AUTHOR: 1stRab-id, Raeann

FEEDBACK: Rabid1st@yahoo.com

RATING: NC-17

SUBJECT: B/S

SPOILERS:  Set after Wrecked but not really spoilery

MY BETAS:  Rilla, Binkysab, LostAngel and Nautibitz…they are the best…no doubt about it.

SPECIAL THANKS TO: NB for putting my feet on the voyeurism path.

SONG CREDITS: “Gunning Down Romance” by Savage Garden not as bad as I make it sound. ;-D, other songs credited in text.

SUMMARY: An old friend of Buffy’s returns with a little surprise for her.

DISCLAIMER:  These are the toys of Joss and Mutant Enemy and Fox TV and UPN and well everyone but me…not my toys just my twisted Malibu Dream House.

 

PART ONE

 

Bailey Conger was a smarmy pederast with a nose for the quick buck and an eye for the delicate boy.  His eye had led him to an eternal half-life and his nose had led him to a gold mine in the Sunnydale sewers.  He pocketed a handful of bills and adjusted his crotch as he watched his latest clients make their own way to the exit.  The girl had been too fat for his taste but her male companion was hung like a horse and well worth the discount Bailey gave for a post show bang in the back room.  The little vampire was sure he’d be walking funny for a week.  Which only goes to show that he wasn’t clairvoyant.  He reset the video equipment to record his next satisfied customer in action and headed for the waiting area. 

 

There had been three beings in line for a gawk when Bailey had taken the Horse and Hound down but now there was only one.  And it was a wicked one too, a Scyllain Demon.  A behemoth of bone crushing evil, seven feet tall and well above 250 pounds with glowing green eyes and matte-green pine cone prickly skin.  Bailey looked around nervously.  Scyllain’s never traveled alone but there was no sign of this one’s hive.

 

“The night has a thousand eyes,” Bailey hummed and then had to stifle a fit of giggles at the joke.

 

The Scyllain turned and shuffled toward him.  It spoke with its species’ characteristic rustling sibilant voice.  It was the voice of many tongues.

 

“You have something to show us.” It susurrated.

 

“If you have some money to show me,” Bailey affirmed, getting down to business. 

 

The beast held out one taloned paw and dropped a wallet into the vampire’s eager hands.  It was somebody else’s wallet, of course, but that didn’t matter to Bailey.  What mattered was the five hundred plus dollars inside and the lovely platinum colored cards.  He slipped the cash and plastic into his jacket and tossed the wallet into the trash to be incinerated later.

 

“Okay,” Bailey said, holding out a mask with a lead rope attached to it, “Put this on.  When I tug on the rope you follow nice and slow.”

 

The Scyllain turned the mask over in its hands and had a brief conversation with itself.  Bailey was distressed to learn that at least part of the demon wanted to rip out his entrails and use them to prognosticate.

 

“You can’t find it without me,” the little vampire quickly asserted. “I have deadfalls and traps set up and don’t bother to try scent tracing because I use a Sumerian Cleansing Spell every time.  I don’t want no trouble but this is my patch see, and I mean to keep it.”

 

“Very well,” the Scyllain said, after a bit more inner consultation. “We will do as is required.”

 

The creature slipped on the mask and Bailey began the long, convoluted journey to his mother load for the fifth time that night.  He looked at his watch and decided the show would still be going.  It was three hours until sunrise. Usually they went at it until just before dawn.  He looped the client through several unneeded twists of tunnel before ending up at what Bailey privately thought of as the staging area.

 

“You can take off the mask,” he said, “From here on we can’t make any noise, no talking, no moaning…and absolutely no jacking off.  Remember where you are at all times.  This ain’t no kiddie ride.  We get caught here and we’re as good as dead.  Understand?”

 

“We understand,” the Scyllain chorused. “What about our scent?”

 

“Take a deep breath,” Bailey advised with a tiny smile.  The Scyllain obeyed and its skin rippled with pleasure.  The air was rich with musk, a heady intoxicating odor that almost sent the behemoth to its knees.

 

“What IS that smell?” the prickly beast murmured in awe.

 

“That’s what you’ve come to see my friend,” Bailey replied.  He felt a momentary surge of affection for his unwitting business partners as he added, “And if your kind lives a thousand years, I wager you will never experience anything like this again.”

 

Bailey motioned the Scyllain to precede him down a tunnel to the left.  There was a flicker of light from the far end and the echo of a pulsating rhythm.  As the two demons approached the light, the rhythm filled out into music.   Other sounds became audible as well; half-smothered screams, creaking wood and a mewling cry that sounded for all the world like a wounded animal in a trap.  The Scyllain reached a rough-hewn stairway and started to climb toward a slit in the tunnel roof.  The throbbing of the music became a melody, Macy Gray’s “Caligula”.  Bailey’s mouth twisted into a satisfied grin.

 

“I knew I could count on them for another hour at least,” he thought and motioned his client to the opening for a once in a lifetime view. “More than once in a lifetime,” Bailey mentally amended, “if you happened to be rich…or me!”

 

The Scyllain peered into the crypt.  It was lushly decorated for a dead man’s parlor.  There was a coffin, of course, but also a four-poster bed, a red chair, a bookcase, reading lamps and several oriental carpets.  The demon searched for a moment before focusing in on the couple he had paid to see.  The rarest combination of sexual partners imaginable, a vampire and a Slayer.

 

She was bound hand and foot to the four points of the bed.  Not chained, the Scyllain noted, just tied up with strips of cloth.  The restraints weren’t strong enough to hold a housecat let alone a jungle-size feline like Buffy Summers.  The vampire had his human face on and he was nowhere near her neck.  He was levered up on both arms, keeping time with the music as he hammered into her white-hot core.  She was naked, blindfolded and slick with sweat and semen and what smelled like honey-barbecue sauce.

 

Macy Gray was coming to the end of her number, the lyrics pounding, “He’s something like my favorite fix I got to have him again and again.  He’s got me open like an all night store…. He give me some and then I want some more.  Da, da, da, da, da, da, da…Again and again and again and again…”

 

“You like that, baby?” Spike panted as the music faded away.  The Slayer’s answer was a pre-verbal grunt and the encouraging twist of her hips. 

 

The CD player keyed up Pink’s “You Make Me Sick” and the vampire laughed out loud, flashing his tongue against his white teeth, “They’re playing your song, Luv.”

 

The Slayer’s only response was a groan of ecstasy as the song blared out, “I want you and I’m hating it…you drive me crazy, baby, don’t you quit.  I can’t get enough of it….”

 

“Say it Buffy, tell me what you want.  You want it rough?  You want it bloody?”

 

“Yes,” she moaned forcing out the words. “Hard…Harder…like…Oh, GOD…like last time…rough…wild…Sp-Spike.”

 

He reached out and clawed a long scratch in her chest just below the cap of her shoulder.  Blood welled up and, when she bowed her body toward him, it trickled down over her breast.  There was a loud ripping noise as the restraints on Buffy’s ankles gave way.  She convulsed under her demon lover, shuddering with her need for him.  She wrapped her legs around Spike’s hips, rotating her pelvis to take him in as deeply as possible.

 

“Slayer,” he hissed and morphed into his fangs, his cock twisting inside her belly.  He lowered his head to suckle at her blood soaked nipple.  Then he used his tongue to trace the stream of crimson back to its source. 

 

“Oh…Spike,” Buffy cried. “Like that, baby.  Just like that.”

 

“I know what you need, don’t I?” He growled into her neck.  He put his lips to her pulse point, wrestling with his bloodlust, wanting to rend her flesh even as he made sweet love to her.  “I’ve always known,” he ground out.

 

“Yes…yes…need this…need it…need… you…SPIKE!”

 

With trembling fingers, Spike tore away the Slayer’s blindfold.  Taking human form again, he looked into her eyes.  She was so close to the edge she could taste it.  His fingertips raked through her hair and he held her gaze, unblinking and unflinching.  Buffy saw herself reflected in Spike’s eyes as he spoke.

 

“Need you too, Buffy,” he breathed out, “Love you…always.”

 

He ran his hands up the inside of his beloved’s arms.  Impatiently, he pushed off her remaining bonds not caring that he bruised her wrists in the process.  He lifted her arms and positioned them around his neck, silently urging her to embrace him completely as he lowered his mouth to her shoulder again to pull the life essence from her body.  Like the hunter he was, Spike drove Buffy before him, straight to the brink of oblivion.  And over it.

 

They came together with the trapped animal cries that were unique to them.  Spike fired, reloaded and fired again; six times in succession keeping time with Buffy’s multiple orgasms.  His seed spilled out of her and soaked the sheets as she clenched around him.  The power of their combined release rocked them to the center of their being.  It left them weak, helpless in each other’s arms.

 

The Scyllain demon stumbled away from the peephole.  Its eyes were like two backlit emeralds as it turned toward Bailey Conger.  The vampire looked down at the state of the creature’s arousal and backed hastily away.  To say that Scyllain’s were hung like horses was to give up on hyperbole.  Bailey scrambled silently down the stairway and along the tunnel as the huge demon stalked him. 

 

It wasn’t good business to kill paying clients but Bailey was already reaching for the vial of poison that he kept for these little emergencies when the Scyllain arrived at the staging area.  Without preamble, the creature shoved the vampire against a wall and used him hard.  It smothered his screams by jamming its fist down his throat.  Unfortunately, for Bailey Conger, none of the horrible things the Scyllain did to him were actually fatal for a vampire.

 

Back in Spike’s crypt, Buffy stiffened and listened for a moment.  Her Slayer senses always jangled in the presence of her lover but there was something else this time, something hauntingly familiar and yet totally alien.  She shifted slightly trying to pinpoint the source of her uneasiness and Spike raised his head to look at her.

 

“What is it, Luv?” he asked.

 

“I,” she began and then hesitated, unsure of her feelings, “felt something…or heard, maybe.”

 

Spike rolled off of the Slayer when she pushed against him. She sat up.  On full alert, he searched the corners of the room, listening himself now.  He knew better than to doubt Buffy’s senses.  She was a killer, like him.  And like him, she lived by her instincts.  But this time, they appeared to be playing her false.  After a few more minutes of futile tension, Buffy sighed and slid back down under the sheets.

 

“Whatever it was, it’s gone now,” she said.

 

She turned on her side to face Spike, trailing her fingertips along his brow, across his cheek and over his mouth as she added, “And speaking of gone…I need to be.”

 

“Still an hour or more until sunrise,” Spike said in a ‘let’s be reasonable tone’ of voice. “Dawn’s at Tara’s.  No need to rush off.”

 

“Needing to rush,” Buffy sighed with something like real regret. “Needing to earn the money.” She glanced down at the messy condition of her skin, “And really, desperately needing to shower.”

 

“If it’s a bath you want, Pet,” Spike chuckled suggestively, “I got you covered.” He took her hand and brought it to his lips, sweeping his tongue across her palm before adding, “I can even do those hard to reach places.”

 

“No,” Buffy pouted pushing him away. “No more kinky sex.  I’m tired.  I’m sticky.  And I’m still sore from the last ten times.”

 

“Wasn’t talking about sex,” Spike groaned releasing her hand and falling back on the bed. “Just touching, tasting, maybe a bit of snuggling.  Thought we might get a few hours of sleep before you had to run off is all.”

 

“I don’t come here to sleep,” Buffy snapped, angry with herself for being so tempted by his offer.

 

“No,” Spike shot back reaching for a cigarette, “you come here to get laid.  To get something you can’t find anywhere else.” He lit up the smoke and blew a cloud at her before adding, “Best damn fuck of your soddin’ life.”

 

“Ego much?”

 

“Don’t hear you denying it!”

 

“Fine,” Buffy said scrambling out of the bed, “I won’t deny it.  You’re right.  That is exactly why I come here.  For the monster wrestling.” 

 

She gathered up her clothes and stomped toward his shower, happy for once that all he had was cold water on tap.

 

“Insensitive prick,” She muttered under her breath.

 

“I heard that,” Spike yelled after her then sulked into his pillow. “You cold-blooded little tramp.”

 

Three quarters of an hour later, glowing green eyes watched from the shadows as Buffy exited the crypt.  Her hair was still damp, despite the bitter cold night.  She was angry, distracted, almost tearful and not paying proper attention to her surroundings.  Halfway to the cemetery gate, the demon caught her. 

 

Swift and silent he fell on her, whipping her around by an arm.  She swung at him, missed and then was yanked unceremoniously to his mouth.  She offered only token resistance after that.  Surrendering to the inevitable, Buffy returned Spike’s kiss with an equal ferocity.  Only the increasing chill and the rising sun separated the vampire from his lover. 

 

Neither of them noticed a black SUV with tinted windows as it pulled away from the curb.

 

 

“Alright! Alright!” Xander groaned as he rolled out of bed. “I’m coming!”

 

Pulling on a robe, he stumbled from the bedroom.  The dark-haired man glanced at the wall clock.  His alarm hadn’t been wrong.  It was 6:32 in the blessed a.m.  Just past sunrise on a Saturday morning, and some damned fool was leaning on his doorbell.

 

“Look, Buddy, I don’t mean to be rude but…” Xander began even as he opened the door.  His mouth gaped like a fish out of water as he stared at the man on his welcome mat.

 

“Hello,” the man said waving a hand in front of Xander’s face. “Earth to Harris!”

 

“Oh, my GOD!…RILEY!”

 

“So,” Riley Finn said with a wide grin, “you’re HAPPY to see me?”

 

“Happy?” Xander said reaching out to drag the other man into the apartment. “Are you kidding? You’re alive.  You’re here.  Mere words can not convey how happy I am to see you, Buddy.”

 

He hugged the soldier, slapping his back in manly camaraderie.

 

“If only I’d known how much you cared,” Riley joked after the hug, “I would have written more often.”

 

“No, no,” Xander said shaking his head, “you don’t understand what it’s been like.  Oz left. You left. Giles left. I am the last man standing.  I am totally surrounded by women.”

 

“Sounds harsh,” Riley said with insincere sympathy.

 

“You have NO idea.” Xander shook his head and combed his fingers through his hair before leaning in to confide, “I am so in touch with my feminine side if I don’t close my eyes when I undress I slap myself.”

 

“Who is it, sweetie?” Anya yawned as she entered the room. “And why won’t they just go away?”

 

“I did,” Riley told her. “Now, I’m back.”

 

“Back for good?” Xander asked. “Back to stay?”

 

“I hope so,” Riley nodded. “I have a few things to work out first.”

 

“Have you stopped letting strange vampires bite you?” Anya asked. “Or did they turn you already?”

 

“Ahn! Sweetie? Personal question!”

 

“Well,” his fiancée reasoned, “I don’t think you should start getting all attached to him again if Buffy is just going to have to kill him.”

 

“Buffy,” Harris groaned giving Riley a man-to-man look. “Have you seen her yet?”

 

“No, I just hit town,” the soldier replied. “I came here first to see if I could store my stuff with you.  Not for long, a few days max.  Just while I test my welcome.”

 

“You are more than welcome here, Man, but I don’t know about the rest of Sunnydale,” Xander said shaking his head. “Buffy took your leaving mighty hard and so much has happened…Glory got the good God beaten out of her, Willow and Tara-on the rocks, Anya and I-engaged.  Oh…and Buffy’s Mom died.”

 

“Joyce died?” Riley said with a note of sadness in his voice.

 

“And Buffy!”

 

“Anya!” Xander snapped, shaking his head at her.

 

“And Buffy what?”

 

“Buffy died,” Anya said.  She was oblivious to Xander’s frantic signaling. “She was six feet under pushing up the daisies.”

 

“What are you talking about? Buffy,” Riley choked on the word, “…died?”

 

Anya nodded at the man happy that he finally understood, “Yep, but she’s all better now.” Then she amended with a tiny shrug, “Well, not exactly ALL better…but much less dead.”

 

“Okay,” Riley sounded out the letters of the word like separate syllables while he frowned at the couple, looking first at one and then the other. “You’ve lost me.”

 

“Ahn, has that effect on people,” Xander said hugging his fiancée to him.

 

Riley waited but there was no further explanation forthcoming.  Instead, Xander waved at the sofa.

 

“Hey, make yourself at home while I throw on something a little less comfortable then we’ll get your stuff stowed away.” The carpenter headed for the bedroom to change but called back over his shoulder.  “It really is good to see you, Buddy!”

 

 

The Magic Box doorbell jangled festively as Buffy entered the store a half-hour before sunset that afternoon.  She waved a hello at Anya and headed for the back room.  The ex-demon danced out from behind the cash counter and followed, bouncing along like an eager puppy.  Grinning brightly, she circled the Slayer.

 

“Hi, Buffy,” she chirped.

 

“Uh, Hi!…Again,” Buffy said, slipping out of her jacket.  She tossed the coat across the length of the pommel horse and started stretching.

