No Vacancy

by kindred

Disclaimer: Buffy and Spike belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy and
other corporate interests. My thoughts are my own.
Rating: NC-17
Feedback: Always gratefully received
Summary: Alternative S3 'Anne'. After sending Angel to hell, Buffy
disappears into anonymity in a dusty Californian town until a little
piece of Sunnydale finds her...

1.

A familiar piercing pain shot through her big toe. It was almost as
exacting as her alarm clock. Big toe pain meant two hours to go in her
shift.

She had switched over to nights and weekends at the restaurant but also
accepted double shifts regularly. The mindless routine was helpful and
there was no problem staying late.

She'd rather work weekends anyway as sleep was minimal these days and
her social life was non-existent. Work was what she clung to. Work made
sense and avoiding the pinches and accidental touches of the local male
population was mildly diverting. Besides, she'd already counted the tiny
violets on the faded wallpaper in her room.

Anything was better than that.

The polyester uniform with apron was not a problem. It was easier if
people saw her as a role. She began to believe her name was 'Honey',
'Waitress', or 'Blondie'. They sounded just as plausible as 'Anne' did.

"Anne, table seven needs a menu."

"On it Millie," Buffy nodded to the older woman standing at the kitchen
pass through and closed the cash drawer. Millie picked up her four
heavily laden plates and turned toward her customers. She winked at
Buffy with a wrinkled eyelid varnished blue.

Buffy began her familiar ritual: pencil in hand and over the page on the
order pad. She grabbed a menu from the counter rack. Her feet took her
to table seven without even looking up.

"There you go, sir--" She stilled as her hand held out a laminated menu
card. Black lacquered fingertips took the menu.

"Evening Miss...Anne, is it?" Spike stared at the happy face name tag on
her left breast.

Buffy's throat dried completely. The small restaurant was packed. It was
game night for the local football team and the restaurant would be
humming until closing. The team won this evening and everyone was in a
celebratory mood. Buffy blinked with exhaustion and a general annoyance
that Spike was here, in the restaurant and at her table.

She hadn't done any slaying related activities for months. All that mess
was left behind. Duty and obligation were packed away with the pain of
what she had done.

This sleepy little California town was football, Millie's pies and the
ancient drive-in everyone fought to keep open for one more season. It
was a haven from just the sort of riffraff sitting across from her
looking intently at the nutritional selections.

Buffy exhaled heavily. Unsure of how to proceed she retreated to her
routine. "We're out of the corn chowder and the cherry pie but all the
rest is available." Spike's mouth quirked to a tight grin as he
scrutinized the lengthy list of home made pies available.

"You bake these pies, love?" he asked teasingly.

Just give me a stake. "Uh...no. That would be Millie. This is her
place. Did you miss the neon sign out front?" Buffy's face was
implacable. Spike shifted in his seat.

"I'll take the raspberry-blueberry with whipped cream," he stated
evenly.

"You're gonna need to pay for it," she said, knowing full well that
vampires had no use for money.

Spike flashed a thick money clip from his pocket at her. Another heavy
sigh accompanied her curt pivot. She walked to the counter and took the
raspberry-blueberry pie from the lower display shelves. It was a
wonderland of pastry behind slanted glass that was dotted with the nose
prints of local children.

A large piece of pie found its way onto a small white dessert plate.
Buffy shook the whipping cream can with venom. Her eyes trailed over the
crowd and landed on Spike.

A few of the regular patrons were staring at his obvious
fish-out-of-water-ness. A long leather coat, black fingernails, platinum
hair and an indecipherable facial expression were a novelty next to the
sweat stained farmer's caps, cotton dresses, and the impossibly blue
denims of the local teens.

He couldn't have looked more dead among those sun kissed folks had he
been lying in a coffin at table seven. It was a surreal and ethereal
scene. Perhaps something Goya or Brueghel might have painted if they had
come to the fertile fields of California.

Millie sidled up to Buffy as she picked up the dessert plate. "That one
will be a big tipper," Millie pronounced into Buffy's ear. "I know
people, Anne. Look at that baby face. Probably a movie person up from
Los Angeles."

"Baby face? Millie, that could be a serial killer," Buffy spoke in a
flat tone.

"Shoulders back Anne and put on your pretty smile, I bet he tips you a
tenner for the pie." Buffy groaned silently. That's all she needed to
do, flex her chest at Spike. Ugh.

The girls in the restaurant had given her plenty of advice on how best
to encourage big tips from the customers without appearing to be the
skank of the month. It was a wholesome dance of smiling, juggling plates
and genuine friendliness.

Millie winked at her again and waved her ferociously plucked eyebrows
high and wide. She turned to a regular at the counter. "Hey Duane,
what's shakin'?" Millie oozed the liquid smile of seduction known to
waitresses nationwide.

Buffy walked back to Spike's table with the pie. She deposited it in
front of him and then caught Millie looking at her from the counter.

"Coffee... Sir?" Her voice strained.

"No thanks love, keeps me up nights." Spike wrinkled his nose at her.

Slowly Buffy became aware that she held her pencil like a stake. Her
feet separated automatically readying for battle. Adrenalin coursed
through her body, throbbing noticeably in her big toe and temples. Spike
acknowledged her readiness.

"You gonna let me have my pie, pet? Or do we throw down right here and
give the locals a real show." Spike's tight eyes met Buffy's; he could
go either way. It was up to her.

"Just eat, pay up and leave. Preferably the state." She turned and left
him to his pie.

Millie was wrong. Spike left her a fifty.

2.

At 11:13 p.m. Buffy waved to Millie and exited by the front door. The
air was crisp and Buffy could see her breath. The main strip was
peppered with a few pick-up trucks at the far end. They hovered around
the 24-hour truck stop. That was Millie's only competition in the town.

It was always a brisk walk down the road to her room at the local motel.
Her legs were bare but she couldn't stand nylons working next to that
kitchen. It was as hot as a forge.

