus’ holding you because I can’t stand to see you cry.”
“You can’t?”
“Tonight was the firs’ time. I couldn’t stand it.”
Buffy drew in a breath and winced at the pain it brought. His arms tightened. “Like this?” she asked when the ache subsided. “You said…because you feel ‘like this.’ What’s…Spike, what do you—”
A sigh tore through his lips. “’S nothin’, luv.”
“No, it’s not ‘nothing.’ You would’ve told me if it was just nothing.”
“I jus’ did tell you it’s nothing. You won’ believe me, an’ that’s frankly not my problem.”
“Spike, please.”
His eyes softened, but his resolution didn’t waver. Instead, he coaxed her back to the mattress, disentangling her legs from around his waist. A small murmur of complaint rumbled through his throat as her weight shifted off his cock, but the view of her lying before him in the scrap of a thing her sire had given her provided enough fuel to sustain his fantasies.
“You should get some sleep,” he said gently, placing a hand on her stomach.
“I’m hurting.”
“I know, sweetling.”
A pained look crossed her face, and she arched her back into his touch. “It felt better when…I can’t do this, Spike.”
“Yes, you can.”
“I can’t. I hurt too much.” She shook her head. “I’ve never hurt like this.”
“No, I don’ imagine so.”
“Spike—”
The vampire released a sigh and edged up beside her, lying down and taking her hand in his. “I’d take it away if I could,” he said. “It gets better. It’ll get better. I promise you.” He paused. “You’re strong. You’re the strongest person I’ve ever met. The strongest bloody slayer I’ve ever fought. You’ll get through this.”
“Does it matter that I’m not so sure?”
“I’m here.” He held her eyes for a minute, then looked away sheepishly. “’F that means anythin’. I know I’m not what you—”
Her hand tightened around his. “It means something, Spike. It means a lot.” She released a breath and winced again. “I never thought it would hurt to breathe.”
“Your lungs aren’t made to breathe anymore.”
“You breathe.”
He smiled. “That’s the second time you’ve reminded me.” He went quiet for a minute and watched her as she battled the impending cloud of fatigue. “You should get some rest, pet.”
“Will you stay?”
“Stay?”
Buffy tugged on his hand until the length of his arm splayed across her abdomen. “Stay with me.”
“I’m here.”
“I mean…here. In the bed.” She turned away shyly when his eyes filled with that wondrous look again; her skin felt flush even if she knew it was impossible. “It doesn’t hurt…as much…when you were holding me, it didn’t hurt as much.”
Spike licked his lips and smiled at her, spreading his arms. She snuggled against him without hesitation. Curled in his embrace. Pressed against his unbeating heart. Wrapped in his scent.
Safe in the arms of the enemy. She never thought it possible.
It felt like she had been with him for years already. That generations had past since the time she thought of him as her adversary.
She didn’t know what had changed between them. If he was helping her now because she was no longer the Slayer, or because she was Buffy.
She hoped it was the latter.
She wanted him to want Buffy. Not the thing Buffy had become.
Spike brushed a kiss across her forehead. “Sweet dreams, my little love,” he murmured. He was silent for a minute, his hands caressing her sore skin. Softening her where she was hard. Soothing her where she ached. “You know why, Buffy,” he said a minute later, voice barely above a whisper. “You know why.”
For a moment, she could’ve sworn her heart leapt in her chest.
She did. She knew why. She just couldn’t believe it.
She only hoped she remembered this. Being held in the safety of her enemy’s arms. Her enemy that was no longer her enemy. Her enemy that had become her savior.
She hoped she remembered this in the morning. She wanted to share it with him.
For the first time since she had awakened as a vampire, she felt the screaming within her calm. Felt the rage within her roll into a gentle peace. Felt normal for a blink of her abnormal life.
Spike gave her that.
She had come to him, and he gave her peace.
The first night in a lifetime that was not plagued with nightmares.
Not after Spike chased them away. Not after he gave her back the night.
Not after he offered her comfort with the whispered promise of a lover’s embrace.
To be continued in Chapter Seven: The Soft Glow of Morning…
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