 

“Someone is staying at our house,” Anya blurted out after a certain amount of high-strung pacing.

 

“Oh,” Buffy said, leaning over to place both palms flat on the floor behind her ankles.  She flexed and stretched her hamstring muscles and then flipped up into a handstand, “Who?”

 

“It’s a secret,” the ex-demon confided. “But…” She lowered her voice and tipped her head to give the upside-down Slayer a knowing look, “I’ll tell you this much…our visitor is a GOOD friend of Xander’s.”

 

“That’s nice…I guess,” Buffy returned when no further clues were given.

 

There was a tiny sound at the far side of the room.  Looking toward the door, the Slayer lost all interest in Anya’s mysterious houseguest.  Spike was leaning against the doorframe.  Duster still swinging, shirt open at the collar, he looked dead sexy.  More so, Buffy thought, than was humanly possible.  The Slayer sprang out of her handstand.  She pushed off with her fingertips, twisted in the air and landed lightly on the balls of her feet, just in front of him. 

 

“Nice balance, Slayer,” the vampire grinned.  His body was twanging pleasantly in response to her proximity.  Buffy could almost hear the resonant hum coming off of him.

 

“Spike,” Anya scolded, “why are you here? It’s still daylight and you’re going to ruin the surprise.”

 

“I came up through the tunnels,” Spike said, pointing vaguely over his shoulder. “Got some news for the Slayer.”

 

“What surprise?” Buffy asked, turning to blink at Xander’s fiancée.

 

“Did I say…surprise?” Anya covered ineptly. “I meant…uhm…sunrise.”

 

“Yeah,” Spike drawled, shooting the ex-demon a sideways look. “’Cause we wouldn’t want me ruinin’ THAT.”

 

“I’ve got to call Xander,” Anya peeped and darted out of the room.

 

Spike watched her scoot through the door and then he shrugged dismissively.  He turned back around to address Buffy, “Well, bit of mystery is always nice but I’m not here for that or the floor show, Pet.  Something’s up.  Sort of an impending doom kinda something.”

 

“Now there’s a surprise,” Buffy returned.

 

“Get your coat,” Spike said. “We need to go talk to a certain vampire business man.”

 

“Vampire’s have businesses?” Buffy inquired, grabbing up her jacket. “Do they have a chamber of commerce, too?”

 

Spike slid his arms around the Slayer’s waist, trapping her between his body and the pommel horse.  He lowered his head to breathe in the scent of her hair.

 

“Oh, we’re an enterprising lot, Pet,” the vampire whispered next to her ear.  Before sucking the lobe into his mouth he added, “You’d be surprised what we’re into!”

 

Leaning into Buffy’s back, Spike ground his hips against her slowly.  He was already rock hard.  His erection pressed into her supple backside as he forced her into erotic contact with the gymnastic equipment.  Buffy’s breathing came raggedly and in a very short time, she took over the lead in the dance.  She increased their tempo, rocking against the stitched leather edge of the horse.  Wrapping her right fist around one wooden pommel, Buffy reached back to fondle Spike with her left hand.  Her palm massaged his outer thigh.  Her fingers tugged at him, gripping his ass and urging him even closer.

 

Spike complied.  He licked and kissed Buffy’s neck, her cheek and the blade of her collarbone.  He ran one hand up under her blouse, pulling at her lace-covered nipples until she whined deep in her throat. 

 

“Uh-uh, Luv,” Spike cautioned, stilling his hand. “You know what that does to me.”

 

“Mmmmhh, yeah,” Buffy sighed, slithering against him as she made the noise again. “Makes you come.”

 

“And what makes you come?”

 

In answer, the Slayer dropped her head back onto his shoulder and let her mouth open slightly.

 

“That’s right,” Spike acknowledged softly, even as he offered her two of his fingers to suck.  His other hand had already taken over friction duty between her legs. 

 

Buffy quivered, her muscles knotting up.  She climaxed, releasing her hold on the vaulting horse.  Spreading her fingers wide, she slammed her palm into the pommel instead of screaming.  The wood cracked lengthwise.  The Slayer’s legs went limp and Spike took her entire weight against his body.  He ran his tongue along her jugular, savoring the salty taste of her skin and the wild pulse in her throat.  Buffy’s silent spasm was similar to the last one before death.  It comforted him.

 

“Oh,” The Slayer breathed out and then again. “Oh…hahk…Mmmmm!”

 

There was a white light.  Buffy floated inside it.  She seemed to be watching from a distance, as she clenched and quaked in Spike’s arms.   Slowly, she spiraled up to the ceiling and then wafted down like a feather to settle into her body again.  Her lover held her close, cradling her.  His cool touch drew her back into reality.  When she felt whole again, Buffy pushed against him and he released her.

 

Spike took his fingers out of his beloved’s mouth and transferred them to his own.  Turning to face him, Buffy watched through starry eyes as he sampled her saliva.  Dazedly, she picked up her jacket, hugging it to her chest.  After the briefest taste, Spike smiled sweetly at her.  Buffy’s mouth started to water as he trailed wet fingers down his torso.  Studying him, she tongued the sharp points of her canine teeth.  They exchanged a searing look.  Gripping Buffy’s shoulders, Spike turned with her so that his back was to the vaulting horse and hers was to the door. 

 

Taking one of the Slayer’s wrists between his thumb and forefinger, he guided her hand to the obvious bulge in his jeans.   Buffy curled her fingers around his arousal, her nails biting into the denim.  Leaning her swimming head against Spike’s chest, still clutching her jacket in one arm, the Slayer rubbed her palm up and down him.  Until he began to shake.  Until his hips twitched uncontrollably.  Until he started breathing.

 

“Want to be inside me?” Buffy asked.  The sound of her voice barely traveled beyond her lips.

 

Spike didn’t reply.  His body had stilled. The Slayer pushed away from him so she could look into his face.  He was frozen to the spot, staring straight ahead and bristling like an angry dog.  Buffy released him and turned her head to follow his gaze.  Her jacket dropped from her suddenly nerveless fingers.

 

“Hello, Buffy,” Riley said with far too much of an intimate inflection.

 

“SURPRISE!” Anya sang out. 

 

Xander, standing at his fiancée’s elbow, wiggled his fingers in greeting.

 

 

Only the Slayer’s razor sharp reflexes kept the scene from turning ugly.  She sensed Spike tensing a second before he sprang.  She shot out her arm in front of him.  With no preamble, she shoved him backward over the horse.  The vampire hit the mat hard.  He started to scramble up and was leveled with a roundhouse kick to the head.  He rolled with the blow, tackling her as soon as he found his feet.  They slid across the floor nearly bowling down the Scoobies.

 

“Be right out,” she yelled at the assembly over Spike’s shoulder. “Almost finished here.”

 

Then she flipped the vampire over her head, popped to her feet and shoved Anya, Xander and Riley bodily back into the shop.  Without further explanation, she slammed the door in their startled faces.  A split second later, something hit the door hard.  There was a loud sputtering of angry voices from the training room and then an intense unintelligible muttering.

 

“Well,” Riley sighed, walking over to the research table and sinking into a chair, “I guess that answers that question.”

 

“What question?”

 

“He’s talking about the thing between Buffy and Spike, Honey,” Anya explained.

 

“Huh?”

 

“The sex thing,” Anya prompted.

 

“And again, Huh?”

 

“Come on,” Riley snorted at the carpenter. “Are you saying you didn’t know?”

 

“Sometimes Xander misses the obvious,” Anya casually commented to the soldier. “But he is a wonderful man in many other respects.”

 

“What thing?” Harris yelped. “There is no thing here?” Then he hesitated and glanced at his fiancée. “Is there a thing?”

 

“Looks like, Sweetie,” Anya said, giving him as small consoling pat on the arm as he too dropped into a chair. 

 

After a pause the ex-demon asked brightly, “Does anyone want a pot of tea?  Giles left tea when he went back to England and he was always suggesting a cup for these awkward moments.”

 

Neither Riley nor Xander wanted tea.  The two men sat at a table, each lost in their own thoughts.  Anya waited on a customer.  Finally, Buffy and Spike came out of the training room.  The vampire didn’t so much as look at the assembled humans.  He locked eyes with the Slayer for several long seconds.  Then he turned and stalked silently to the exit.  The bell jangled wildly as he yanked open the door. With a swish of his duster, Spike disappeared into the night.  Buffy looked after him, wishing she could leave as well.

 

“There’s a THING between YOU and SPIKE?” Xander asked, opening the conversation.

 

Buffy blinked at him, “Huh?”

 

“See?” Xander said, indicating her with one open-palmed hand. “That’s what I said.”

 

“No,” she denied with a frown and quick shake of her head. “It’s just,” she began and then paused, looking after the vampire again.

 

“Just what?” Riley prompted, standing up.

 

“Spike!” Buffy shrugged turning to face her ex. “Always something but really nothing.”

 

“Funny,” Riley commented, “didn’t seem like…’nothing’ from where I was sitting.”

 

Buffy narrowed her eyes at him.

 

Changing the subject and ignoring his insinuation, she challenged, “Why are you here?”

 

“Finished my tour in the jungle,” Riley replied. “Thought I might go back to school.”

 

“That explains why you’re in Sunnydale,” Buffy snapped, “but not why you’re here.”

 

“He came to see if you were still mad at him,” Anya informed the Slayer.

 

Appalled by this candor, Riley looked over at the ex-demon and then, quite suddenly, his expression softened and he laughed.

 

“Okay,” he agreed, his eyes twinkling.  He turned to grin at the Slayer, “That about sums it up.”

 

Buffy also smiled.  She had forgotten how sweet Riley’s disposition was, how comfortable he made her feel.  He was like a buddy.  Maybe this time, she thought, they could just be friends.  No stress, no passion, just a rock-steady milk and cookies kind of male/female interaction.  After months of swinging between the extremes of eroticism, molten surrender and frigid denial, it was nice to feel that sense of non-descript warmth radiating from a man.  The Slayer sighed and relaxed.

 

“I’m sorry, Riley,” she said. “It’s good to see you.  Really it is.”

 

 

Spike stormed through the darkness.  He was pissed.  In fact, he was beyond pissed and well on his way to seriously enraged. 

 

“This is how it is,” he muttered to himself,  “the Captain shows up on her doorstep after all these months and suddenly it’s ‘get lost Spike.  Time for me to play like a good little girl again.  Time to pretend that I don’t shag the undead; that I don’t spend every night in your crypt begging you to make me come.’  Well, if that’s how she wants it…fine. We will see how long he can keep her satisfied, now.  Couldn’t do it before she came back from the dead with her craving for my touch.”

 

But even as he said the words, Spike felt the cold knife of despair in his gut.  It didn’t matter to him that Riley wasn’t man (or monster) enough to hold Buffy’s attention.  What mattered was the Soldier attracted her attention in the first place.  It underlined the fact that Spike was only a convenience.  There to satisfy her lust and nothing more.  It made him feel like a glorified sex toy.

 

Buffy had made it absolutely clear that what she and Spike shared was a guilty secret, confined to the space of a room or a bed.  Never to be spoken out loud.  It riled Spike that she still insisted none of her friends ever learn about them.  And it infuriated him that her circle of  “friends” had just been expanded to include Riley Finn.

 

“Should have killed him years ago,” Spike growled as memories of standing under a tree outside Buffy’s window, listening to her and Riley in bed, came back to haunt him.

 

 “If she lets him touch her…I’ll…I’ll…oh, god….” His voice dwindled away as it came to him that there was nothing he could do. 

 

Spike hated what he had become because of the chip; because of her.  He was powerless against Buffy Summers.  He couldn’t fight his rival.  He couldn’t kill his tormentor.  And he couldn’t leave.  Lord, knows he’d tried to leave her three times over.  It didn’t matter what the Slayer did or how much she hurt him.  Spike would stay.  He would take Buffy back on her terms and give her whatever she needed in the night, even if she went to Riley’s bed in the morning.

 

The pain that accompanied that thought was so devastating that Spike clutched at his chest.  It felt like Finn had staked him again.  He needed a drink.

 

 

After an initial awkwardness and a quick call to Willow to make sure Dawn was safe at home, Riley, Buffy, Xander and Anya went out for an early dinner.  The restaurant they chose was casual and crowded. The talk around the table was general. The Slayer sat opposite the Soldier, stealing Xander’s seat next to Anya.  Riley told them about Central America.  He mentioned the people and the history but glossed over the actual fighting.  Xander and Anya discussed their upcoming wedding.  Buffy was a bit distracted but she managed to ask the right questions and offer up reasonably good answers. 

 

She was concerned about Spike but she didn’t think she would be able to shake Riley off tonight without lengthy explanations.  Xander had his heart set on a movie after dinner but Buffy was worried about the vampire’s mood.  If she blew off his plans for an evening with her ex-lover, Spike just might come looking for her. 

 

Riley was back and Buffy realized quite suddenly that it didn’t matter to her, not in that big emotional turmoil way.  What did matter was that Spike was obviously feeling territorial.  She’d tried to explain why she needed to talk to Riley.  But she doubted Spike had understood. Buffy sighed.  Riley returning was yet another complication in her already over complicated life.

 

Adding to that complication was the fact that Buffy couldn’t help remembering what had happened the last time the three of them were together.  There had been drama and high emotion, much of it beneath the surface.  She had followed Spike into the night, into a vampire nest, and her whole world had collapsed around her.  Spike had taken her to that place out of love.  But, at the time, Buffy had imagined he was motivated by the joy of shaming her and causing her pain.  The fact that she had trusted him to lead her into such a place had made the revelation so much more humiliating.

 

After a brief argument about who was treating whom to dinner, Riley and Xander went off together to pay the bill.  The line at the cash register was long and slow moving.  Anya and Buffy lingered over coffee and dessert.  The Slayer was still preoccupied.  She was trying to think of a way to casually drop by Spike’s place. 

 

“And then what?” she berated herself silently. “Are you going to stay?  Are you going to leave him a Dear Psycho note? ‘Please try to understand that I need to be with the humans right now.  It’s nothing personal, but they can’t know about you and I.’ Yeah,” Buffy mentally scoffed, “That’ll do the trick.  Spike is bound to be reasonable after that!”

 

“So,” Anya said into the long, uncomfortable silence, “what is Spike like in the sack?”

 

Buffy choked on her cappuccino and then gaped as Anya continued speaking.

 

“Vampires are usually so one dimensional,” Anya expounded.  “Like it’s all about the bite.  I know the three I slept with had such oral fixations.  Well, let’s just say, once you got past the aura of brooding mystery there was nothing there.  But Spike looks like he could satisfy a woman on many different levels.  I was wondering if he really does?”

 

She raised an inquiring brow at the Slayer and took a sip of her own coffee.

 

“I…uhm…uh,” Buffy said at a complete loss for words.  She shot a guilty glance across the room at Riley’s back and then hissed, “Why are you asking me?”

 

“Because anyone can see that you and Spike are sleeping together,” Anya replied and then reconsidered. “Well, anyone that ISN’T Xander.”

 

“Any…who? What can they see?” Buffy yelped, totally appalled by this news.

 

“Is this another one of those things that I’m not supposed to ask?”

 

“No,” Buffy began then corrected, “I mean YES! You are not suppose to ask and NO, I don’t know anything about Spike and his…sack!”

 

“Hmmm,” Anya said looking, puzzled for a moment before she leaned in to clarify, “You do know that I’m talking about sex, right?”

 

“Yes, I…you’ve slept with THREE vampires?”

 

“Dracula, as you know,” Anya confirmed, ticking off on her fingers, “Ictratius Galaitus and this redhead at Woodstock…I never really got his name.”

 

“I see,” Buffy gulped.  She looked over at the counter for a minute where Riley and Xander stood in line and then she checked the surrounding tables for eavesdroppers. 

 

She lowered her voice to a whisper before asking, “And…uhm…what was it like? I mean…were they…uhm….” She checked the room again, “Were they…uhm…generously and differently…you know…endowed?  And, uhm…were they,” she breathed out the word, “Inventive?”

 

“Oh, yes,” Anya nodded, smiling at the memory. “Vlad in particular. Lots of stamina, too.”

 

“Yeah,” Buffy sighed, sinking back in her seat.  She shifted a bit in the chair as her body responded to her thoughts.

 

“You ARE having sex with Spike!” Anya grinned, clapping her hands together, well pleased with her deductive abilities.

 

“How do you know I’m not thinking about Angel?”

 

“Are you?” Anya asked guilelessly.  Buffy hesitated, distrust clear on her face.  She glanced toward the men again.  Anya rolled her eyes, “I won’t tell them, if that’s what you’re thinking.  This is girl talk.  Men wouldn’t understand it.  It can be our secret if you want.”