Spike stepped lazily out from the alley beyond the small tailor's shop
and dry cleaners. She stopped abruptly and looked at him. Stakes were no
longer part of her wardrobe accessories. She wondered whether or not she
could decapitate him with just her elbow.

"What now? You want your tip back?" She spoke with contempt.

"No pet, that's yours. You getting stock options to put up with those
yokels?" His voice was neutral. A snort escaped Buffy's nostrils. She
sighed deeply wondering how long she'd have to soak in her tub after
beating his ass into pulp.

"That was one terrific piece of pie, Anne," he said with satisfaction
and a step toward her.

"Shut up," Buffy twisted her lips sourly.

"I know the world didn't end and all Slayer but there's still lots more
evil doers out there. I don't think sleepy little Mayberry here quite
reaches the heights of Angelus." Buffy shot her fist at him and he
dodged it easily. "Ooh, reflexes are a bit rusty. What do you know? How
convenient for me." Spike bounced on the balls of his feet, lithe and
loose, dancing like a prizefighter.

Buffy swung again and clocked him. He fell back and giggled, shaking his
head.

"I stand corrected, apparently thick polyester and slinging lard doesn't
quite dim the Slayer's fists."

"Shut your stupid mouth!"

"Ooh Slayer, please, such rough talk. I 'd almost think you weren't
happy to see me." Buffy remembered that sneer. She wanted to peel it
from his lips and grind it under her waitress footwear.

"Aaagghh!" It wasn't the most coherent response but it was the quickest
off her tongue. He countered with a giddy giggle.

They began to fight in earnest. Spike blocked her first few jabs. Her
hand found a loose metal garbage can lid and smashed it into his face.
Blood trickled down his nose and over a boyish grin.

He licked the blood slowly from his lips. "And here I thought we had a
truce, Slayer. Didn't we do a pinky shake and everything?" Buffy kicked
him in the head, pivoted and smashed his cheek with her elbow. "Oooh,
yeah, kitty wants to play, that's my kitty." Spike kicked her solidly in
the ribs.

"I'm not your kitty. I'm not your friggin' anything. Just crawl back to
wherever you and Drusilla slithered off to and STAY DEAD!"

Something volatile flared behind Spike's eyes. He grabbed her lapels and
head butted her. Roaring with rage he threw her to the end of the alley.
She got to her feet dazed and slipped over the low fence and down into a
rear parking lot. Spike flew after her in pursuit.

"Oh, is that it Spike?" Buffy taunted with an expression of faux
sincerity on her face. "Drusilla pick some other shmuck to go to the
formal with?" A quick left jab followed by a solid right hook collided
with his head.

"Shut up, bitch." He countered with a furious arching left hook, which
she dodged.

"Hit a nerve huh? Dumped by Drusilla? I never figured she'd have taste
after all."

Spike's eyes flashed yellow. He flew at her snarling, feet flying into
her chest and fists clawing at her torso.

"If you tear my uniform I'll never get my deposit back." Buffy's face
seethed in a molten undulation.

"And it would be such a shame to deny the world the pleasure of seeing
you wearing that fetching potato sack." The demon's face smirked at her
as his fists found her chin and cheek in rapid succession.

"SHUT UP!" Buffy stood toe to toe with him trading hateful crushing
blows.

"Nice to see some things never change, your verbal jousting is just as
dismal as I recall." Buffy kicked at him but Spike grabbed her foot and
twisted it, spinning her sideways. She rolled on the pavement and
scrambled to her feet, quickly checking her skirt.

"That's motor oil, you used bag of blood. I'll NEVER get that stain
out!" Her upper lip quivered vigorously. Spike could barely contain his
amusement. He was practically at gleeful.

It had been a while since he had such an enjoyable encounter. Toe to toe
with the Slayer, dancing and dodging with feints and fists and feet.
Yeah, this is what he yearned for, what he got up off the sarcophagus
for, what he was bloody well made for. Smashing and bashing and
relishing that delightful look of repulsed exasperation on her teeny
tiny face.

Oh yeah, this was living.

Charging with histrionic possession like some demented banshee, Buffy
tackled him and began pummeling him from a position perched on his
chest. "You stupid, stalking vampire! Take your stupid face and go be
dead somewhere ELSE." Spike reared up and threw her off of him with a
tidy snicker. That only increased her rage. She flew back at him with a
vengeance. The heel of her palm smashed his chin. He countered with a
solid punch to her ribs and then another to her cheek.

"I'm flattered Goldilocks, didn't know you missed me so much." Buffy's
head snapped sideways, she shook herself to maintain focus. She gritted
her teeth in mindless fury and punched him. Hard concussive blows hit
their target periodically. Spike dodged several blows with a self
satisfied grin on his lips.

Buffy kept her facial expression clenched with rage in order not to
betray her own emotions. She was enjoying herself as well. It had been a
long time since she'd had a good fight and pummeling Spike was always
enjoyable.

Spike watched her closely. Her movement fascinated him. Spike noticed
before Buffy was aware. Her swings slowed slightly and her angles of
trajectory were haphazard at best. She was out of shape. Her shoulders
and hip ached and her big toes were pounding a percussive rhythm that
would rival any marching band.

No training made the Slayer a tasty target. She was fighting on the
fumes of pure adrenalin: fast and hard and petering down to honest non
supernatural exhaustion. Spike figured he was probably the first demon
ever to pass through this dusty town. That meant the Slayer hadn't met a
combatant since Angelus.

A moment's miscalculation caused Buffy to slip on a lump of something
gooey. For the first time since she began slaying her storied reflexes
faltered almost imperceptibly. Spike caught her fiercely and held her up
off the ground. He didn't anticipate this result so soon but he wasn't
going to squander it either. This one was a competent adversary, and
well worthy of the death he would give her.