 

The former demon drew a complicated hex sign in the air and then kissed her fingertips before saying, “I promise on the sacred bile of H’dnyalt Org I will never repeat what you say.”

 

Buffy thought about how much she wanted to tell someone her secret.  Someone who would understand.  Someone who wouldn’t judge.  But she had never considered Anya a friend.  Anya was an interloper in the Scoobie Gang, always an outsider.  She had that in common with Spike and Tara.  The bond of friendship existed between Buffy, Willow and Xander.  But the ex-demon was right about one thing…Xander wouldn’t understand.  Willow might have, once, but now she was almost a stranger.  Buffy doubted she would feel comfortable sharing this secret with her Wiccan friend.  Willow was too lost in her own dark temptations.

 

Buffy considered the thousand year old girl for a moment and then asked, “Can a Demon really love someone?”

 

“Well, that’s an offensive question,” Anya sniffed.

 

Then she saw the confusion in the Slayer’s eyes.  Buffy seemed to genuinely need an answer.  The former demon felt a quick rush of sisterhood.  She scooted her chair closer and gave the other woman’s arm a reassuring squeeze.

 

“Well…as you know, there are many different kinds of demons,” Anya explained, “but most of them can and do love.  In fact, statistically, I have cursed very few demon males for cheating, 250 tops.  And several vampires of my acquaintance have mated for life…or afterlife or whatever.”

 

“Really?” Buffy asked obviously stirred in some way by this news.

 

“Oh, yes,” Anya assured her. “Vampires are pack animals.  They’re a lot like wolves.  All about hierarchy and the alpha/omega thing.  Of course, they will have sex with anything that moves.  And the sire bond can complicate things.  But when it comes to true love, vampires are all looking for that special someone.  I suspect that’s the attraction with you.”

 

“I move?” Buffy guessed, making a face.

 

“No,” Anya groaned, giving her new girlfriend a playful poke. “You’re the Alpha Female; the strongest fighter.  It brings on the mating urge in the more powerful vampire males.  And the sex would have to be fantastic, too.  I mean given your stamina and flexibility.  If you had a male to match you in endurance and strength then…”

 

“…it could go on all night,” Buffy finished.  She knew her face was beet red.

 

“And it already has,” Anya guessed, favoring the other woman with a wide knowing grin.  She bounced excitedly in her seat, “So how was he?”

 

“Oh, my God,” Buffy said, forgetting to check the room.  Tipping back her head and closing her eyes, she placed a hand on her breast like a Southern Belle suffering a fit of the vapors,  “You have no idea.  The creativity, the natural talent, I cannot begin to tell you how good he is.”

 

“Best ever?” Anya suggested.

 

Buffy sat up straight and nailed Anya with a meaningful look, “The afterglow can last for DAYS.”

 

They shared a feminine moment.  Anya broke it with another question.

 

“Does he do the purring thing?” she asked.

 

“You mean when he…” Buffy began and cut her eyes to indicate the Ex-Demon’s napkin-draped lap.

 

“When he goes down on you?” Anya encouraged. “Vlad always did the purring thing. It was very memorable.”

 

“Yeah,” Buffy blushed again, “he purrs.  He growls.  He hums.  His tongue is just…amazing.  And I can NOT believe I am telling you all of this.”

 

“You need to tell someone,” Anya said, patting the back of Buffy’s hand.  The Slayer was watching Riley who was staring back at their table as Anya added, “I remember what it was like for me when I first fell in love with Xander.  I had no female friends to share these wonderful new feelings with and…”

 

“LOVE?” Buffy interrupted with a snort, looking down so Riley couldn’t see the word forming on her lips she spoke from the side of her mouth. “I’m not in love with SPIKE! No love, no way.”

 

“But,” Anya looked confused, “you’re having sex with him.”

 

“Well, like you said,” the Slayer muttered, “vampires ‘will have sex with anything that moves’.” She looked up and saw that the men had reached the front of the line at the cash register.

 

“That would explain about Spike,” Anya responded reasonably, “but not about you.  You are not a vampire.  You’re a human being.”

 

Spike’s voice spoke in Buffy’s mind. “You came back wrong…a little less human than you were.”

 

“Humans have recreational sex, too,” Buffy snapped. “Look, the guys will be back any minute, can we just stop talking about this now?”

 

“Yes, but you are more than just human,” Anya pressed. “You’re the Slayer.  It’s different for you.  Vampires and Slayers are natural enemies.  Why would you have sex with one that you didn’t love?”

 

“I said drop it!” The Slayer growled, moving her chair away from Anya and picking up a menu. “I really don’t like talking about this kind of thing, anyway.”

 

“Fine,” The ex-demon said, trying and failing to hide her hurt feelings.  She looked up and spotted Xander and Riley approaching.  Buffy tensed, shooting her a warning look.

 

“Oh, don’t worry,” Anya said, screwing up her face at the Slayer. “Your secret is safe.  I promised not to tell, so I won’t. But if you ask me, you need therapy.”

 

“Therapy for what?” Xander asked, stepping up to the table and into the conversation.  He held up Anya’s coat so she could slip into it.

 

His voice registered concern as he addressed the Slayer, “You still having those nightmares, Buff?”

 

“No,” Buffy replied as Riley offered her own jacket, “I was just telling Ahn about my unnatural fear of Maraschino Cherries.  Ordering a mixed drink breaks me out in cold sweats.  You just never know what the garnish will be.”

 

“Well, the cherry is a deceptive fruit,” Xander said with a suggestive nudge for Riley. Both Anya and Buffy rolled their eyes at the pathetic sexual innuendo.

 

“Stick to martinis,” Riley suggested as the foursome headed for the door, “Olive or onion, either way your safe.”

 

“Straight up tequila,” Buffy remarked, stepping out into the mild California night, “That’s my hard liquor of choice.  No garnish but the worm.”

 

Glowing green eyes watched from the restaurant rooftop as the Slayer and her friends walked off down the street.  The demon followed at a distance, stalking his prey.  When the four friends entered a movie theater, the demon settled down to wait.  He was patient, his kind was known for their patience.

 

 

 

Spike eyed the worm in the bottom of his bottle.  He didn’t like the look of it.  He didn’t much like the look of anything else in the bar either.  Though, there was a brunette at the jukebox who wasn’t completely repulsive.  She had one hip swung out as she considered the selections available for her dollar.  A partially consumed cigarette dangled from her scarlet-tipped fingers.

 

She had walked past Spike on the way to the jukebox, leaving a tantalizing mix of odors in her wake.  Old beer, new smoke and dime-store perfume were all layered over ready sexuality.  The vampire studied her leather clad, extra-curvaceous form.  His eyes assessed her from her ankle-hugging boots and tight skirt, to her chain encrusted jacket and home-dyed, over-sprayed hair.  He knew what she wanted and what she was like.  She was hard but easy.  In the past hundred years, Spike had taken more women like her than he could possibly count.  He had pounded into them, quick and brutal in some dank alley.  Then he had opened up their veins to feed. 

 

He couldn’t have the latter experience anymore, but Spike saw no reason why he couldn’t enjoy the former.  He got up and walked over to help the brunette pick out a song.  Twenty minutes later they were falling out the backdoor, locked around each other.  Slamming her into the bar’s outer wall, Spike hiked up the woman’s skirt.  He tore a hole in her fishnet stockings and slid two fingers deep inside her.   The brunette moaned in response and tightened around him.  He lowered his head to her throat pulling in the rich mix of store bought scents and then, quite suddenly, a good reason not to do this came to him.

 

Spike froze.  He tried to shake off the images in his mind, to let go of the unnatural guilt that was threatening to consume him.  He wanted to embrace the raw pleasure of this moment.  The brunette continued to jack against his hand.  But she was well-used, loose and barely damp.  Spike’s fingers were accustomed to a tighter, slicker, fit.  What had smelled like fun now sickened him with its tawdriness.  Cursing himself and the Slayer, he pulled out of the woman and turned away.  The brunette caught at his arm, first pleading and then adding her own curses to Spike’s as he shook her off and walked resolutely out of the alley.

 

 

 

“Dang, that was a long movie,” Buffy repeated for the fourth time as she rubbed a hand over her hip. “I feel like my sitter is still seated.”

 

“Yeah, but it was so good,” Xander gushed. “I mean those Orcs climbing the walls like that.  Do they do that in real life, Honey?”

 

“There are NO Orcs in real-life, Sweetie,” Anya sighed. “I keep telling you, ‘it’s just a movie.’”

 

“But there are trolls in real life,” Xander reminded his fiancée. “And fiery demons.”

 

“Yeah,” Riley added, “and dwarves and elves.”

 

“There are elves?” Buffy asked with a lift of her eyebrow. “Are they like the little cookie making kind or…”

 

The Scyllain attacked.  It surged out of the darkness, bellowing like a bull elephant, just as the Slayer’s party reached the edge of the cemetery.   Riley stepped into the demon’s path, swinging a wild punch.  The thing swept him aside like a bothersome gnat.  It took aim at Buffy and she met it head on.  They crashed together and were both thrown to the ground by the impact. 

 

Xander moved in stabbing a broken tree branch into the fallen demon.  Riley screamed out an incomprehensible curse, distracting the carpenter at the worst possible moment.  Batting Xander aside, the Scyllain lumbered to its feet.  Once again, it targeted the Slayer. 

 

“Come on, then, you overgrown pine cone,” Buffy snarled, dancing in front of the creature. 

 

She hit it with a flurry of punches and kicks but her blows had no visible effect.  She spun a roundhouse kick at it.  It blocked her foot, twisting her leg up so that she fell hard.   Buffy rolled quickly to her feet and punched into the behemoth’s side as it plowed past her.  It roared its rage and swung a paw that connected with her shoulder.  Two of its talons ripped into Buffy’s flesh.  The force of the impact sent her flying headfirst into a tombstone.  As the human’s watched in impotent dismay the Scyllain bore down on the unmoving Slayer. 

 

“BUFFY!” Xander and Riley screamed in unison, momentarily distracting the demon.

 

Spike came out of his crypt at a dead run.  He had heard the first sounds of the scuffle but hadn’t paid much attention.  If the denizens of Sunnydale wanted to kill each other, Spike figured it was no concern of his.  His own desire to kill was wallowing in the bottom of his third or fourth bottle of scotch.  He’d lost count of the bottles but the sound of the Slayer’s name being yelled out in panic, sobered him instantly.   He moved with preternatural speed, scrambling up his stairs and out the door.

 

Targeting on the Scoobies, the vampire dodged headstones as he raced toward the fallen Slayer and her advancing opponent.  Spike was still clutching his whiskey bottle.   The moment he was in range, he heaved the glass container at the Scyllain.  It struck the beast and shattered spraying alcohol.   Spike followed up the first missile with a second.  His flaming lighter spun through the air.  It landed with deadly accuracy in a puddle of Scotch.  The volatile fluid ignited and the Scyllain went up like an old Christmas tree.  Screaming and beating at itself, the demon staggered away into the night. 

 

Not bothering to confirm the demon’s departure, Spike was already kneeling beside Buffy.  His fingers gently explored her.  He murmured soothing words as he looked for broken bones or serious injury.  The Slayer’s eyes fluttered open.  Slowly, carefully, she sat up.  Spike stroked a hand over her cheek and her nostrils flared.  Too late, he remembered the brunette.  The scent of his indiscretion was still on his skin.  Buffy’s eyes blazed and Spike felt a sick swirl of unaccustomed shame.  He pulled his hand back, wiping it against his shirt.  Silently, he pleaded for his lover’s understanding.  She looked past him to her friends.

 

Riley and Xander shouldered Spike aside.  The vampire let them.  The two men assisted the Slayer to stand.  She wobbled slightly and then found her center.  She didn’t look at Spike.

 

“What the hell was that thing?” Buffy asked, putting a hand to her still spinning head.

 

“Scyllain Demon,” Spike, Anya and Riley all said at once.

 

The vampire turned a suddenly suspicious look on the soldier.  He was wondering how Riley recognized the beast.  It was unlikely that the Initiative had captured a Scyllain.  They were among the upper echelon of earth bound demons.  Not easy to kill or capture because of their hive-like nature. 

 

They could only be killed by killing all parts of them at once.  And they were only whole on rare occasions: during mating or spawning or assimilating.  Parts that were cut off from the whole through capture or serious mutilation would wither and die.  But they would be replaced. Spike was dead certain that the one that had just attacked the Slayer was separated into components.  He knew the fire would wound it but not fatally.

 

“So, how do I kill it?” Buffy asked when nobody volunteered more information.

 

“You don’t,” Riley answered. “It’s me that it’s after.”

 

“Funny,” Spike growled, “it looked like it was after the Slayer.”

 

“Buffy just got in the way,” Riley returned. “I was hoping she would be able to stop it but I see now that I was wrong.  I’m sorry, I should never have come back here.  I should go.”

 

“Yeah, good idea,” Spike nodded in cheerful agreement.  But the Slayer was already moving to Finn’s side.  She placed one hand on his arm to keep him from leaving.

 

“Riley, wait,” Buffy said. “Maybe we can help.  Tell us what happened.  Why this thing is after you?”

 

Riley sighed.  He looked after the creature and then up the road.  His eyes narrowed at the sight of a black SUV parked at the corner.  He turned to stare down at Buffy’s tiny hand, warm against his skin.  He could feel Spike’s jealous glare burning into him.  It almost made him smile. 

 

“We should get inside,” Riley said at last. “Somewhere safe where we can talk.”

 

 

They ended up at the Magic Box, gathered around the research table.  Just like old times, Riley thought, except for the obvious undercurrent of emotion between Buffy and Spike.  No, the soldier mentally conceded, that had always been there, too.  It was just more blatant, now.

 

The Scoobies listened in horror while Riley filled them in on his history with the Scyllain.  He explained how it had targeted his squadron.  How it had waited patiently in the darkness.  How it had consumed them all one by one until Riley was the last man left alive.

 

“You have no idea what it was like,” Riley finished his tale,  “knowing that thing was stalking us.  Nowhere to run or hide.  Just the jungle, endless twisting vines, blazing heat at mid-day, shivering in the cold morning, the sweat and the bugs and the muddy ground sucking at your boots with every step.  The blood freezing in your veins as darkness closed in.   I could sense it circling, moving in the underbrush.  Whenever one of my company fell…the screams…I can still hear them at night.  And the way that it kills…when it touches you…takes you…it gets into your mind, into your body,” he shuddered and sat silent, staring at some hellish inner landscape. 

 

“Tell me!  How, exactly, did you survive this festive party?” Spike asked.  His voice was filled with doubt about the man’s entire story.

 

“I was captured by a group of guerillas,” Riley replied, locking eyes with the Slayer. “I was taken to their camp by helicopter.  I thought I’d escaped from the Scyllain.  But a week later it found me.  It began picking off the native troops.  I told them if I left the area it would follow me.  After a few more deaths they let me take a truck and flee.  I made it to the airport and came back to the States.  That should have been the end of it.  I thought it was until three days ago in L.A. I was passing a store front and I saw it reflected in the glass.”

 

“So you came here,” Buffy said, not quite making it into a question.

 

“Brought that thing straight to the Slayer,” Spike growled.

 

“Hey, back off, Deadboy,” Xander said, leaping to the defense of his friend. “I’m sure Riley was just hoping Buffy would be able to help him kill it.”

 

“And when was he going to tell her?” Spike countered. “After the dinner and dancing?”

 

“Spike,” Buffy warned, staking him with a hostile glare. 

 

She was obviously still angry about the brunette.  Possessive little things, Slayers, Spike thought.  He had never had this sort of problem with Dru.  Of course, his Sire was partial to an occasional brunette herself.

 

“I didn’t mean for it to come after you, Buffy,” Riley was explaining. “I swear I didn’t.  I just wanted to be free of it.  I thought you might scare it away.  Or, failing that, I hoped you could help me destroy it.”

 

“I will,” Buffy assured, leaning across the table to take Riley’s hand.

 

“You and what army?” Spike snorted hoping down off his perch on the stairs and striding toward the Slayer. “Oh, I forgot we have the army here already.  Only it doesn’t seem to be making much of a dent in the Scyllain population now does it?”

 

Buffy surged to her feet.  She whipped around on Spike, “Riley has been through enough already,” she snapped. “If you can’t be civil maybe you should leave.”

 

“Bugger that,” Spike said in a low tone. “I’m not leaving until the Captain here starts telling the truth.  I know a thing or two about Scyllains.  They’re patient, they’re fearless and they’re bloody hard to kill.  That thing won’t stop until Iowa there is dead or it is.  The only way for him to escape is to give it another target.  Something too tempting to resist.”

 

“What are you trying to say, Spike?” Riley growled, standing up.

 

“I’m saying you brought it here hoping it would go for Buffy.”