He wanted to enjoy his victory and he thought briefly about crowing into
the wind. This was an achievement. This was a pinnacle most demons never
even imagined, another slayer was his. His pompous self congratulatory
celebration stopped when he looked into her eyes.

They were clouded and far away, her breaths heavy and slowing. There was
no surrender in her countenance, just exhaustion. Spike had tasted
acquiescence from two slayers. He remembered that look, the yen for
death, the deep and intimate yearning to discover the answers to their
questions. There had been an acceptance, an embrace even, of what he
could offer them shining in their defeated eyes. They were the two most
intimate experiences of his life. He wanted to feel that again.

Buffy gave him nothing but the sigh of a tired waitress, the silent
cliched mantra of 'I'll be right with you'. She wouldn't even let him
kill her properly. There were rules to this game, even Spike knew that.
She raised her heavy hands and merely touched him above his waist, her
breath the only sound between them in the night air.

She waited for the final strike but it did not come. What could he
possibly be waiting for? Unbeknownst to Spike at that moment Buffy was
truly ready to close her eyes and rest. The darkness wasn't calling to
her so much as the quietness. The feeling didn't last long but it
happened and she tasted it. It had the flavor of refuge, of home and her
mother's forgiving arms. Just then she would have welcomed his embrace
and his fangs and the blessed silence with gratitude.

For his part Spike was thrown off by her utter lack of enthusiasm for
her own death. He was stunned by the dreary state of her defenses. This
was the slayer he'd fantasized killing over and over again? It did not
reflect well on Spike that his nemesis was in less than top form. In
this, as in most matters, ego considerations were paramount. This bitch
was the most diabolical creature ever devised.

"What the fuck is this?" Spike spat with disgust. "You need to fight me
Slayer so I can conquer you, not wipe you away like soddin' pie crumbs."
He dropped her to her feet like she was so much garbage. The demon
visage faded to a façade of bitter dregs.

See Spike? You'll never kill her. She's nothing, helpless in your grasp,
and still you can't do it. Drusilla's torturous voice grated through his
mind.

"Can too, you fucking bitch. I'll drain her. I'll--" Spike saw an absent
tear drop from Buffy's dulled right eye. He morphed and realigned his
human face almost in one stroke. "FUCK!" His roar echoed off the
surrounding buildings. He couldn't do it. His mind raced. A near
catatonic slayer really disrupted Spike's world view.

He knew the way of the world, how things worked and revisions were
especially unwelcome. The slayer was a summit to be conquered, end of
story. His fingers began to twitch. He needed to snap her out of
whatever uninteresting crap had possessed her. She wasn't going to
weasel out of her own death, not if he had anything to say about it.

3.

Nicotine scented fingers snapped in front of her face.

"Hey-- You in there? Slayer?" He peered into her impenetrable human
mask. "This is pathetic. You're a fucking basket case. Have some pride
for fuck's sakes," his voice grated, bitter with disgust. "Yep, that's
bloody well perfect that is, just the kind of fucked up bitch I'd be
saddled with..." His voice trailed off into grumbling indecipherable
speech.

Unable to think of a quick solution, he pulled a flask of whiskey from
beneath his coat lining. He unscrewed the lid and took a long needed
draw. The liquid sliced down his throat on a familiar serpentine
pathway. Yes, okay, that was something that made sense. Alcohol was not
the best solution, but it could help pass the awkward and lengthening
lull in the would be slaughter.

His irritability found a balm in agitated pacing and intermittent
muttering. The click of his boots on the pavement was little help to his
current problem. He stopped, twisted his mouth and offered Buffy the
alcohol. She regarded him warily.

"Twelve year old whiskey pet, not cyanide," he held the bottle out and
waited for a decision. Buffy stood there staring. She finally blinked
and accepted his offering. A mouthful of burning liquid bled slowly down
her throat. She convulsed, opened her mouth and took in a huge gasp of
air.

"Okay. That's better, into the land of the living, good." Spike took the
flask and another drink. What the fuck was wrong with her? This was not
working out at all the way he had thought. He stepped back and leaned
casually against a low stone wall that bounded one side of the small
parking lot. His jaw flexed as the perfect opportunity passed. Maybe he
could get drunk with her and bitch about all their bad old times
together. Spike did not have clue one of how to spend an evening in a
town that tucked into bed at eleven o'clock. There wasn't even the hope
of a midnight snack. The streets were deserted in a way that disturbed
even Spike. He held out the flask. Buffy stood dumbly and took the
silver bottle and another swig.

"You want to continue, pet? Because I can put this off for a while until
you're you again, unless you particularly want to die in this fabulous
fuel and piss soaked parking lot." He looked to her for any reaction at
all. "It's up to you, Slayer. As for myself, I'm not really that
interested in drowning a kitten in a puddle, to tell the plain truth of
it. Couldn't really brag about that now, could I?" He offered a tight
sour smile that looked more like a fist.

He could kill her so easily. She was pitiable and out of condition. All
he need do was edit out a few details and become an even greater legend
than he already was and no one would be the wiser. But that was the
sticking point. He would always know the truth.

He wanted her blood, he wanted her death, but he had standards. A clean
kill was what he wanted. There would be no asterisk beside Buffy
Summers' name on his dance card. She was his and he would have her right
and proper.

Spike wasn't Angelus, he with the narcissistic masturbatory world
domination fixation. Spike was a sportsman: clean kills were the object
and not slayers in a barrel. His first two slayers were worthy
opponents. They knew how to die. This sorry excuse in front of him? He'd
teach her himself if he had to, make her worthy of her own death. This
one needed proper training from a master who could keep her corralled
and not some Watcher windbag who misplaced her so easily.

Buffy's head began to swim. She came in early that day to cover Jolene's
shift and then did her own. She had an egg salad sandwich on her break
but that was hours ago. It was almost eleven thirty. She felt the
alcohol flush her cheeks in the cool air.

She saw his lips moving. He was still talking. God, does he ever shut
up? Pure demon, through and through, that's what he was. Talking her to
death would be the messier, pain filled option. At last she heard her
own empty voice.

"I need to sleep," she said absently and stood up, seemingly oblivious
to the vampire who had offered her death. Mentally assessing the correct
direction she started walking out of the parking lot. Spike stood to
accompany her.

"Where are we hanging our polyester these days, Slayer?" His tone
shifted to conversational.

"Go away. Come back tomorrow. I'll stake you then," she tried to achieve
her old sassy slayer vocal arrogance. Nothing registered on his face so
she had no reflection of how she actually came across. Her balance
wavered and she put her hands out to steady herself. Alcohol never had
been much of a factor in her life and Spike's whiskey churned wickedly
in her empty stomach.

His strong hand found her shoulder in an attempt to steady her. "Get
off, you idiot!" Buffy jerked herself away from him with considerable
force and fell back hard on the pavement. "Ow." There was some pain in
her voice but mostly the sudden shock of a loss of balance.

"Fuck, this is a public place," Spike complained. "I can't be seen with
a half-assed slayer. What the bloody hell is wrong with you, Summers?
Suck it up already." He yanked her to her feet and clamped an arm
securely around her waist. They began walking. "One foot in front of the
other," he said with icy condescension. "That's right, pet, your Mom
would be so proud." They wound themselves back onto the street.

"Where?" Spike asked. Buffy started walking. She had little choice but
to accept the muscular form next to her as he held her with an iron
grip. She concentrated on getting back to her room. It was the only
solution that entered her mind. All would be well if she could only get
to her room. Then she would figure out what to do with this growth on
the side of her body.

"You got any booze, Slayer? 'Cause I figure we're gonna need some more
alcohol right quick."

A/N: This story was written without being divided into chapters. I am
trying to organize breaks in the story that strike me as appropriate
places to pause, therefore the final number of postings may yet change
again.

4.

The ancient neon sign in the small motel flickered and buzzed as they
turned into the parking lot. Buffy led Spike to the last lime green door
on the first level. She fished a key from her pocket, unlocked the door,
switched on the light and entered.

Spike stepped up and leaned against the door jamb. He felt the barrier
lightly with the back of his index finger. Motels wouldn't usually keep
him out but Buffy had lived there for quite a while and that made the
difference. She thought of it as her home and had been there long enough
for it to become one. Vampires were therefore excluded.

Her coat found its way to a hanger on a lonely metal rod. Buffy looked
at the open door and walked over. Spike gave her his best come hither
look. He wasn't through playing even though he knew he wasn't going to
kill her that evening.

"Friendly chat over for tonight?" He asked with a sweet expression
trying to get a rise from her.

"What do you want, Spike?" She rubbed her forehead.

"Well pet, I had my pie and we had a nice little tussle in the alley. I
could go for a good hard fuck or some more cheery conversation right
about now." His voice rolled hypnotically off his tongue.

Buffy was hit by the lulling timbre of his voice. It buzzed in her
teeth. The meaning of that sentence didn't exactly register immediately.
She was concentrating on her throbbing toe. That pain was fast occupying
her entire being.

"What?" she tried to focus. "What was that?"

"You gonna invite me in, hmm?" He raised his eyebrows and bent his left
hand pinky finger. "Truce?" She stood and blinked at him instead of
slamming the door in his face.

Shit. If he's here at least I'll know he's not out chewing on our
quarterback. This town needs that kid.

"Come in." Her voice was a dead ringer for perfect defeat. Too tired to
think she turned her back on the vampire entering her small room.
"Welcome to Casa Slayer," she sighed.

Spike shut the door and surveyed the bleak room: bad wallpaper, horrible
pink bedspread, nondescript mismatched furniture, Gideon bible, weird
paint by number harvest scene and a tiny television with rabbit ears.

Spike nodded at the horror surrounding him. "It suits you," he
pronounced with authority.

"The water pressure is awesome. I guess that's something," Buffy offered
as she sat in a low easy chair. There was little in the room to suggest
that someone had been living there as opposed to staying for one night.
A coat, two more uniforms and two pairs of jeans hung beside the
bathroom door. She filled two out of six drawers in the low dresser. A
few personal items sat on top.

"What are you doing here?" she sighed wearily. "This is hardly
Spiketown." Even Mayberry was a tad too cosmopolitan a moniker for this
little town. When she first arrived Buffy wouldn't have been surprised
to see a stagecoach rattle down the main drag. There was a definite one
horse vibe to the whole community.

"Don't know about that pet, you're here." She stared at him. He shrugged
his shoulders. "I fancied a road trip is all. I'm a back roads fella,
myself."

"Really?" Buffy angled a disbelieving eyebrow at the downtown saturated
figure before her. It really pissed her off that he could swagger and
remain perfectly still at the same time. She had no idea how he did
that.

"And there's always something interesting off the beaten track, ain't
that right, Slayer?" Spike winked at her and shifted his weight onto his
other foot.

Buffy sighed and crossed her legs. She removed her utilitarian footwear
and began working on her knotted toes.

"Here." Spike stepped to her and held out his hand.

"No, you already wrenched my foot enough, thanks."

"You're bloody doing it wrong." Spike's critical tone was undone by his
kneeling at her feet with one hand held out patiently.

"No."

"Slayer, I already passed up the chance to munch on your precious self
earlier, any brain cells left in there at all? Give me your soddin'
foot."

"I'm completely insane." Buffy muttered to herself as she put her foot
into Spike's hand.

"Don't flatter yourself, love." Spike smirked and began working over her
beleaguered arch and metatarsals in a thorough and competent manner.
Buffy leaned back in the chair, her feet hadn't felt this good in a long
time.

"What are you doing here?" Spike fished casually.

"Juggling pies," a blank expression occupied her face. A hint of a smirk
touched his upper lip. "Shut up," Buffy demanded weakly.