 

“That’s ridiculous!” Riley asserted before turning pleading eyes on the Slayer. “I told you already, I thought you could stop it.  I didn’t know that it was strong enough to hurt you.  I’m just trying to stay alive. Stay one step ahead of it.  Buffy, you have to believe me.  I would never do anything that would put you in danger.”

 

“Yeah, like risking getting turned by some vamp whore or anything,” Spike said, rolling his eyes.

 

“Look who’s talking,” Xander commented.  Anya made a shushing noise.  Her gaze was locked on the combatants.

 

“At least I never sold her out to the highest bidder,” Riley returned, angrily. “Maybe that’s why your mind automatically goes there…cause it’s what YOU would do.”

 

Spike’s fingers curled into a fist.  He lunged forward swift as a striking cobra, but Buffy was quicker.  Her open palm caught the vampire mid-chest as she stepped between him and her former lover.

 

“Stop it, both of you,” Buffy commanded.  As soon as Spike backed down, she began pacing off her confused feelings. “We can’t waste time pointing fingers.  This thing is here now.  It doesn’t matter why.  We need to find it and kill it.  Anya, Xander, hit the books; see if you can find out how I stop it.  Riley, write down everything you know about it; habits, speed, strength, anything that could help.  Spike, you come with me.”

 

She turned on her heel and stalked toward the basement, confident her orders were being obeyed.  Spike fell into step behind her as she passed him.  Palming on the overhead light as she went, she trotted downstairs.  As soon as Spike closed the door, Buffy turned to confront him.

 

“What the hell is your problem?” she demanded, looking up at him.

 

“My problem?” Spike snarled, sweeping down the steps. “I’m not the one hanging all over my ex.  Buying his bullshit story.”

 

“I’m not buying his story,” Buffy mumbled when he’d joined her at floor level.

 

“Yeah, that’s what I figur…” Spike began and then did a double take. “Uhm…whadya mean you’re NOT buying it?”

 

“It’s just too convenient,” Buffy said, narrowing her eyes and keeping her voice low as she glanced back up at the shop door. “You’re right, Riley’s lying about something.  But I don’t think he wanted the Scyllain to kill me.  He could have run off as soon as it attacked tonight if he wanted that.  He stayed to fight.  No, something else is going on and I need you to find out what it is.”

 

“You want me to beat the truth out of him?” Spike asked. “Love to oblige, Pet.  Give me a headache, of course.  Maybe I could just hold him down while you work him over. I wonder if that would…”

 

“Will you SHUT UP!” Buffy snapped and he fell silent so she could continue. “You remember the vampire businessman you told me about? The case of impending doom? Big scary something in the sewers?”

 

Spike nodded.  “Vamp name of Bailey Conger ran up against some major nasty.  A demon of some kind left him in sad shape.  Whatever it was, it has all of the lowlifes running scared.  I thought we should look into it but…oh…you think it’s the Scyllain?”

 

“What are the odds that there are two horrible, scary things in the sewer?”

 

Spike considered for a moment before shrugging. “Pretty good, I’d say, considering this is Sunnydale.  But from what I heard about this Bailey bugger’s injuries, I’ll buy that’s what got him.  I don’t think a Scyllain can absorb one of my kind but it could do a lot of damage trying.”

 

“Okay, well from what Riley told us about this thing, it’s some sort of touch telepath,” Buffy said. “Do you know if that’s true?”

 

“That’s what I’ve heard,” Spike confirmed, cocking his head. “It gets in the mind and the body.  Absorbs its victims’ life force, completely.  Takes ‘em all in, heart and soul.”

 

“So,” Buffy hypothesized, “if it attacked that Bill Bailey guy, maybe it left a bit of information with him.  Way to its lair, plans for me or Riley, something we can go on to find it and kill it.”

 

“See where you’re heading, Pet,” Spike nodded, “so let’s go.”

 

“No,” Buffy shook her head. “You go! Out through the tunnels.  I should stick close to Riley.”

 

“How close?”

 

“Spike!”

 

“Buffy!” The vampire returned in the same exasperated tone. “We’ve been over this before haven’t we?  Doesn’t matter how secret you keep things. Won’t change what is.  You’re mine, all of you, all the time.  We belong together, Luv.  I don’t like him even being here. Looking at you.  Touching you. Gettin’ ideas.”

 

“Fine,” the Slayer ground out, her eyes blazing, “you don’t like it.  I’ll keep that in mind.  And while we are on the subject, you should make a mental note that I don’t like you picking up whores.”

 

“Didn’t pick her up,” Spike denied, indignantly, “left her right where I found her…or almost.  Weren’t no whore neither.  Just a random skirt in a bar.  And I’d had way too much to drink, Pet.” As he explained away his indiscretion, he favored Buffy with a tiny pout and puppy dog eyes in hopes of softening her anger. “Lost my head.  Felt her up a bit is all.  She wasn’t anything to me, I swear it.”

 

“Oh…oh,” Buffy seethed. “’Cause that is SO much better?”

 

“Better than what?” Spike returned, suddenly angry himself. “Dinner and a movie.  Pretending I’m single when I’m not.  At least, I didn’t tell you to get lost while I chatted her up. I didn’t shag her neither…just touched her and came over all queasy. 

 

Which,” he added, pointing an accusing pair of fingers at her, “is totally your fault!  Can’t get near another woman, now, it seems.  ‘Cause all I want is you...24/7.”

 

Pulling the unresisting Slayer into his arms, Spike lowered his head until his mouth was right next to her ear. 

 

“All I want is to lose myself in you,” he whispered. “No woman alive or undead that can match you, Buffy. You know it’s true. You know I’m yours.” 

 

Buffy snickered and Spike jerked back to glare at her. “You think this is funny?” He demanded.  “I open up, spill out my guts and that gives you a laugh?”

 

“I just had no idea,” Buffy said, fighting for the straight face, “how devoted you are.  How much you’ve suffered for me!  No more one night stands!  Poor thing!”

 

“Fine,” the vampire groused, pushing her away and stalking toward the sewer entrance, “make a joke.  When have my feelings ever mattered to you anyway?  All I am is your convenient errand boy.  So, I’ll just trot off now and fetch you that life or death information.”

 

He bent low to clear the exit and then stopped, looking up and back at her,  “But do me a favor, Luv!  Keep a close eye on your ex.  ‘Cause, funny as you might find it, I don’t fancy burying you again.”

 

That said, he was gone.  Buffy pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger as she wrestled with a headache.  She sat down on the bottom step and dropped her head into her hands.  She didn’t want to go upstairs and face Riley, Anya and Xander.  She wanted to sit and think about her life; about how Spike always managed to turn things around on her.  He was the one who had cheated and now she was the one feeling guilty. 

 

Anya’s earlier comment about vampires and sex came back to her - ‘they will have sex with anything that moves.’   Buffy considered the implications of that statement.  Maybe Spike really was appalled by his sudden stirring toward fidelity.  She had ruined him for other women.  Buffy felt a tingle of satisfaction run through her at the thought.  She heard Spike’s whisper again in her head - ‘all I want is to lose myself in you..’  Buffy knew it was an echo of her own feelings.  All she wanted was her sweet, infuriating Spike…24/7.  Riley’s untimely return had at least clarified that much in the Slayer’s head. 

 

The shop door opened and closed above her.  Buffy felt the steps vibrating to a heavy descending tread.  She turned to see Riley towering over her.  He was massive, blocking out the light from the overhead bulb.  Comparing him to Spike was like comparing a rhino to an alley-cat.  The Slayer wondered how she had ever found such a hulking creature sexually attractive.  Then he smiled and she remembered.  Riley had covered her in bed like a favored blanket.  He was warm, comfortable and plain.

 

“Bet you wish I’d never come back, huh? Better if I died in some jungle?  Less complicated?”

 

Buffy sighed wearily.  So much for comfortable, she thought, standing up to face him.

 

“I would never wish you dead, Riley,” she said. “That’s just… absurd.”

 

“But I did stir things up between you and Spike,” Riley returned, looking around as if he expected to see the vampire lurking. “It’s okay to tell me, Buffy, I know about the two of you.  I’ve known for a long time.”  He looked down at the floor and asked, “Do you want me to go?”

 

“Of course not,” Buffy denied, a touch too sharply. “And you haven’t stirred anything up.  I already told you there is nothing between Spike and I for you to stir.”

 

“Yeah,” Riley nodded, smiling indulgently, “you told me.”

 

“But you don’t believe me?”

 

“I’m not blind,” Riley growled. “I see how you look at him.  And Spike has been after you for a long time.  Even before I left, I knew he wanted you.”

 

“So, what if he does?” Buffy asked, wafting her hand in the general direction of the sewer entrance.  Then pieces clicked into place in her head.  She frowned up at her ex. “Are you saying… Is that why you left?  Because of Spike?  Some sort of…” she made a face, “competition?”

 

“There wasn’t any competition,” Riley said, his mouth turning suddenly ugly as it twisted around the word, “because I had nothing to offer.”

 

“Riley,” Buffy said, stepping towards him, “that’s not true.  You have a lot to offer.  It was just that I….”

 

“Yeah,” he nodded,  “I know.  You needed someone dangerous.”

 

“What?” Buffy blinked at him.  “Why would you even think that?”

 

“Because you’re the Slayer,” Riley answered, “And because you’re you.”

 

Buffy lost it.  Her eyes flashed as she snapped, “So everything I do is about Slaying? I can’t love or be gentle?  I can’t have a normal life.  I am so sick of other people telling me who I am.  What I’m supposed to feel.  I’m just a person like everyone else.  I’m not dark or weird or mysterious and there is nothing wrong with me.”

 

“I didn’t say there was,” Riley soothed. “Maybe it’s not wrong for you at all.  Maybe it’s right for you to crave the demonic.  Maybe that’s what you were made for.”

 

“What the hell is that suppose to mean?” Buffy snorted.

 

“You’ve tasted the evil, Buffy,” Riley explained, with exaggerated patience.  “I know you enjoy it.  When we were together, I wasn’t strong enough to let it crawl beneath my skin.  Spike was right about me.  I wasn’t monster enough to be the long haul guy. You’re a hunter, deadly.  You needed something that…” he sighed, “just wasn’t in my nature.”

 

“Riley,” Buffy said, softening toward him again as she remembered how little she’d given him during their time together.  Her eyes filled with tears as she tried to explain, “It wasn’t you.  It wasn’t anything about you.  I was the one who was shut down inside.  I wasn’t ready to love.”

 

“And are you ready now?” Riley asked.

 

The Slayer considered the question.  Her eyes were drawn to the far corner of the basement where she had last seen Spike.  Was she ready to love someone? 

 

“Spike?”  Riley guessed, reading her mind. “Is he the guy?”

 

Buffy shifted her shoulders, stretching out the tension before she looked back at him.

 

“I don’t think we should talk about this anymore,” she said at last.  “It’s not getting us anywhere.  We should concentrate on finding your demon friend.”

 

“Oh,” Riley said, offhandedly, “he isn’t really that hard to find.”

 

There was a tiny sound overhead, like the distant peel of bells, and then the harsh rumble of booted feet on the floor above.  Buffy had just started for the stairs when someone rattled the doorknob at the top.  Xander called her name and tried the knob again.  Buffy barely had time to register that the door was locked from the inside before she sensed the movement behind her.  Frowning, she half-turned toward Riley.  Her skin crawled with the charge of high voltage but it was too late to react.  There was a bright flash and crackle as a paralyzing surge of electricity sent the Slayer to the floor in a senseless heap.

 

 

Spike ran into unexpected resistance attempting to locate Bailey Conger.  Normally talkative sources fell silent when he questioned them.  Whole barrooms grew quiet when he entered as dangerous demons edged their chairs out of his way.  Finally, after paying three times what the information should have been worth, Spike made his way down into the sewers at the Elm Street entrance.  He counted off the cross tunnels until he reached number six and then followed the damp wall to the left. 

 

He climbed the first metal ladder he came to.  It took him to the basement level of an abandoned apartment building.   Once inside, it was relatively easy to locate the vampire’s nest.  The smell of death was relentless.  There was no one lurking about.  Spike scratched at the plank of plywood Bailey Conger used as a door.  There was a furtive sound, like the scurry of mice on the other side of the panel.

 

“Come on, mate,” Spike said. “I know you’re in there.  Just want to chat is all.”

 

There was an even more violent scurrying in response.  Spike decided to forego the pleasantries.  He smashed his way into the lair.  The smell that assaulted him was nearly incapacitating.  Rotted flesh and other nastier things filled the air with putrescence.  Rats scrambled underfoot.  The floor was littered with rodent carcasses in various degrees of decay.  In the far corner of the tiny room, a bundle of rags was attempting to pass through the solid stonewall.  The bundle made an odd whimpering sound.  Spike’s stomach churned as he focused on the immortal remains of Bailey Conger.

 

“Hey, now,” Spike said gently, “don’t you worry, I ain’t gonna hurt ya’.”

 

The jumble of vampire parts gibbered and twitched and jabbered incoherently as it continued to frantically scrabble at the wall.  Spike crouched down to the thing’s level.  He fished out his last packet of bargaining blood and held it out to the creature.  After several anxious moments, a broken, twisted hand snatched at the packet.  Sickening sucking sounds ensued. 

 

“There you go, nothing to fret about now is there,” Spike soothed.  He let his words take on the melodious chanting rhythm that always calmed Drusilla.  “You had a bit of trouble but you’ll be okay, right as rain real soon.  Heal up again in no time.  Just need a nip of blood in you.  More where that came from, nice and fresh, too.  But I need a little something from you.  Need to make a deal.  Have to tell me something.  Okay?”

 

The creature looked at him with large liquid eyes.  It seemed to be focusing on the sound of his voice.

 

“I need to know about the bugger what did this to you.  Me and the Slayer.  We’ll take care of him good, won’t be back to bother you again, a’right?”

 

“Can’t tell…mustn’t tell…knows you…and Horny, slick honey…he’s watching you,” Bailey Conger whispered, giggling at every pause. “Paid a pretty penny too…can tell you that…all of them pay…I’ve got the goods…can’t put one over on Bailey…cold day in Hell…mighty cold…so cold…coldnowGO AWAY, GO…oh, oh….hurts.”

 

“He’s watching me?” Spike asked, picking out the thread of truth from the creature’s maniacal ravings with practiced ease. “How?”

 

“Through the hole…take a peek…wanna see you have to pay…not you though…partner…we’re partners so you get in free.” Bailey found this bit of information hilarious and laughed until he started choking. “Huh..uhuh…you get in free…always in aren’t you…she’s so rough and ready…always letting you in…”

 

“Buffy?” Spike said, getting a sudden word picture out of the madness. “You mean the Slayer?”

 

“High and mighty Bitch,” Bailey snarled his mood swinging from overtly chummy to the other extreme. “Glad to see her take it up the ass, pay to see that….” The idea struck him as a good one and he confided, “They would pay to see that…Yeah…some would pay quite a lot to see that…quite a show, too…goes on all night…”

 

Spike felt his hackles rising as a horrible certainty struck him.  He tried to keep his voice steady as his fingers curled around the stake in his duster pocket. His slitted eyes flickered with amber sparks.

 

“Yeah,” he agreed in a soft, deadly tone. “She really is something.  So, how much would it cost me to take a peek at this little show of yours?”

 

“Five hundred dollars for a single session, more if you get a multiple,” the businessman recited. “Good chance of a multiple this time of night, too.  They’ll have the music on.”

 

“So, if I pay you,” Spike pressed, “this five hundred, then I can see the Slayer and her vampire lover going at it?  That’s what you’re telling me?”

 

“If you want to call him a vampire,” Bailey chuckled. “More like her whipping boy.  Oh, but I’ll say this…wouldn’t mind whipping him once or twice.  Can’t fault her there…good taste, our filthy little Slayer.  Just look at how hot you are…really hung…too…wouldn’t mind…if…uhm…you and I arranged a little…uh…discountandyou…”

 

The pederast vampire peered at Spike and then started scrambling at the wall again.

 

“You,” he whimpered. “It is you. Trying to trick me…just like he did…lying…not fair…pretending to be someone…someone else.”

 

“The Scyllain?” Spike said, tired of going easy on this lowlife. “It tricked you?  It paid to see this show and it tricked you?  Hurt you?  How?  What happened?  Did you see into its head?”

 

Bailey continued his mindless rant and Spike lost all patience.

 

“Talk to me you miserable, Poof,” he growled, grabbing hold of the bundle and shaking it hard, “or I will introduce you to a whole new level of pain.”

 

Bailey screeched like a peacock in the night.  Spike flinched from the high piercing noise, dropping the little bag of vamp bones he yanked out his stake.