The massage was repeated on her other foot. Buffy's mind drifted and she
actually closed her eyes. Spike is massaging my waitress feet. Spike
is-- Her eyes snapped open.

"Don't think this gets you struck off the 'Totally Evil' list," Buffy
warned with a glare.

"Never even entered my mind," Spike grinned at her. At the moment his
mind was quite delightfully occupied. Faint traces of a lotion she had
spread on her skin hours ago filtered their way to Spike's nostrils.
Under the scent of lard, sweat, pastry dust, egg salad and cigarette
smoke was the delicate waft of old fashioned roses and the call of
something powerfully feminine.

Remnants of her aroused defenses from their recent interaction spoke
directly to him. Well, mostly just the heat of rage and disgust and a
general pissed-offedness, but heat is heat, and a heated slayer smelled
delicious.

Buffy floated on the surprising luxury of Spike's cool muscular grip.
Those were the hands of a man on her skin. She breathed deeply, simply
enjoying something she hadn't felt in a long time.

Her eyes finally opened to find Spike looking at her. His face was oddly
calm without even a trace of the standard 'Baddest Badass in the West'
countenance he always showed her. He glowed in the strange shadowed
light of her room. His piercing eyes pulsated with blue flames, looking
eerily like a neon sign. His smooth facial contours shone like curved
glass tubing filled with luminescence; an otherworldly entity plopped
into this sleepy town.

The room looked shabby and wan compared to his glinting leather
refracted form. Never before had her anonymous room felt so empty as
when this shimmering dead man illuminated its want.

He was hauntingly beautiful amid the Goodwill refuse of her room. Buffy
had seen paintings in her mother's art books that were eerily similar to
this scene: a resplendently still dead boy kneeling on the faded carpet.

She felt suddenly self conscious and lacking. Buffy Summers: pie juggler
and pariah in polyester, hiding in an anonymous motel. Then he rolled
his lips at her with teasing animation and the moment was lost.

"I have to have a bath," she said plainly, removing her foot from his
hands and hoping against hope he'd take the hint and leave. Spike stood
and removed his long coat.

"Fine, I can go for a bath."

"Yeah, right." Buffy huffed derisively as she stood up into a wall of
muscle. Spike grabbed her forcefully around her biceps. Suddenly those
strong hands that had brought her relief and unexpected pleasure were
now piercing her arms with something Buffy could not decipher. Was it
need? Murderous vengeance? Loneliness?

"What do you want?" Buffy asked failing to control the slight hitch in
her voice. Her palms spread flat against his chest but they were not
exactly pushing him away. They seemed only to acknowledge a boundary
that was not to be crossed, and yet the sweat of her hands that beaded
against his chest threatened to melt through flesh to the bone. Her
voice wavered at his proximity and her fatigue. There was something
softer in his expression as he gripped her than she'd never seen in him
before.

Quietude overtook Spike as he stood inhaling the soft scents of the
tired slayer in his hands. What did he want? He began to mull that
question over in his mind as he studied her hairline and the curve of
her cheek. Choice required careful consideration. He tilted his head and
regarded her.

She was only a shadow of what he once knew. He remembered a saucy ego
driven maniac all wound up in suburban righteousness, the perfect faux
sheep in pastel mini skirts and frosted lipstick. The one who
continually infuriated and hardened him with her tantalizing wiles.

Now it seemed only the color palate was unchanged. Where was that saucy
bitch? The one worthy of his obsession. She made him pace in the daytime
when sleep mocked him. This girl in front of him, the one embracing
small town numbness had a whiff of a future hausfrau about her, wide
hipped with screaming children yapping at her heels.

It was a vision that made Spike wretch.

The future was already decided. He was sure of that. Her future lay in
his grasp and under his fangs. A slayer didn't take her marbles or
dollies or whatever the hell this one played with and run away. It was
just not done. She belonged to him and not to some deeply tanned fruit
farmer who tipped her extra and twisted his lips around a toothpick.

Belonged. Yeah, that's what he meant, and here in this sad little room
he truly felt it. She belonged to him. There was an order to things.
Even a damned creature like Spike knew that. The big picture starred
bona fide hero types like the Slayer but he also was a player. There was
no denying that. Cosmic order was reliable and reassuring. It made the
evil that much sweeter for its certainty.

He was important and necessary, and he was ready to prove that to her.

5.

Spike drew nearer and nearer to her. Even like this she was magnetic. He
felt his own arousal crackle in her midst. Killing could wait, that need
was no longer foremost in his thoughts. The prowl was a succulent
delicacy all on its own. Suddenly the possibility of fucking a slayer
thundered through his body like a siren's call. She was pathetic to be
sure, but her scent told him the truth. This one was ripe for the
picking.

"What do I want?" he said gently as his lip whisper touched her temple.
Spike had been rigorously trained in the warfare of seduction. Darla and
Angelus had been rigorous taskmasters. "Interesting question, love.
Seems to me it requires some thought." His eyes pierced hers with an
inviting gaze.

Buffy wriggled slightly in his grip as she started to tremor internally.
A gentle deep voice. The faintest touch of lips. The presence of a man.
All of these things had been forcibly banished from her mind.

She felt her heart between her legs, the slow growing beat of desire.
Then the heat of shame at what had aroused her suffused her mind: death
in leather skins, an immaculate dye job and banal black fingernails. It
was death wearing the likeness of a man with a low sultry voice of pure
animal seduction. Spike inhaled audibly, crinkled his nose and grinned
with satisfaction, knowing he had aroused her.

Full points to Spike for possessing the ghost of testosterone past.

"Don't," Buffy turned away in embarrassment and tried to push him off.
He caught her head with his cheek and lowered his mouth slowly and
deliberately. Steady calm lips tickled against her blushing cheek,
stalking her lips with purpose.

"Don't what, love?" he soothed with expert precision. He was a talented
spider and knew how to rein in a tasty morsel. "Don't this?" he asked
rhetorically as his arms encircled her back. "Don't this?" he tilted his
growing erection into her pelvis.

Buffy caught her breath. "Don't this, Slayer?" he moved his hands to her
bottom, cupping her closely. Buffy opened her mouth to respond and he
briefly covered her lips with his. "Or was it that?" he whispered into
her stunned face, teasing her with seduction.

He looked upon her with an expression of conceited fascination. In her
exhausted state she replied not with fury but with a tinge of pink on
her blushing cheeks. It had been a long time since he'd seen someone
blush so delicately and more than a lifetime since he'd caused someone
to react in such a manner. There was a sweetness to her honest response
that touched him. This was not a slayer in his arms, but a girl who had
been wounded and left untended.

Aware of her own awakening arousal she shifted against him
uncomfortably. He felt so solid beneath her fingers. She looked at his
chest and the front of his throat as her head began to spin. "What was
the question?" she asked through her haze and raised her face to his.
Soft lips covered hers again, raspberry-blueberry lips with a trace of
whiskey and a scant whisper of blood. It wasn't that unpleasant a
combination.

Sinuous flesh sampled her lips, pursuing and retreating, asking and
answering. For Spike it was a practiced rhythm, a polished artistry.
Buffy pursed her lips in response just as he withdrew.

"Oh that's nice, Slayer," his voice vibrated at a deep level. "Maybe we
should be asking what it is that you want, love." He looked at her lower
lip and sampled it. Her upper lip trembled in response. "Don't worry
pet, I don't leave things unfinished."

He kissed her upper lip and then covered both lips again gently. An
image of Drusilla's mouth appeared in Buffy's mind. These are the lips
that kissed that, for like, a century...oh god. Spike's tongue traced
the outline of her bottom lip.

Her lips tasted of sweetness remembered, a plump tangle of sun ripened
fruit, all melons and mangoes; the haunting effigy of swollen flesh on
the vine, craning and bruised for its readiness.

He tasted her strength also. The slayer aura was a forbidding and
alluring elixir but there was something else he couldn't place. It was
almost the taste of fog, an opaque thickness rolling off of her tongue
and lips. It was permeating her, a density of unknown nuance and tempo.

Spike was quite taken by the soft warmth of the Slayer's lips and the
heated promise of what lay beyond. He tried to think if he'd ever kissed
a human for this long before. He couldn't remember ever doing that. The
bulk of his experience had been fang centric: biting, sucking and
chewing, but kissing had its merits. Merely teasing and tasting the
slayer's lips was worthwhile all on its own.

Never did Spike anticipate that kissing his sworn enemy could be so
delicious, but then he always did gravitate toward the dangerous end of
the spectrum. Angelus had punished him severely many times for such
conspicuous behavior but things had changed. Angelus was tucked away
good and tight in a hopefully enthusiastic hell dimension and Spike was
free and clear to roam and make merry at his leisure. Leisurely, yes he
would be leisurely. He would be quite thoroughly leisurely with this
one.

The image of lying chained and spread-eagled as Drusilla skewered him
with sharpened rebars while she berated him for allowing Angelus to be
taken from her was fading fast. Maybe they truly did need a break.

Their tried and true formula of reprisals and retribution was beyond
hackneyed. It was merely a dog-eared script they clung to, not knowing
any other possibility. There was finality in her tone during that
grotesquely unpleasant torture session, and Drusilla had been
uncharacteristically clear headed during it all. Spike figured he could
always track her down in Brazil for a little comeuppance if he chose to.

She often turned up there seeking a certain Fungus demon named Phil who
was a particularly attentive listener. Brazil was a possibility, but
later, much later.

Spike's cock jumped at the sensation of the slayer in his arms deepening
their kiss.

6.

That was all it took. Spike grabbed her hard and thrust his tongue into
her mouth. Soon their tongues entwined with an urgent need. It was no
longer combat or games but a difficult want.

Buffy's tongue grated over his trying to wrest something from him. The
sudden thrill to taste death filled her head. She searched his mouth
repeatedly. It was a cavern of echoes and absences. Enamel and soft
palate. She wanted the taste of blood, to sample the darkness of this
specter surrounding her; infiltrating her. She wanted the taste of death
from the tongue of this killer.

When she opened her eyes white blond hair and blue eyes were all she
could see. Not brown, not soft but searing. She closed her eyes again
and he was there. Brown eyes looking at her from across the room.
Nothing else but his soulful confused brown eyes, watching her do this
thing: sup from the mouth of this miscreant.

Buffy pushed Spike away from her and their lips separated with a
tremendous smack. She held his black t-shirt bunched in her fists.
"What's wrong with me?" she mumbled, unaware that she had voiced her
question. A sly giggle touched her ears.

"Nothing pet, I think you're doing just fine." There was acid in his
seductive voice.

Why hadn't she thrown him through the wall? Why was she standing there
considering what she was considering doing with this abomination in her
grasp? Why wasn't he dust out the door?

A troubling primal beat claimed her body and her focus. She was being
occupied by something dark and ancient. It was a blistering desire to
engulf him, to take him whole to the bone. This unexpected feeling
shamed her deeply.

Angel's phantom gaze burned into her skin but she wanted this one in
front of her. This smug-faced bastard who was toying with her, putting
thoughts into her head and making her knees tremble.

Suddenly she wanted Spike to pay for her misery. She wanted him to
suffer as she had, but she also wanted to be punished. There was a
smoldering need within her to be punished. She wanted the horrible
darkness to smother her, to reduce her to ashes. But she also wanted his
lips on her; his fingers on her and the hardness pressed to her hip
buried deep inside her. A buzz tingled between her legs accompanied by a
flare from Spike's nostrils.

Breaths surged from her mouth as she juggled her twin desires: to kill
him and be done with it or to fuck him in a messy horrible frenzy. She
bit her lip to keep it from trembling. A quick glance at his face
betrayed his preference. A hard swallow gulped down her throat as she
saw his eyes sparking with lust.