 

“Scyllain?” Spike barked, pressing the wooden point of his weapon down into the rags where he imagined Bailey’s heart to be. “What do you know about it? Where can I find it?”

 

“Hurts…hurts…” Bailey mumbled.  Spike couldn’t tell if that was in response to his questions or his actions.  He eased off a bit on the stake, just in case. The ruined vampire stared at the weapon.  It appeared to have hypnotized him.

 

“Talk,” Spike whispered, lowering the stake and trying another tack, “or I’ll take you to see my lady.”

 

“I’ve seen her,” Bailey said calmly.  He grimaced in a way that might have been suggestive if he’d had more of a face to work with. “He’s seen her too.  Not your lady…anyways…that’s what he says…that’s why he came…came back…came to get what’s his!”

 

“What?” Spike asked.  Genuinely puzzled, he sat back on his haunches as he considered this tidbit of information.

 

“Told me he was going to kill you,” Bailey confided, “for touching her.  Said he promised you he would.”

 

“The Scyllain told you that?”

 

Icy fingers clawed into Spike’s chest as the words took him back to his last meeting with Riley Finn.  “You’re sure?  It wasn’t a Soldier?”

 

“Soldier,” Bailey confirmed nodding his head like a marionette. “Out of the jungle and into the beast.  Hung like a horse.”

 

The shattered little vampire shrieked, then, high and long.  He screamed and flailed about for some time.  Patiently, Spike waited him out.  It took far too long, but he managed to ease the remains of Bailey’s fragile mind back on topic.  And before he reduced the offensive creature to ashes, Spike pieced together a coherent story from his ramblings. 

 

The Scyllain had paid, more than once, to see he and Buffy together.  It had its lair in the old Initiative caves.  The beast was prolific, massive and deadly.  It had a large hive with soldiers and “fat girls” and other frightening parts of the whole.  It was interested in the Slayer; focused on her.  But not as an alternative to Riley Finn.  Buffy, it seemed, had been right about that.  Her ex had no intention of offering her up as a sacrificial lamb.   His intentions weren’t any where near that pleasant.

 

It took Spike less than five minutes to find a phone.  The owner of the cell offered only token objection when the vampire snatched it out of his hand.  He was more concerned with his life and the door of his new Lexus.  The latter was lying in the street, Spike having removed it from the car on his way to the phone.

 

There was no answer at the Magic Shop.  Spike tried the Summer’s House.  Dawn hadn’t seen Buffy or Riley but she told him Willow was on her way to see Xander at the shop.  After exacting a promise from Niblet to stay indoors and away from Riley, the vampire dialed the Magic Box again.   Willow picked up on the tenth ring.  Spike was just about to hang up when she came on the line.

 

“He-hel-hello?” she said shakily.

 

“Let me talk to the Slayer,” Spike growled.

 

“Sp-i-Spike?” Willow asked obviously shaken.

 

“Yes, it’s me!” the vampire snapped.  “Now put the bloody Slayer on the phone!”

 

“The Slayer isn’t here,” a gruff masculine voice cut in. “Who is this? What’s your position?”

 

Spike cursed into the phone.  He was already moving, trotting toward the U.C. Sunnydale Campus, when Willow spoke again.

 

“Spike,” she said, interrupting his colorful string of profanity. “The army is here.  Buffy’s been kidnapped and something…something terrible has happened to Riley.”

 

“Not as terrible as what is going to happen to him,” Spike said, firmly.

 

“But,” Willow began.  She was talking to a dial tone. “I thought you didn’t know where Buffy was,” she finished.

 

The redhead looked at the phone for a minute, and then hung it back on the wall cradle.  She turned to glance across at Xander and Anya.  The couple was seated at the research table along with four men in combat fatigues.  There were other men covering each of the exits with automatic weapons.

 

“Do we have a position on that caller?” the officer standing next to Willow asked a seated man with a headset on.

 

“Triangulating sir,” the soldier muttered, tweaking a dial. “Cell phone.  Still on him.  Got it.”

 

He plotted out the coordinates on a topographical map of the region.  Then looked up at his commander with fear filled eyes. 

 

“He’s heading for Sector 28, sir,” he said, swallowing down a lump in his throat the size of a radish. “The Initiative.”

 

 

The Slayer awoke to a serious case of déjà vu.  She was in a catacomb of some kind, chained to a wall and staring into a familiar face.  Only the face had changed.  It was no longer pale and gaunt.  It was full-cheeked and tanned.  Not the face of a svelte vampire but that of a hulking soldier.

 

“Riley?” the Slayer frowned in confusion. “Wha-what happened?  What’s going on?”

 

“Nothing,” Riley shrugged, “I just wanted to talk to you, Buffy.  Alone!”

 

“And this?” she said rattling her chains. “This is your idea of alone time?  Dragging me off to a cave and shackling me to a wall?”

 

“No,” Riley conceded, “I just thought you might like it this way.”

 

“Like it? LIKE IT?” Buffy yelped.  She was beside herself at the very idea. “What is WITH you people and chaining me up? If you would check the ‘All Slayers’ issue of Playboy, you would see that ‘chaining me up’ is NOT listed as one of my turn-ons.”

 

She slammed her manacled wrists into the wall, fisting her hands around the interconnected links of the restraints, “I mean, whatever happened to saying it with flowers?”

 

“Flowers are for ordinary girls,” Riley responded, in an all-too-reasonable tone of voice. “Come on, Buffy.  You know you like it rough!”

 

“No, NO! I do not,” Buffy assured him, shaking her head. “I like it…non…rough.”

 

“Funny, that’s not what Spike tells me.”

 

“Spike!” Buffy said, turning beet red. “You talked to Spike about this?”

 

“Yeah,” Riley confirmed. “He said you like it rough, dangerous. A little monster in your man.”

 

Buffy rolled her eyes to the Heavens as she growled. “Oh, he is such a dead man.”

 

“You’ve got that part right,” Riley nodded, pulling a wooden stake from his inner pocket and giving it a practiced twirl.  Buffy felt an icy fear touch her heart, slide down her spine and settle in her groin as she watched him play with the weapon.

 

“What did you do?” she whispered, barely choking out the question. “What have you done to him?”

 

“Relax,” Riley snorted, highly amused by her fear.  He tossed the stake to the floor at her feet. “He’s still walking around, somewhere…not breathing!”  He leaned in close to the Slayer and added, “At least until we get done here.”

 

Riley’s eyes were cold, emotionless and inhuman.  Buffy shuddered and looked away.  Then she suddenly recognized the place.  It was, it must be, Adam’s old lair.  It had that governmentally certified decorator touch.  Plus, it was a complete weirdo’s retreat; rotting sofa, lab tables, burnt out remains of computer terminals and jittery overhead lighting. 

 

Riley backed away from her and then crossed to the nearest metal exam table.  There was a red and black duffle on it.  He unzipped a pocket on the side of the bag and pulled out a couple of compact discs.   Then he upended the luggage.  A wave of nausea swept over the Slayer as an assortment of sex toys and weaponry clattered out of the bag.  Taking in the torturous array of equipment, Buffy comforted herself with the thought that Riley Finn wasn’t capable of sexually assaulting her.   He was human.  She was the Slayer.  It was as simple as that.

 

“Of course,” Buffy amended mentally, “he does have me chained up and lots of sharp things…so…advantage psycho!”

 

“Riley,” she said, doing her best to sound friendly, “why are you doing this?  This isn’t like you.  Just let me go and I promise we can talk about whatever you want. We’ll just sit here and talk.”

 

“Like we always TALKED before,” Riley said as he started picking out various implements; nipple clamps, a serious vibrator and a tiny acetylene torch. “You never came to me…you would always go to him.  How do you think that made me feel?  My own girlfriend thinks I’m less important than some half-breed, vampire scum?  Having you in my bed and then being ignored?  Spike…he knew…I should have known too.”

 

“You’re right,” Buffy agreed, “I was wrong…so wrong.  The way I treated you.  I tried to tell you that night you left.  I tried to catch you before the helicopter took off.”

 

“What kind of a fool do you think I am?” Riley snarled, striding toward her with a whip in his hand.

 

“No kind,” Buffy hastily soothed. “I just wanted to tell you that, I understand I was the one in the wrong.  I never meant to shut you out.  It was just that…”

 

“I wasn’t MONSTER enough for you!”  He said, cracking the whip just to the left of Buffy’s face stirring her hair.  The Slayer didn’t even flinch.

 

“No, NO! Riley, listen to me. Spike is so off base about that.”

 

“Yeah,” the soldier laughed, bitterly, “he’s off base alright…he’s all the way home!”

 

“What? What are you talking about?”

 

“I’ve seen you with him, Buffy,” Riley explained with exaggerated patience.

 

Coming over to stand in front of the Slayer, he raked her with a scathing glare.  Buffy felt naked before him, exposed and dirty. 

 

“You’ve seen…” she began her cheeks glowing with embarrassment. “When?  How?”

 

“Oh, didn’t you know?” Riley sneered. “They sell tickets!  Five hundred dollars a pop, to watch you do…” His voice broke and faded away as he looked back at the table full of instruments, “…what you do…”

 

“What I do,” Buffy thought feeling nauseous. “What I do with Spike.  People have been watching us. Paying to watch us…like a freak show…or Internet porn.”

 

Her mind played back a series of violent, erotic images.  Flesh meeting flesh, or leather or stone, torn clothing and skin, the sweating, the screaming, and the blood.  How could anyone watching possibly understand what it all meant?  How could she ever explain what it felt like to be the Slayer, and wrong and right…with Spike?  

 

They did things together, to each other that were shocking.  Buffy had never imagined, could never imagine, doing such things with anyone else.  She had injured him for the pleasure it gave her, and then taken him into her body.  Let him spill his seed into her mouth, into her womb and into her blood.  She had fed and coupled with his demon.  She had sodomized Spike and been sodomized by him.  He had tied her up and Buffy had, in fact, enjoyed it. 

 

Because Spike tied her up to revel in her power, not to diminish it.  And that made all the difference.  He didn’t want to break her.  He didn’t want to see her humbled.  Spike loved her strength.  He gloried in it.  It made him hard and hungry.  Buffy could match him, strike for strike, cutting word for cutting word and passion for passion.  And he loved her for it.  Spike was in awe of her but not because she was the Slayer.  He loved the lost child in her too and the confused embittered woman.  He loved her warmth and wit.  That love, of all she was inside and out, was what Buffy found so irresistible.  It was what brought her back to his crypt night after night, yearning, pleading for his touch.

 

“I won’t call it ‘making love’ because it isn’t THAT…is it?” Riley was saying when Buffy tuned back in, “What does he call it?…Shagging?…but HEY!  Why don’t we just call it what it is?”

 

He turned suddenly and screamed into her face, “FUCKING AN ANIMAL!”  And then he laughed like the mad man he’d become.

 

The hot wave of shame that had washed through the Slayer evaporated into inhuman rage.  She flexed her wrist and felt the cold iron give somewhere above her.

 

“You don’t know what the HELL you are talking about?” she snapped, heedless of her imminent danger. “Spike isn’t an animal.  He loves me.  More than you ever did.  Better than you ever could.”

 

Buffy knew it was true.  Everything she and Spike did together was for her pleasure.  He never meant to hurt her, much.  He only struck when she craved it.  It was true that Spike had taken her violently, biting at her, bruising her and shafting into her.  Buffy understood and shared in the need for conflict.  He could be savage when meeting her own brutality, fist first.  When they fought there was no quarter asked or given. 

 

But, at the same time, Spike could be so very tender.  As soon and as often as she needed him to be.  Penetrating quick and shallow or deep and slow, he would love her; kiss her, his lips gentle on hers, his tongue smooth as silk.  He murmured sweet nothings into her hair even as he screwed the stuffing out of her.

 

Afterwards, he would look into her eyes, as they drifted in sated contentment and sigh or smile.  They laughed together, solved problems together and his face when he entered her was always filled with wonderment.  That expression of bliss and the way he swiveled his hips, caressing her g-spot with a languid stroke, were two of Buffy’s favorite things in the world.  Both of them made her feel like her bones were melting. 

 

“I just don’t know which one of you is sicker,” Riley said calmly as he placed the whip back on the table and picked up a wicked looking scimitar, “But I’m willing to bet we find out it’s you.”

 

He used the tip of the sword to push a button on the computer console.  To Buffy’s astonishment, the action had an immediate effect.  A CD tray slid out and Riley dropped in a disc.  He tapped the drawer closed and music began pulsing through the room.  It was a simplistic melody over a bombastic rhythm.  Buffy didn’t recognize the song or the boy band but the two-part harmonizing seemed to make her situation instantly worse.

 

END PART TWO

 

PART THREE

 

 

 

Cutting cross-country, over rooftops and down back alleys, Spike reached the edge of the Sunnydale campus in record time.  He broke into the open of the inter-mural fields and headed for the tree line where nature took over from civilization.  He was stepping onto the last blacktop when the Sport Utility Vehicles cut him off.  Tires squealed and high beam headlights were trained on the vampire from three sides.  Spike heard doors popping open and the click of firearms being leveled.  The only escape available was a full retreat and he had no intention of taking it.

 

“Bloody fuckin’ hell,” Spike screamed, his whole body tensing for a migraine-inducing charge. “Out of my way or I slaughter the lot of you.” 

 

“Spike don’t,” Xander ordered from the back of one of the vehicles. “They’re here to help.”

 

The vampire whipped around, peering in the direction of the man’s voice.  He couldn’t see anything beyond the bright lights and tinted windows.  “Harris?  What is this?  I haven’t got time to jack around playing capture the castle with these wankers.”

 

Xander didn’t answer.  Dozens of vaguely human-shaped shadows poured out of the SUV’s.   Spike was surrounded by the sound of booted feet and the rattled of weapons being primed.  He moved nervously.  Coiled tight, he paced the lighted confine like a cornered leopard.  Three men stepped into the arc of headlight beams.  One of them was Harris.  The second one was obviously in command.  But it was the third man that caught and held Spike’s attention.  He was achingly familiar.  They stopped just inside the circle of vehicles and waited for the vampire to approach. 

 

“Must be a soddin’ Boy Scouts’ Jamboree in town,” Spike commented. “Up to our eyeballs in the merit badge winners.”

 

“Hostile Seventeen,” Graham nodded, cordially.

 

“G.I. Jane,” Spike returned, nodding back.

 

There was a stirring in the darkness as a few of the soldiers took exception to the vampire’s snide remarks.  Graham flashed a small, tight, barely amused smile.  He was all military spit and polish.  First in line to the commander, Spike figured, and not easily ruffled.

 

“Graham,” the Commander barked, shifting the stub of his cigar to the corner of his mouth, “get on with it.”

 

“You know where he has her?”

 

“Yeah,” Spike confirmed. “You know what it is?”

 

“Sub Terrestrial A-Class Hive Entity,” Graham replied. “Very nasty.”

 

“Scyllain!” Spike corrected.  “And too right about the nasty.”

 

“What’s he going to do to Buffy?” Xander asked.  He was anxiously hovering about on the edge of the conversation.  He looked at Spike for his answer. “He wouldn’t…I mean, RILEY…wouldn’t hurt her.”

 

“Finn’s dead,” the Commander returned not even glancing at the civilian.  His comments were intended for the troops. “I want that understood.  He never came out of the jungle in Belize.”

 

“Not how it works,” Spike said with a quick shake of the head.  “Not with the Scyllains.  He’s in there somewhere.  Mad as a March hare and tied up inside the whole of the thing but still self-aware.  He’ll know your weaknesses.”

 

“He’ll know yours, too,” Graham returned.

 

“I only got the one.”

 

“We can help you,” Graham urged. “Help you get her out alive.  If,” he stressed the word, “you can lead us to them.”

 

Spike narrowed his eyes at the man.  Then he turned to stare into the distance for a minute, considering the offer.  He mentally weighed his chances of survival if he simply broke for the trees.

 

“This is your patch,” he stalled. “Government? Initiative? Why you need me?”

 

“We don’t,” Graham conceded, “but you could make it easier to find them. Quicker!  All of the detailed maps of this area are classified; we can’t access them in time.  We’d have to use heat sensors and feel our way.”

 

“And you could take them there before things turned nasty,” Xander added, waving his hands for emphasis. “You know, Spike? Buffy in the mortal jeopardy?”

 

Spike shot an unreadable look at the carpenter and then shifted into a more upright and relaxed stance.  The vampire bobbed his chin at Riley Finn’s army buddy.

 

“You got a flame-thrower?” he asked.

 

“Two!”

 

“Watch where you point them,” Spike warned.

 

Graham took it as acceptance.  He stepped back and nodded at the Commander.

 

“Unit two, fall in,” the officer ordered over his shoulder. “Tanner, lock and load. Graham, hold here with Unit one. Wait thirty minutes for my signal then advance. You,” He snarled at Spike, “take point.”