The choice was made; the consequences be damned. She already knew what
hell was: a mismatched motel room in a quiet friendly town. Why not act
as damned as she felt, as empty as that lonely main street after
midnight? It wouldn't matter. Nothing mattered anymore.

Her mind filled with the innumerable horrors of this meaningless world,
the unworthy orb she sacrificed Angel for. She wanted something in her
mind other than that guilt and sorrow. She wanted Spike to take that
burden. She wanted to shove that choking weight down his throat.

Spike's mind filled with the delicious promise of the warm and yielding
slayer in his grasp and the signs and scents of delights to come. He
felt strangely honored to be in her company.

He sneered at her and reached to unzip her uniform. "Take off that
bloody plastic dress." Spike drew the long zipper down her back. The
frilly apron was tugged off and discarded on the desk on top of his
duster. This was soon followed by her dress, pulled off over her head as
she stood there in a stupor. He tugged his t-shirt off in one motion.

Buffy stood before him in mismatched bra and panties shaking with panic
and desire. Spike hissed a quick breath at the vision before him. Her
golden skin was sprinkled with bruises, reminders of their dance in the
alley. She looked resplendent, a dazzling flesh jewel of swelling shades
pooling under her soft skin. Spike slowly bit his lower lip as he drank
in her soft curves caressed by his personal signature.

Her eyes clung to the expanse of his chest. The taut musculature beneath
his parchment skin snaked over his body like a hardened dirt road. Her
eyes drifted over his abdomen and belly button and further down to
observe hands unclasping his belt buckle. Spike removed it from the
fabric loops, folded and snapped it between his fists.

"I don't know, Slayer, but something tells me you may be an adventurous
girl." He dropped the belt and undid his jeans snap. A well muscled hand
casually caressed down over his covered bulge. She followed his actions
with her eyes. "See something you like, pet?" His eyebrows flared over
his whisper.

Two pale hands carefully untangled her tight bun. Twelve bobby pins fell
from her tethered hair along with any fragments of resistance she may
have thought she had left. Buffy's hands rested on his hips as his
fingers gently massaged her scalp. She closed her eyes. The brown eyes
were gone. Her eyes opened again with effort. Rational thought made a
final weak bid for dominance.

"But you hate me...and I...hate you..." She struggled to complete that
thought as her voice dwindled to nothing.

"So what?" He looked at her with hunger. "There's not much better than a
hate fuelled fuck. You'll see. The more you hate, the harder you come."
Tilting his head to observe her, Spike licked along the blunt edges of
his upper incisors and rolled his lips into a smile. "And Slayer? I
think we may rip the roof off of this place," his soft giggle burrowed
into her mind as her arousal accelerated.

They were both on the same hate filled page.

7.

Spike's eyelid's fell thickly to half-mast. "Anybody ever taste that
juicy slayer pussy, love?" he whispered with icy seduction and dropped
to his knees. Contrary to his hardened tone he slid his fingers softly
into her waistband and eased her plain white panties smoothly down her
legs and off her feet. Spike pushed her right foot up onto the arm of
the side chair and angled her knee outward. "Oh, very nice, kitty," he
hummed into her mound in appreciation. His tone abruptly changed to pure
sass. "Try not to like it," he challenged as he glared up at her.

The look on her face told him she'd not experienced this before. In
Spike's estimation Angel was certifiable not to have sucked on this
delicacy. That made no sense to Spike at all. Angel did her, did the
dirt, lost his soul for it and never went down on her.

Spike could smell her arousal hasten at the anticipation of a tongue
down there; specifically, a tongue that knew its way around the
neighborhood. This flooded her with desire. His nose practically entered
her lubricated passage as he inhaled her. Her abdominal muscles jumped
at the sensation.

"Ouph!" escaped her lips as her hands moved convulsively to her pubis.

"Here, love," he directed softly as he paused to kiss her hands and
place them on his head. "Put them here, I'm gonna take you someplace
wonderful." He returned his attention back to her flesh. "Beautiful," a
low voice Buffy would never have recognized as Spike's filled her ears.
He inhaled the delirious scents once more. He knew she had finished her
cycle mere days before and he cursed his timing.

"You smell like gumdrops."

He floated in her essence. As gently as he covered her mouth his lips
touched her vulva. Again she reacted in a mindless convulsion. A high
pitched breathless yelp rocketed out of her throat. He stilled himself,
steadied her and looked into her questioning eyes again.

"Just let it happen, love," he soothed with another tender kiss. A soft
kiss transformed into long luxurious licks up and down her cleft. He
sopped up her flowing lubrication like a sponge. "Pussy candy," his
voice hushed with delight. Buffy's gasping wordless exclamations
hardened him severely. Her hands left his head and gripped the top of
the chair with murderous intent.

He felt an unexpected pleasure and pride in initiating her in this
activity. He would be thorough. She would not forget his tongue any time
soon. She tried to brace herself but teetered as his tongue entered her
passage. He curled it internally and drew out streams of fluid. She
could hear him slurping it up with relish.

Pausing briefly he looked up into her quivering face and smirked. "You
like it, don't you?" She opened her jaw but no words came out. Words
hadn't yet been invented for this.

With no warning he growled sensuously into her tissues and she climaxed.
Buffy had experienced orgasms before. The bad one she hurt Angel with
was not her first. She knew how to pleasure herself but hadn't done so
in a long time, not since before she left Sunnydale.

Now she was stunned not to experience the slow rise of sensation to an
inevitable burst. Her climax slammed into her at full force, seemingly
from nowhere. Her hands found his head again and held him in place. She
never wanted him to move from that spot again.

An unfamiliar voice filled her ears with a shriek of pleasure. It was
her voice. She was transforming in the dusty yellow light of her small
room. She was being reshaped for pleasures yet to come.