 

“What about me?” Xander asked, stepping forward.

 

“You stay here,” Spike and the Commander said together.

 

“Like hell,” Xander returned.  “Buffy is my friend.  And I got her into this.  I encouraged her to spend time with Riley.  I let him stay at my house and…”

 

“You had no way of knowing what he was,” the Commander excused, softening slightly in the face of the other man’s emotions. “Don’t blame yourself, Son.”

 

“The best way to help is to just stay out of our way,” Graham advised.  “This is our job and we know how to do it.  You go in, you’ll only get hurt.”

 

“I can handle mysel…” Xander started and then yelped as Spike grabbed him hard by the arm and hustled him to one side.

 

“Stay here,” the vampire hissed. “I need you outside with the second group.”

 

“Why?”

 

“Because if we fail,” Spike whispered, leaning in close, “they have orders to put a bullet through the Slayer’s head.”

 

“Wha…h-how?” Xander stuttered, jerking back.  He lowered his voice and demanded. “How do you know that?”

 

“Vampires have good ears,” Spike replied, sotto voce.  “You need to get to Red.”

 

Xander turned to glance back at the car where Willow and Anya were waiting under guard.

 

“Okay, then what?”

 

“Have her cast a protection spell around Buffy.”

 

“Willow’s sworn off magic,” Xander reminded.

 

“I don’t give a damn if she’s taken the bloody oath on her Mother’s soul,” Spike snarled. “She’s casting that spell or you are going to have to contact Tara.  I don’t care which witch you use but you make damned sure that someone slaps the mojo on My Girl.” He paused to check for eavesdroppers and then added, “Because if that thing has its way with her we’re all as good as dead.”

 

“Huh?”

 

“She’s the SLAYER you soddin’ git,” Spike growled. “Think what kind of power boost she’ll give that Scyllain when he takes her in.”

 

“You mean…” Xander frowned, as understanding dawned.

 

“Yeah,” Spike said, giving the man the raised eyebrow encouragement, “Now you’re getting it.”

 

 Xander used his hands to illustrate the connection as he put it all together, “That thing will have Buffy’s strength AND ….”

 

“…all of the punch it already has,” Spike confirmed.  “It means to mate with Buffy and then assimilate her into the hive.  That’s why Riley’s here.  It’s not all about broken hearts, ships passing in the soddin’ night and what shoulda/coulda been. It’s about power.  Because Scyllain plus Slayer equals….”

 

“…so long Sunnydale?” Xander guessed.  Spike nodded and the young man gulped.  He looked over his shoulder again toward the SUV with the girls.  His jaw set in determination. “Okay, I’m on it.”

 

Spike gave his arm a manly slap as they parted but, after only a few steps, Xander turned back and called out to him.

 

 “Spike?”

 

“Yeah?” Spike said, shifting impatiently at the far edge of the light.

 

“You won’t,” Xander hesitated, unsure how to phrase his question. “You won’t…let him hurt her?”

 

“No,” Spike said, simply, and then he stepped back blending into the darkness. 

 

Xander listened to the crackle of men entering the woods.  He waited until all he could hear was the rumble of the SUV engines around him and then he went to see Willow.

 

 

 

“Love and other moments are just chemical reactions in your brain

And feelings of aggression are the absence of the love drug in your veins, in your veins.

Love come quickly

Because I feel my self-esteem is caving in

It’s on the brink

Love come quickly

‘Cause I don’t think I can keep this monster in.

It’s in my skin.”

 

The music was beginning to get on Buffy’s last nerve.   It was the same song, over and over…and over…programmed to endlessly repeat.   The insanity of that coupled with the pinch and pain of Riley’s actions was having a numbing effect on the Slayer’s mind.  He was kneeling in front of her, using a sharp knife to strip off her jeans.  Occasionally, he nicked her flesh.  Buffy tried to think of something else…

 

“…I’m gunning down romance.  It never did a thing for me, but heartache and misery.  Ain’t nothing but a tragedy…”

 

…it was hopeless.

 

“Can you at least change the damn song?” she snarled, as Riley stood up.

 

He tilted his head, as if trying to understand her words.  He looked for all the world like a rabid dog struggling to recall a loved master.  Buffy prayed she could reach him.  Riley hadn’t really hurt her yet.  Though he had bruised her ribs with a hard punch after he’d tried to kiss her.  His cheek was bleeding from the attempt.  He had cut off Buffy’s air so she would open her mouth but he’d gotten too close to her teeth. 

 

The Slayer watched her ex warily as he circled her.  Every time he turned away, she twisted at her left wrist chain.  She was certain now that the links were giving way near the ceiling.

 

Riley stepped in close to her again.  Turning the blade of his knife up, he slid it along her throat.  It left a hair-thin line of crimson in its wake.  Flicking the tip of his weapon down, he sliced diagonally across the front of her blouse, exposing one taut breast.  He licked her and then laid the blade flat against her nipple.  Buffy instinctively shrank from his touch.  Then she took herself in hand, stilling her body and mind as he fondled her again.

 

“Who is this band anyway?” she asked, conversationally, “I want to never buy their CD.”

 

Riley pulled back and slapped her, all his weight behind the swing.  Buffy moved with the blow but didn’t acknowledge it beyond the motion.  Her unraveling ex stalked to the lab table and hefted his scimitar again.  Turning suddenly, he pointed it at her heart.  She smiled at him, daring him to strike.

 

“You know you really should have paid more attention to Momma Walsh in Psyche 101. It’s not the size of a man’s sword that matters it’s….”

 

There was a movement in the shadows and Buffy’s taunt died in her throat as the Scyllain demon shuffled into the room.  It was naked just as it had been in the cemetery but this time it was obviously aroused.  Its masculine equipment was no longer shielded by its carapace.  The Slayer felt suddenly light-headed as she privately admitted that size could play a factor in the equation after all.  Riley followed the direction of her wide-eyed gaze.

 

“Oh, no,” he said, shaking his head. “We had a deal.”

 

Stepping away from Buffy, he impatiently snapped off the CD player.  Then he turned to confront the Scyllain directly.

 

“It’s not time,” he insisted, negligently tossing his sword onto the table, “I’m not finished here.”

 

“They are coming,” the Scyllain chorused. “It is time.”

 

“No,” Riley whined, stomping one foot like a petulant child. “You said I could have her first.”

 

“They are coming,” the many-throated beast, repeated, “we must not be whole when they arrive. We must take her now.”

 

“But you promised….”

 

The Scyllain reached out one taloned paw and lifted Riley’s chin forcing his downcast eyes up.  Buffy was amazed at the gentleness of the hideous thing.  Its touch was tender as it played with a lock of Riley’s hair. 

 

“She is resistant,” the Scyllain said, its many voices soft as the stirring of fallen leaves, “and there is no time.  We must be one now before they come.  When they arrive we must be separate again.  Come inside and experience her surrender with us.”

 

“Come inside,” someone repeated from the far corner of the room.

 

Buffy jerked her head toward the new voice.  A soldier came out of one of the tunnels.  He was African-American, six feet tall and remarkably fit.  He stripped off his clothing as he walked.  Six more uniformed men trailed into the room from the surrounding passageways and then a diminutive girl who was apparently of Asian descent. 

 

“Come inside,” they chanted as one. 

 

Riley was chanting, too.  As Buffy watched in horror, her former lover embraced the Scyllain demon, sliding erotically against the green prickly body of the thing.  The demon tore away Riley’s clothing.  It entered him.  Riley’s flesh parted before the Scyllain’s thrust as it pulled him into its body.  All the way into its body until there was no Riley left.  Buffy’s stomach heaved.

 

The others were surging forward, surrounding the Scyllain, stroking it and each other.  They writhed together.  Their limbs tangled, male and female parts melting, merging like some hellish orgy scene.  The demon bulged and shifted to accommodate the others within its body.  Its gelatinous flesh flowed viscously, engulfing the individual hive members, until only the Scyllain remained.  It shrank back into its original shape, but it seemed denser, more menacing.  Its skin rippled with anticipation as it turned to study the bound Slayer.  Its fanged maw opened to address her.

 

“You will come inside,” it commanded in its hive tongue.

 

 

“I’m just saying I don’t think I can do this,” Xander whispered.

 

“Of course you can, Sweetie,” Anya returned.  “You raised that pointy-chinned demon.  This will be much easier.  All we need is a handful of Motherwort.”

 

“And it looks like this?” Xander said, indicating the tiny drawing on his palm.

 

“With pink or white flowers,” Willow reminded, “not purple ones.”

 

“How am I suppose to see the flower color in the dark?”

 

“Or we can just forget the whole thing,” Willow snapped, rubbing her damp hands against her thighs. “I can’t believe you even asked me to do a spell after all of the lectures I’ve listened to from you.  I mean aren’t you the one always saying…‘Why do you have to use magic, Willow?’ or ‘Isn’t there an old-fashioned, normal way to do that?’”

 

“We only want what’s best for you Willow.”

 

“Oh, yeah,” Willow nodded, “of course, everybody only wants the best for me…as long as it’s convenient for YOU.  But then when you want to stop the bullets…you don’t want to do things the,” she air-quoted, “‘normal way’ then do you?  I’m supposed to whip up a spell for you no questions asked, right?  And then…poof…I am suppose to just go back to being regular, everyday, old-fashioned Willow again…la, la, la!”

 

“Okay, okay,” Xander sighed, making shushing motions with both palms.  “Enough with the la, la, la’s.  I’m just saying…what if I mess up?  Say the wrong words or pick the wrong flower? Buffy’s head explodes or something?”

 

“Probably that won’t happen,” Willow said.

 

“PROBABLY?”

 

“We should be quieter,” Anya hissed as a soldier walked by the window. “And,” she said turning to look Xander in the eye, “we should think about how we are all going to be dead soon if you don’t do this spell.”

 

“Right,” Xander nodded. “I’m Spell Guy…off to find my Mother’s Mole.”

 

“Motherwort,” Anya and Willow said together.

 

 

 

The demon shuffled forward, slow and relentless as a glacier’s march to the sea.  Buffy shifted away from it, pulling on her weakening chain.  A bone deep chill washed through her as it approached.  She wasn’t afraid to die but she was afraid of the half-life this demon offered.  Buffy didn’t think she could stand being enslaved to another being for ten minutes let alone for the next thousand years.  She, also, didn’t think she was going to be given a choice in the matter.  She was staked out, spread-eagle, and totally defenseless against this demon.

 

The Scyllain touched her bare stomach.  Its palm was uncomfortably hot.  It slid its taloned paw along her flesh.  Simultaneously, it sliced into the Slayer’s mind, assaulting her with a hundred random thoughts.  She sensed Riley in the multitude.  His jumbled thoughts centered on impressing her.  There was a blonde girl dreaming of a marriage that would never be.  And another girl, bitter and alone even in the midst of the hive mind.  There were soldiers, still fighting endless battles.  Men plotting strategy and men raving aimlessly. 

 

There were dozens of lost souls in the Scyllain’s hive.  Each of them had a voice.  But all of them were enslaved under one master.  All of them screamed out their desperation in Buffy’s head.  It was psychically devastating.  But the insanity was also liberating.  The Slayer found herself wanting to let go of her independent identity, to be one of the many.  To be freed of responsibility for her action, tormented and yet somehow unburdened.  The hive invited her inside.  She was overwhelmed.  Unguarded impressions slammed into her like fists.  She screamed in rage and agony, flailing against her restraints.  The Scyllain held her tight, dragging her close as it pressed its engorged phallus against her.

 

 

There was a gentle tap at the door.  Willow checked for guards and then eased the latch open to let Xander back inside the car.  The carpenter was festooned in greenery.  Twigs and leaves decorated his black hair and bunches of flowers peeked out of his jacket pockets.

 

“What’s all this?”

 

“Flowers, herbs,” Xander said as he began dumping vegetation on the car seat. “All I could find.  The right one must be here somewhere.

 

“I drew you a picture of the right one.”

 

“Yeah,” Xander nodded, “small problem…it’s dark out there.”  He held up his palm, “Couldn’t see well enough to read your notes.”

 

“This is hopeless,” Willow groaned, as she contemplated the abundance of the wild salad.

 

“No, look,” Xander disagreed. “I got every plant in a three block radius.  If it’s out there, it’s in here. What about this one?  It’s pink!”

 

“That’s periwinkle,” Anya said.

 

Xander frowned at the little flower, “Are you sure?   It doesn’t look periwinkle to me…more like a mauve?”

 

“That’s the name of the flower, Sweetie,” Anya sighed, exchanging a pained glance with Willow. 

 

“You’re kidding me,” Xander said, also looking to Willow.

 

His friend gave him a tight smile and nod, “That’s what we call it in the big ol’ magic workin’ circles,” she said.

 

 

 

Buffy’s enraged scream echoed in the labyrinth of tunnels.  Spike broke into a run, headless of the soldiers following behind him.  He charged into Adam’s old lair, snarling up his game face as he ran.  Barely checking his speed, he targeted the Slayer’s attacker.  Leaping to the top of a metal table, the vampire pushed off.  He tackled the Scyllain at shoulder height.

 

Wrapping himself around the other demon’s body, Spike gripped its head in both hands.  He twisted the creature’s neck around, letting his forward momentum carry them both away from Buffy.  They toppled sideways into the computer console.  The offensive music skipped and squealed into life again.  Buffy blinked dazedly as the din in her head died away, replaced by a purely auditory assault. 

 

She brought the room into focus.  A squadron of soldiers was pouring out of one of the converging tunnels.  They took up offensive positions.  Unslinging and readying an array of weapons, the newcomers targeted the battling demons. 

 

“Spike,” the word formed on Buffy’s lips as she noticed her lover for the first time.

 

The vampire was horribly outclassed.  He looked like a tiger trying to take down an elephant.  He worried at the Scyllain, clawing and biting at it.  Snarling and spitting, he scrambled about.  Time and again he avoided the behemoth’s crushing paws by millimeters. 

 

A soldier maneuvered close and shot a blaze of fire at the Scyllain.  His shot went wild, spraying flames across a wide area.  Spike sprang away from the fight to avoid being burned.  He slipped, stumbled and the green demon caught him a terrible blow to the head.  The vampire somersaulted.  He landed flat on his back on the floor between Buffy’s shackled feet.  Momentarily disoriented, Spike looked up at his beloved and his face shifted back to human form. 

 

The Scyllain finally deigned to notice the menacing soldiers.  It roared out a challenge.  The various pinecone-like bristles on its body swelled and popped up so that it seemed three times as large.  Then the appendages exploded outward.  Separating from the parent demon, they twisted and expanded in the air.  At least two-dozen men and women emerged from the demon’s scattered seeds, as each swollen bristle became an individual hive member.  They sprang up around the chamber as if they’d been sown from dragons’ teeth and rushed into combat.

 

The hive members were naked, unarmed and virtually unstoppable. Buffy saw one of them take a bullet in the face.  The injury didn’t even slow its attack.  The Scyllain turned away from the battle.  It continued its remorseless shuffle toward Spike and Buffy.  Pausing at the torture table, it picked up Riley’s sword. 

 

“Spike, get up, now,” Buffy cried.  “Come on, Luv, snap out of it!”

 

The vampire frowned at her, puzzled.  He was fairly certain that he hadn’t heard her correctly.  He rolled over onto his hands and knees.  His head hung low and he shook it as he struggled for clarity.  He tried to stand, failed and tried again. Using the Slayer’s body as a crutch, Spike levered himself to his feet.  His back was to the advancing demon. 

 

Beginning to panic, Buffy swung against her weakened chain.  Spike reached up to help her, adding his own strength to hers.  The metal links groaned and buckled and finally parted.   The sudden and unexpected shift in resistance sent Spike stumbling to one side and Buffy spinning to the other.  Only her tethered legs kept her from whirling like a top around her other chained wrist.

 

“Well, THIS is a big improvement,” the Slayer groused, struggling to turn back toward the Scyllain. 

 

She had no traction; no way to turn herself around.  But her current position allowed her a perfect view of the rest of the battle.  Unfortunately, there was no chance of help from that direction.  The friendly soldiers, quite obviously, had their hands full with the Scyllain’s hive.  Flamethrowers blazed and edged weapons sliced into flesh as the Slayer looked on, impotently. 

 

Completely frustrated by her helpless situation, Buffy swayed her body to build up momentum.  She tried to lunge up and grasp her still solid chain.  Cool hands gripped her waist, lifting her.  Spike had her.  She caught hold of the links above her wrist and used that tension to turn her body.  She was opening her mouth to say thanks when she caught sight of the Scyllain.  The demon was a foot away, raising its sword to slice the vampire in two.

 

“Spike,” she yelped, “look out.”

 

As if her thoughts were his, the vampire moved even as Buffy spoke.  He dropped and rolled backward.  Slipping under the Scyllain’s strike, he hit it mid-calf.  It overbalanced, compensated and came on again.  Spike scrambled clear but then suddenly froze his attention captured by something on the floor near the pile of Riley’s discarded clothes.  He lunged back toward the demon, putting himself in the direct line of its sword.  He scooped whatever he’d seen off the floor even as the behemoth’s blade guillotined down toward him. 

 

Using her broken chain like a whip, Buffy lashed out.  She captured the Scyllain’s blade in her snaking links and with a flick of her wrist sent the sword flying.  Turning on the Slayer, the green demon bellowed again as it surged forward.  Spike’s growl was almost as fearsome as he went back on the offensive.  He stepped between Buffy and the beast.

 

“I’m only going to tell you this once,” Spike rumbled, as he flashed his fangs. “You stay the Hell away from my woman.”

 

Lifting his knee high, he took his rival full in the crotch.  The force of the blow staggered the other demon.  Spike danced back as it fell forward.  Balancing on the balls of his feet, the vampire spun a roundhouse kick at the Scyllain’s head.  Connecting, he sent the behemoth to the mat.  Spike came out of the spin tight up against the Slayer’s body.  Leaning in, he dropped his hand along her free arm and slipped a small metal object into her palm.  Buffy’s eyes widened as her fingers recognized the shape in her hand as a key.  Riley must have dropped it when he merged with the Scyllain.

 

“About to get my ass seriously kicked, Pet,” Spike said close to her ear. “So as soon as you’re not so tied up….”

 

The Scyllain surged to its feet.  Spike ducked as the beast hurled itself at him.   He kicked out backward and shoulder rolled to the right.  Coming to his feet, Spike scampered sideways.  As he’d hoped, the Scyllain followed him, leaving Buffy to escape.  The vampire couldn’t help thinking about Bailey Conger as he scrambled to stay out of the Scyllain’s clutches.  Though he was reluctant to touch the thing, he moved in closer.  Thrusting up under the green demon’s elbow, he twisted its arm behind its shoulder.   Using the Scyllain’s own weight against it, Spike spun it head first into the pillar next to Buffy.  The behemoth left an impact crater in the concrete but didn’t go down. 

 

A stray bullet whizzed past the Slayer’s head.  She stayed low as she used the key to remove her restraints.  She tried to keep one eye on her embattled suitors as she worked.  Moving far quicker than Buffy thought possible, the Scyllain whipped around on the vampire.  Spike tried to get out of range but he wasn’t fast enough.  The Scyllain landed a brutal punch to the small of the vampire’s back.  Spike’s knees buckled.  He fell forward and the other demon dragged him upright.  It lifted him up by his hair and threw him halfway across the room.  Spike launched himself back into the fray as soon as he skidded to a stop.

 

Buffy unlocked her leg restraints, kicking free of the chains.  The overhead lights were swaying wildly, creating a strobe-like effect in the room as Buffy scrambled to her feet.  She assessed the situation.  There were bodies everywhere, dead and dying.  The Slayer and the Scyllain appeared to be the last two living things standing. Only Spike was still fighting.  But he was staggering drunkenly, obviously tiring. 

 

If she was going to help him, Buffy needed fire or an edged weapon.   With the hive members slaughtered, the Scyllain was momentarily whole; she had to kill it before it divided again.  There were three knives on the torture table but nothing large enough to disembowel the huge demon.  Buffy snatched up the knives, anyway.  She fired them off in quick succession as she scanned the floor for something deadlier.  The Scyllain barely twitched when the blades penetrated its flesh.  It had Spike again.  It lifted him overhead and hurled him to the ground.  Then it bent low to retrieve a shaft of broken wood from the floor.

 

The Slayer spotted what she needed just as the Scyllain turned Spike over and heaved him onto the computer console, exposing the vampire’s chest to the stake.   Calling on every ounce of her Slayer instinct, Buffy turned her back on her lover’s danger.  She dashed toward the center of the room and the Scyllain’s fallen scimitar.  Behind her the creature morphed into Riley’s form.

 

“I told you, before,” the Riley-shape said to Spike. “I told you if you touched her we would do this for real.”

 

“And, now, I’m telling YOU,” Spike snarled back, “Touch her and I’ll be on your bloody welcoming committee in hell.”

 

The stake fell.  It hit the floor and rolled away.  Spike looked into Riley’s eyes.  It was hard to say which of them was more surprised.  Then Riley looked down at his chest.  Six inches of cold steel protruded from his heart.  As he watched the blade ripped through his torso in a jagged circle, spilling the Scyllain’s guts to the floor.  Riley toppled sideways and Spike found himself facing the Slayer.  She gripped her bloody sword in a shaking hand.

 

“Buffy?” the remains of her former lover spoke and she knelt beside him.

 

“Riley?” she said, softly.  She brushed the sandy brown hair back out of his eyes with her free hand.  He blinked up at her, trying to focus.

 

“See,” Riley said with a small smile as his eyes misted over, “you don’t need…anyone.” 

 

He choked and blood trickled from the corner of his mouth as the spark of life faded from his face. 

 

The Slayer looked down at her sword.  Gagging on a curse, she threw the weapon away from her.  She watched as the Scyllain demon consumed Riley Finn for the final time.  Demonic green flesh crawled over his human features, burying them in the monster.  Buffy covered her own face with her hands.  She pulled herself into a tight ball beside the dead thing. 

 

Spike frowned, not sure what was expected of him.  He looked from the fallen demon to the woman he loved.  Finally, he wandered over to retrieve a jacket from one of the many bodies.   There was a stirring in the cavern.  People coming.  Spike walked back and placed the garment around the Slayer’s shoulder.  She didn’t react.  He reached out a hand brushing over her hair.  Buffy jerked violently away from him.

 

“Luv?” he questioned.

 

She raised her head to pierce him with her stare.  It wasn’t Buffy, looking out at him.  It was the Slayer.  Her eyes were cold and hard and glinted like diamonds.  Spike fell back a step as she rose up, filling the room with her primordial power.  She was bruised and bloodstained but unbowed.  Her tattered near nakedness seemed natural, primitive and splendid. 

 

“You stay away from me,” she ground out in a low dangerous tone. 

 

Spike shook his head.

 

“Won’t,” he said with suicidal stubbornness.  His eyes softened as he amended, “You know I can’t!”

 

“Don’t you get it?” the Slayer snarled, every muscle in her body coiled tight. “Don’t you understand? You…are…a VAMPIRE…A DEMON!”

 

She pointed a shaking finger at the body on the floor. “This!” she said, her tone measured, “This is what I do to demons.  This is what happens to my boyfriends.  They love me.  They turn evil.  And I KILL them.” 

 

Without warning, she sprang, snatching up Riley’s fallen stake.  She slammed into Spike, carrying him into the wall. Caught totally off guard, the vampire stumbled back, hitting his head hard.  He started to black out, sliding into oblivion he struggled to focus on her.  Buffy wrenched him to his feet, pressing her weapon into his chest.  A blood red rose bloomed under her point.  Her eyes were icy, flat, and totally emotionless when she spoke again.

 

“Angelus dead.  Riley dead.  Spike dead.  Do you understand me?” she asked, shaking him for emphasis. “I am the Slayer.  I kill your kind.  I slay.  You die.  You…Spike…are GOING to die by this hand.”

 

A bullet slammed into her and bounced harmlessly away as Xander’s protection spell kicked in.

 

“Hold your fire,” Graham barked. “She’s killed it.”  He couldn’t say how he knew that the deadly thing before him wasn’t Scyllain in nature. 

 

Buffy turned her cold gaze on the newcomers.  Graham was at the head of a second battalion of soldiers.  They surveyed the carnage and the tiny half-naked blonde at the center of it.  She glared at the commandos dispassionately for several long moments and then negligently tossed Spike aside.  His head struck the floor and he lay still, a heap of black leather.  The Slayer picked up her borrowed jacket and stalked toward the exit.  Graham’s men hesitated, looking to their leader for guidance, and then at his signal parted before her.

 

 

PART FOUR

 

 

Xander and Willow and Anya cheered as the news of Buffy’s victory came over the radio.  The carpenter pointed excitedly to his little pile of Motherwort.  He accepted the praise that was his due, and then joined in the rush to the cavern mouth to wait for the Slayer’s triumphant arrival.

 

The Scoobies fell back in confusion when Buffy finally appeared.  She was alone and she pushed blindly past them, deaf to their congratulations.  They called out to her but she didn’t stop walking.  Buffy was barely aware of their existence.  She was having trouble concentrating.  There was a buzzing sound in her head and she couldn’t remember where it was that she wanted to go.  Picking a direction, she headed toward the rising sun.  Her three friends trailed behind her.

 

Somehow she made it home.  The trip was a blur of bright colors and harsh sounds.  People stared at her and shouted but they didn’t touch her.  They didn’t dare.  Buffy felt like she had died and been torn from the grave all over again.  The world seemed alien and remote and horribly empty to her.  Nothing made sense; nothing mattered. Her sister and Tara greeted her at the door. They were brimming over with questions. 

 

Buffy mumbled out the news that Riley was dead.  She turned away from any words of consolation.  It all seemed meaningless to her.  Xander, Willow and Anya arrived but had nothing more to add.  Caught in a waking nightmare, the Slayer numbly climbed the stairs to her room, stripping off the remains of her street clothes as she went.  She put on her pajamas.  She crawled into bed.  Three days later she was still there.

 

The gang tried together and separately to snap her out of it.  She wasn’t catatonic.  She was simply unresponsive, uncaring.  Her wounds bled into the pajamas and sheets.  The blood dried into a caked mess but Buffy didn’t care.  She curled into a tight ball in the center of the bed and stared at the far wall.

 

Xander joked.  Willow cajoled.  Tara pampered.  Anya demanded.  Dawn pleaded with and threatened her by turns.  Buffy remained impassive, giving one word, automatic answers.  She would eat a few bites of whatever was placed before her.  If they ignored her she went hungry.  She only got up to go to the bathroom, shuffling lifelessly along the hallway.  Her body healed itself, but her spirit didn’t.  There was talk of doctors and potions and phone calls to England.  Finally, late on the third day, Xander went to see Spike.

 

 

 

At first, Xander thought the crypt was empty.  It was dark and still and smelled damp.  He called out but received no answer.  A flickering of light led him to the basement level opening.  He peered down the steps, calling again before descending.  There were three or four candles burning low, barely offsetting the gloom.  Spike was sitting in his red chair, right leg thrown over the arm.  He had a cigarette in one hand and a bottle of whiskey in the other.  He took turns dragging on each.  He didn’t bother to acknowledge his visitor.

 

“You know as a vampire I wouldn’t think you would be quite so free with the flammables.” Xander opened the conversation. “I mean, one trip to dreamland and you’re toast.”

 

“Appreciate the public service announcement,” Spike mumbled. “Now push off.”

 

The vampire was battered and drunk and just as impassive as Buffy.  He didn’t appear to be listening as Xander stutter through the explanation of why he’d come.  Spike didn’t seem to care at all. 

 

Xander started to get angry.  “Look,” he snapped, “are you going to help us get Buffy back or not?”

 

Spike took a long pull on his bottle and then asked, “Is she eating?”

 

“Yeah, if we watch her.”

 

“So,” Spike shrugged, “go watch her.”

 

“Is that all you have to say?" Xander ranted.  "I can't believe this.  I thought you cared about her.  Guess that undead devotion of yours was just talk?  Jokes on me, right? Should've known….”

 

“She told me to stay away," Spike growled, sloshing his whiskey. "And I’m staying.” 

 

He took another drink.  Xander threw his hands into the air.  Cursing, he headed for the vampire’s wooden stairs.  With one foot on the bottom rung, he paused.  Turning slowly, he looked around the room, really seeing it for the first time.  It wasn’t a stereotypical vampire lair.  It was civilized, almost a home.  He transferred his appraising stare to Spike, noting the polished look of him, the jewelry, the cotton dress shirt and the naturally curled hair.

 

“This…all this,” Xander said, softly, his broad gesture taking in the many changes in Spike’s mode of existence. “It's for her, isn't it?  For Buffy?”

 

Spike shrugged again but he met the man’s eye for a brief second and the look was all Xander needed to, finally, accept the truth.  Random pieces clicked into place; whispered phrases, meaningful glances, exercising vampires.  Buffy and Spike were lovers.  She stayed here, in the night, in this crypt, and in that bed.  The carpenter sighed.  He wasn’t angry and that was probably the scariest thing of all.

 

“How long?” he asked.

 

“Couple months.”

 

“And you had a fight, I’m guessing?”

 

“Something like that.”

 

“Over Riley?”

 

The vampire sighed but nodded. 

 

“What?" Xander frowned, working on the puzzle.  "Was it you? You killed him…or?” A horrible thought hit Xander mid-chest and he choked out his next question. “He didn’t…didn’t hurt her…touch her?”

 

Spike started to nod again but seeing the man’s horrified face he snorted.  He shook his head, sadly, “No…not the way you mean, Harris.  Call yourself her friend and you don’t know a bloody thing about her.  She’s not some delicate flower.  Far from it.  So, if you’re lookin’ to play the hero, find some other damsel.  You got no idea what this is about.”

 

“Then tell me,” Xander shouted.  “What is wrong with Buffy?  With you?  Why won’t you tell me what the hell is going on?”

 

“Because it’s none of your damned business!” Spike yelled back, swinging his leg to the floor so he was sitting up straight.  “What the Slayer and I do in private?  That’s between us.” His voice dropped to a mutter and he looked at the floor as he amended, “Long as I don’t hurt her.” He glanced up, challengingly, “And I don’t!”

 

“She’s hurting now,” Xander returned.

 

Spike winced.  He closed his eyes and let his head drop against the back of the chair, sighing again in exasperation.  His jaw clenched tight for a minute as conflicting passions played over his face.  Xander thought the vampire was considering violence.  He was.  With a strangled oath, Spike stood up and heaved his bottle across the room.  It shattered against the far wall, spraying glass and alcohol.  He spun around to glare at Buffy’s friend.  Xander held his ground and after a tension filled minute or two, Spike backed down.

 

“Right,” the vampire nodded, his shoulders sagging in defeat as the fight left his body. “Helping, then.  You go get Dawn and the rest of the soddin’ Suffragettes out of the house.  I’ll see what I can do.”

 

“Good man,” Xander grinned. “Give me an hour and I’ll give you some alone time with the Buffster.  You’ll have all night to get through to her.”

 

“Not promising you anything,” Spike grumbled. “She can be an unreasonable little scuffler when she wants to be.  Probably dust me for my trouble.”

 

“Hey! Talk about your win-win situation,” Xander teased, as he headed for the stairs.

 

Spike shot him a killing glance but the young man was already gone.

 

 

 

Buffy woke up sometime after nine.  She stumbled to the bathroom, her sock-covered feet making no sound on the carpeting.  Passing by the sink, she caught sight of her reflection in the mirror and paused.  The woman looking back at her was a stranger, bleak-eyed and hollow-faced.  Her hair was tangled, dull and lifeless.  Her nose was red and felt stuffy.  Buffy thought she looked exactly like what she was, a woman with a dead past and no future.

 

She ran a glass of water.  After the first small sip, her stomach cramped up and she stumbled to the toilet.  When the dry heaving stopped, she fumbled her way back to the washbasin.  She wiped her mouth, put the washcloth back on the rod and then stood numbly facing the mirror. 

 

She sensed him at the door but didn't turn as he crossed to stand behind her.  He had no reflection.  Buffy saw no reason to acknowledge him.  After a long pause, Spike leaned against the edge of the vanity.  The antique piece groaned, shifting under his weight.  He studied Buffy as she studied herself.  They stared.  The vampire at the woman he loved and the Slayer at the stranger in her mirror.  Finally, Spike spoke.  Characteristically, he came straight to the point.

 

“So, what you’re saying,” he said, “is that I’m your boyfriend.”

 

“What I’m saying,” she corrected, still not turning to look at him, “is that I want you to leave me alone.”

 

“Now we both know that’s never going to happen,” he replied, reaching out his hand to touch her shoulder. “Buffy…” he began.

 

“This isn’t up for discussion,” she stated, without any inflection.  Turning, she headed for the door.

 

“No, it isn’t,” Spike snapped, grabbing her arm and spinning her around to face him. “I’ve listened to enough of your lectures to last me a lifetime and now it’s time for YOU to listen to one of mine.”

 

Buffy didn’t struggle or strike out at him, she just stood there impassively waiting for him to say his piece and go away.  It made Spike angrier with her than he had ever been.  It made him reckless.

 

“You think I don’t know this is wrong?” he asked, giving her a hard shake. “You think I don’t know what you are?  You’re the SLAYER, Buffy.  How could I ever forget?  When you touch me my skin burns.  I kiss you and I taste my own ashes in your mouth.  I’m not the one who doesn’t understand.  The one who won’t accept the truth.  I know that you will be the death of me.  I know it.”

 

He lifted a limp strand of hair from her face with his fingers as he continued, “But it doesn’t matter to me.  It can't matter.  All that matters is the time between now and then.  This time we have together.”

 

Spike lowered his head to look into her downcast eyes as he whispered, “Don’t you understand, Luv?  This is as close to Heaven as I will ever come.  Isn’t death the price that I’m suppose to pay for that?”

 

The Slayer was crying, sobbing out her pain.  She sank weak-kneed toward the floor and Spike caught her.  He wrapped her in his arms.  Kneeling close, he held her as she wept away all her sorrow.  It took a long, long time but finally she rested quietly against his shoulder.  Holding her upright, Spike leaned back to look at his love.  Buffy was a wreck; every ounce of vitality had drained out of her with her tears.  He searched her face for some sign that she was past the worst of it.  There was nothing in her hollow eyes but an echo of the seemingly empty room.  He helped her to stand and guided her over to the commode.  Using his knee, Spike lowered the toilet lid and then turned Buffy around.  He sat her down on the closed seat.  Then he plucked a handful of tissues from the box on the back of the toilet and handed them to her.

 

“Blow your nose,” he said gently. 

 

Buffy did as he asked.  Spike went back to the sink.  He dampened a washcloth and brought it to her.

 

“Wipe your face,” he said.  Buffy looked at the cloth in his hands and then at the crumbled tissues she was holding. 

 

After too long a pause, she let the soggy bundle drop out of her grasp into the wastebasket beside her.  Spike put the washcloth into her open palms and closed her fingers around it.  She moved slowly, like a sleepwalker, as if her mind wasn’t in sync with her body, but she moved. 

 

Spike returned to the sink and ran water into a tall plastic tumbler.  Leaning forward, he sniffed briefly over the four toothbrushes in the rack, and then unerringly plucked the Slayer’s pink one from the group.  When Buffy was done scrubbing her face he exchanged the glass for her washrag and told her to drink.  He put a dab of toothpaste on the brush and traded it for Buffy’s water glass. Then he led her to the washstand.

 

“Brush, Swish, Spit,” he ordered.  Setting the tumbler where she could reach it, he left the room. 

 

Spike walked down the hall to the Slayer’s bedroom.  He entered and went to her closet.  It only took a moment for him to locate Buffy’s terry cloth robe.  He came back to the bathroom and draped the robe from a hook behind the door.  He hesitated and then shrugged off his duster, tossing it onto the vanity table.  Buffy spat into the sink and paused staring blankly for a long beat before turning on the water to rinse out the basin.

 

Spike went back down the hall to the Wiccan room.  He rummaged about for a several minutes in Willow’s bureau and dresser, gathering up items.  He waited until after he heard the toilet flush to return.  Buffy was perched on the closed seat again.  Spike thought she looked slightly more present in her body. 

 

He dropped his load of Wiccan paraphernalia into the sink.  Buffy stared sightlessly at the bundles of herbs and the three boxes of votive candles as Spike crossed to the linen closet.  He took out towels and sheets, setting the stack by his duster before turning toward the tub.  He hit the bath stopper toggle and twisted the taps until the hot water sprayed full blast.  He paced to the sink, gathered his herbs and returned to the bath.  Buffy looked on impassively as he began crushing sweet flowers under the running water.

 

The room filled with fragrance and the Slayer stirred, glancing down at her pajama top.  With unsteady fingers, she began to undress.  When Spike turned around again she was naked.  Her flesh bore the faint scars of their recent battle.  But the thin lined knife cuts and colorful bruises failed to mar her beauty.  Spike stood looking at her for several ticks of the clock, his emotions unreadable.  Then he gave a small start, like a man coming awake after briefly nodding off.  He blinked at Buffy and jerked his head to indicate the steaming tub of herbal tea.

 

“Get in, then,” he said, gruffly, as he skirted around her.  He hefted the stack of sheets and slipped out the door, once again.

 

The bath water smelled heavenly.  Buffy stepped over the rim of the tub and sank down into the green/brown heat.  She leaned back and let the fragrant water rise to her chin.  Sighing, she closed her eyes.  She listened to Spike go into her room.  Heard him knocking about and then heard him sweep down the stairs, his step light and quick.  Twenty minutes later, she heard him coming back, his tread slow and soft. 

 

He turned off the light as he entered and moved about in the dark, making tiny mysterious noises but never approaching her or speaking. She felt a faint stir of curiosity and opened her eyes.  The bathroom was lit by the flickering candlelight of two-dozen votives.  Spike had stripped off his shirt.  He was removing his boots when he noticed her watching.  He finished the task and picked up a mug from the back of the toilet.

 

Wearing only his jeans, he padded over to her and handed her the cup.  "Drink this," he said.  It was full of warm, sweet chamomile tea.  Buffy took a small, tentative sip and then a longer one. 

 

Spike brought over a plate of cut fruit and strips of meat.  He kneeled beside the tub and fed her tiny bites.  Buffy let the simple tasks of chewing and swallowing take on ritual importance.  She closed her eyes again, tilting her head back as she opened her mouth to Spike’s offering.  He placed a slice of apple on her tongue like a priest presenting a communion wafer.  Buffy took of the body and ate.

 

When she’d had her fill, Spike sat the plate aside.  He rose and went to the sink to fetch the washcloth and plastic glass.  Then he returned to his spot at the side of the tub.  With slow, practiced strokes the vampire bathed the Slayer.  It was a sensual experience rather than a sexual one.  Buffy kept her eyes shut, tuning out the visual in favor of her other senses.  She savored the feel of the hot water and knobby cloth on her skin, the gentle swish and splash of ablution, the smell of lavender and lemon balm and ylang-ylang.  The sickness began to leech out of her spirit.

 

“Dunk,” Spike advised a bit later. 

 

Taking a deep breath, Buffy slid beneath the surface of the water.  Sightless, she floated in the womb-like warmth, nearly weightless, nearly soundless, until her lungs began to burn.   Spike watched her, counting off the seconds in his head.  His fingers curled into fists and his nails cut into his palms as he fought against the urge to save his beloved, to reach in and pull her up into the air.  Panic hit him just as Buffy rose from the water, gasping.  Spike was gasping too.

 

“Not so long next time, Pet,” the vampire admonished. “Nearly started my bloody heart beating again.”

 

“Nice,” Buffy said, favoring him with the briefest of smiles.  Spike didn’t ask if she was referring to the bath, the air, himself and his nearly beating heart or, in fact, to something else entirely.  It was enough that she was responsive again.

 

“Right then, on to phase three,” he said, standing up to peel off his jeans.

 

“What happened to phase two?” Buffy asked, taking in his naked form.

 

 Spike motioned her to scoot forward and make room for him in tub.

 

“Phase two was the bath,” he replied, slipping into the water.  The Slayer sucked in air to speak and Spike quickly added, “And phase one was everything before the bath.”

 

“Oh!”

 

Buffy leaned back into her lover’s cool body.  Spike slid his arms around her waist and pulled her closer.  He was hard against her hip but Buffy knew he didn’t mean anything by it.  It wasn’t suggestive or lascivious.  It was simply arithmetic. Buffy plus naked equals Spike hard.  Doing the math gave her a tiny thrill. 

 

The water had reached an uncomfortable coolness.  Spike used his toes to flick the drain open for a few minutes and then leaned forward with Buffy in his arms and added more hot.  The Slayer agitated her legs a bit to spread the warmth.  She tried to lie back into Spike again but the vampire held her off.  He was sitting up straight and rummaging over the side of the tub.  He came up with the plastic water glass.  Filling it, he dumped a flume over the Slayer’s head.

 

“Time for your shampoo, Poodle,” he said.

 

“More sexual than sensual,” Buffy thought as Spike’s fingertips worked the thick lather through her hair. 

 

He massaged her scalp, swirling gently one moment and scrubbing vigorously the next.  He pulled her wet tresses into fanciful soapy styles.  He swept the hair up off of her neck for a time and then brought it back down, twirling it around her ears.  Under Spike’s hands, the shampoo took on a life of its own.  Tentacles of foam caressed Buffy’s skin as they slid down her neck and over her breasts. 

 

Spike’s hands followed the shampoo’s lead.  He trailed his fingers over the Slayer from her nape, to her collarbone to the raised peak of her nipples.  He tugged at her gently.  Then he leaned in snaking his left arm around Buffy’s belly as he circled his flattened right palm over the slick globe and hard knot of her left breast.  He kissed the soft hollow of her throat.

 

She moaned and pressed back into him.  Spike pushed her forward into her raised knees, his cock jumping against the soft curve of her hip.  He reached down between the Slayer’s legs, and her heart skipped and fluttered.  But all he did was fumble up his plastic tumbler from the bottom of the tub.  He used it to pour water over the both of them.  Again and again, he doused them.  Until the Slayer’s hair was squeaky clean.

 

She tilted her head back to kiss him turning onto her side, and then coming up onto her knees.  They stood up together, bodies intertwined.  Hands running smooth over wet skin, mouths tasting and murmuring nonsense, pushing toward the inevitable, until Spike, quite suddenly, jerked away. 

 

He wasn’t going to let this happen again.  He swore he wouldn't.  Not this time.  He wasn’t going to let Buffy lose herself in him, taking easy comfort in sex.  Reaching past the Slayer, he started the bath draining.  Then with a brutal twist of his wrist, he turned on the shower, full on cold.  The spray blasted them, washing away the last traces of soap and the lustiness of the mood. 

 

Buffy squeaked and jumped.  She stood shivering under the icy deluge, pushing her limits, testing how long she could tolerate the discomfort.  Spike climbed out of the tub but she remained.  Her skin prickled into goosebumps and her teeth began to chatter.  Finally, when she started to turn blue around the lips, Spike turned off the taps.  Shuddering, Buffy hugged herself for warmth as the last of the frigid water drained away.

 

“B-b-bracing,” she stammered.  Snorting softly, the naked vampire lowered his head, shaking it from side to side before looking up at her.

 

“Yeah, you can take a lot of cold,” he commented, enigmatically, as he handed her a towel. 

 

Stepping out of the tub, Buffy rubbed the feeling back into her skin.  As she squeezed the moisture from her hair, Spike padded over to the door and fetched back her robe.  He wrapped his beloved in the warm cloth and then he lifted her into his arms.  She was incredibly light.  It made his gut twist up and his manhood stir to life again.  Buffy Summers, his heart’s own Slayer, was a mystery of bruising strength and delicate femininity.  He loved confronting the combination. 

 

Spike carried Buffy over the bathroom threshold and down the hall to her bedroom.  The bed was newly made.  He placed her on top of the covers.  She curled up and he turned away from her, going to the window to shutter it.  He returned to her, carrying a blanket.  He joined her in the bed, spreading the warm cloth over them both.  They lay side-by-side.  The vampire spooned around the Slayer’s robed form, cradling her head on his arm.  Buffy stared at the far wall.  She drifted on a cloud of sublime peace and security.  She was safe.  She was loved.  She was home.

 

Minutes passed silently into hours.  The sun rose.

 

“Yes,” Buffy whispered as the first rays of light touched the windows.

 

“Yes, what, Luv?” Spike murmured into her hair.  He was half-asleep.

 

She pushed her shoulder back, forcing him to shift his position as she rolled over to face him.  Buffy’s robe fell open as she dropped one warm leg over Spike’s cold naked thigh.  Blinking, the vampire came instantly and completely awake.

 

“Yes,” Buffy repeated, holding his gaze, “that IS what I’m saying…you are,” she continued, reaching out to touch his lower lip, “most definitely, my boyfriend.”

 

Spike smiled in bemused wonder.  He let his hand drop to the small of Buffy’s back, pushing her hips forward.  The Slayer flowed with the movement.  Without breaking eye contact she opened herself to him as he thrust deep.  She took him entire.  Letting him go all the way to her womb, all the way to her emotional core, she surrounded him, snug and warm and alive.  Spike rolled them over so that Buffy lay on top of him.  She sank back, sliding her knees further open.  She settled into his lap, pushing down to envelope him completely.  Spike’s face reflected his sense of awe, as he was drenched in the hot, sweet flood of her arousal.

 

“Oh, Slayer,” he breathed out. “You’re destroying me.”

 

Finally, after weeks of exquisitely mind-blowing, acrobatic sex, Spike and Buffy made love.  There was no violence.  No brutal foreplay, no dominance or submission involved and no paying witnesses to the event.  Bailey Conger, had he lived to see it, would have been sadly disappointed in the pair of them.  

 

They took their time.  Buffy played her fingers over Spike’s face and neck, kissing him, rolling the swell of her breasts into his chest as she rocked and rotated her hips.  She swirled the silken strands of his hair, loosening the curls into disarray.  He cried out softly, thrusting up to meet her downward strokes.  He petted her, stroking over her shoulder blades and the curve of her back.  She rose above him, bracing her palms into his and he arched beneath her.  When she found her balance, he released her, setting his hands to other work.  He circled his thumbs over her nipples, danced his nails in a light caress along the length of her arms and drew random patterns on her taut stomach.  Buffy gripped him tight between her thighs and let herself go.  Her hair bounced, brushing her shoulders, as she tossed her head in the throes of ecstasy. 

 

Her entire body cracked like a sheet drying in a strong wind.  Spike caught her, pulling her close, again.  Buffy offered no resistance.  She let him take her.  His tongue was in her mouth, his teeth sharp against her throat, his lips soft on her most sensitive flesh, exploring and claiming.  His hands were everywhere, touching her deep.  He owned her, mastered her as she owned and mastered him.  They were one.  His cock felt like a part of her body.  She longed for his release as if it were her own.

 

“Mine” he growled, shuddering with his need for her.

 

“Yes,” she agreed, “yours.”

 

“Always?”

 

“Always,” Buffy whispered and felt the bliss of his cool seed spilling into her.

 

He flipped her to her back and stretched out along her pleasure pliant body.  She spread herself open under him, one foot dangling off the bed, toes brushing the floor.  Moaning and trembling beneath him, she milked out every last ounce of his come.  Spike took several steadying breaths before he moved again.  He let the Slayer relax completely, and then slowly let the tempo build between them.  Each shift of his hips was a long measured stoke into her center.  He felt Buffy start to tighten around him in response.

 

“Oh, Spike…Spike?”

 

“Baby?”

 

“Don’t,” she panted and then emitted a breathless scream as a second orgasm hit her and she forgot how to form words. 

 

“Don’t?” he prompted, after a time.

 

“Leave,” she said, when she could speak again. “Do-don’t leave.”

 

Spike gave a half-sobbing laugh into the curve of her throat nearly undone by the absurdity of her request. “‘Kay,” he gulped.

 

Unsatisfied, Buffy pushed him away, seeking his eyes.

 

“Please,” she insisted. “Promise me.”

 

Spike brought both of his palms up to the sides of her face.  Holding her, he stilled them both in body and mind.  He focused all of his attention on her beautiful eyes.

 

“I promise not to leave,” he said. “And when they take me forcibly away, I will storm through Hell and rage at the gates of Heaven until they let me be with you again.”

 

Buffy didn’t question him.  She just took him back into her arms.

 

“Spike, sweet, wonderful, Spike,” she chanted, softly as she cast his demon out. “So strong, so perfect, so very, very good to me.  My boyfriend, my sweet William, my own...”

 

“Love,” he murmured.  It was the only word he could remember but it seemed like the right one, the one that completed them both.

 

Belly to belly, manhood to womanhood, the vampire and Slayer accommodated one another.  Slowly, languidly Spike occupied his beloved, filling her body and soul.  His member stroked every inch of her sensitive inner passage.  He pulled back only slightly each time before letting Buffy take him completely again.  He couldn’t bear to be separated from her, even for a moment.  Instead he burrowed into her, rotating his hips to bring her more pleasure than she had ever known. 

 

Buffy didn’t understand how something cold and dead could make her feel so alive.  Spike didn’t understand how her gentlest caress could make him ache so deep inside.  Neither of them understood how it was possible to love someone with such profound intensity.

 

It took hours, before they were satisfied.  And in the end, they were both moved to tears.  They cried out for one another and sank as one into the abyss.  Shuddering and gasping, they melted in each other’s arms, giving up their separate selves to the union.  Basking in the afterglow, Spike looked deep into Buffy’s eyes, to her very soul.  He saw himself reflected in her love.  Not the monster he was but the man.

 

It was, in so many ways, a truer reflection than any mirror would ever offer him.

 

 

THE END

 

 

 

 

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