Spike grinned at his success and claimed her clit. I'll make you howl,
Slayer...make you sputter...make you forget the earth is round...

Her knees buckled under her as she hurdled into a second orgasm. Two
fingers entered her aggressively and pumped with fevered urgency. Her
juices flowed freely over his hand. The crescendo of sensation stunned
her, it screamed in her ears. Another orgasm thundered through her body.

"No," she struggled. "I can't, I can't..." Her voice twisted with pain
and then stopped. Her knees wobbled, she was crumbling, losing her
balance. Spike grabbed her and pulled her forward down onto the carpet.

"Yes you can. Come on Slayer, be bold, show me want you need." That
brief encouragement was met with a pained gasp from Buffy. Spike lay
back and lifted her over his face. She spread her legs widely and arched
herself into his mouth. No prodding was necessary to initiate the
desired movement. It just happened. The Slayer fucked the face of this
vampire as naturally as she once shopped for shoes, with fevered
abandon.

A relentless tongue lassoed her clit. She flowed through hard peaks and
valleys of unrivaled sensation. Her weight fell forward over his head
and onto her palms and then her elbows as her hips ground her ferocious
need into his mouth. Unusual spiraling cries vibrated through her lower
jaw as she crested again and again.

Lost in this language she spoke in tongues she had never known.

Spike moved suddenly with swiftness that she had only glimpsed in
battle. Ignoring his own need to take her right there on the carpet and
pound into her for several hours he chose another selection. The need to
show Buffy her own desires became paramount. He slipped out from under
her and turned to pick her up. She was brought to standing facing the
dresser.

"Climb up." His voice drifted inside her head. She felt her knees press
against the smooth surface of the wooden dressed as she mounted it. A
forceful knee knocked her deodorant, lipstick and a magazine off the
dresser and onto the floor.

"Spread your legs." His voice was as soft as his tongued caresses had
been. Gentle fingers slipped down her inner thighs urging her wider as
her breath skittered from her lips.

Angel had been so attentive, so fixed on her pleasure and yet that first
growling orgasm from Spike was the most devastating physical truth Buffy
had ever experienced. Now she wanted Spike to take her to places she'd
never been, places Angel had been too gentlemanly to dare visit.

Buffy wanted to know it all.

8.

"Oh, Slayer." Spike caressed up and down her sopping cleft. "You're
soaking again, that's bloody wonderful, that is." He sucked his fingers
loudly to demonstrate his pleasure. His tone was clipped by a lustful
fervor that she'd heard many times but now it was tempered by something
else. She couldn't place it. It was something wide-eyed and surprising,
like a kid on Christmas morning. It was that delightful fullness of
receiving, of being granted a bountiful treasure.

"Spike--" She turned her head to one side trying to see him through her
mussed hair. Her arousal burned into his nostrils. She felt electrified
and numbed simultaneously just balancing there, splayed on an ugly motel
dresser, waiting and wanting to be taken, to be transformed. By Spike.
The clanging of her heart was deafening; its beat bruised Spike's
throat.

Into the land of the living, indeed.

"I'm here, pretty girl, I'm right here." The buzz of his zipper filled
her ears as Spike opened his jeans fully and shoved them down his
thighs. Buffy looked into the mirror and was stunned by the shocking
reflection of her wanton position.

"Hands up, Slayer." His voice choked with lust as he led her hands up
over the mirror and onto the wall. His arms curved around her body and
his fingers traced down over the fullness of her lace covered breasts.
Yeah, he'd get to that eventually, but right now she looked so nice just
the way she was, all raunchy and bursting at the seams, ready to spill
out all over him. He burrowed himself into the nape of her neck and
tunneled into her hair with his nose. She felt the tip of his cock
teasing her opening and turned again to try to see him.

"You want it, pet?" his low husky voice seized her mind. His eyes were
closed as he began a relaxed interrogation. He couldn't resist playing
with her. Buffy nodded dumbly.

"Fucking right you want it," he gritted out, barely able to control his
own lust. "Do you have any idea how wet you are? How irresistible you
smell? What you're doing to me this very second?"

"Uhh--"

"Let me do the same to you, pet. Tell me what you like," she hadn't
expected him to say that, let alone his next sentence. "You even know
what you like, love?" He rubbed himself slowly over her weeping
aperture. She was scorching him already.

"Uhhhh," Buffy's sigh revealed a pained naivetT.

"Let's find out, yeah? See if you like it good...and hard," he ground
his fingers into her hips at that statement and then relaxed them. "Do
you want to find out?" His voice was so tender and calm. Her hips began
to vibrate in response.

"Y-yeah." Her nodding whisper floated on a cloud.

"I bet you'll like a bit of the rough, all messy and hungry. You're
probably starving for it, eh?" The softness of his voice was torturous.

"Wha--?"

"Are you a hungry kitty?" His free hand twisted loosely in her hair,
grabbing and releasing fistfuls. She could feel his loose sneer as if he
had cut it into her skin. "Ready to order, love?"

"H-huh?" Overwhelmed by the prospect before her, this thing she suddenly
wanted more than her next breath, Buffy could hardly decipher his
running comments.

"Problems with translation, love? You do get the picture here, don't
you?" His hand suddenly gripped her hair firmly, holding her cheek
immobile against his mouth. Buffy's mind swirled. She had no experience
with this type of torture and that's what it was, torture. He released
her hair and softly kissed her cheek. "Maybe we need to clarify a few
things first. Tell me love, why exactly are you so delightfully poised
on this dreadful wooden box?" His eyes gazed in appreciation down over
her glistening curves.

"Um...you...you're gonna..." her dry mouth struggled to form the words.
Why was he even talking? One day she would enjoy slamming a stake
through his chest. But today? Today she wanted him to shut up and push
himself inside her body as deep and dark as the deep blue sea.

Today she wanted to disappear inside him.

"Yes, love? There's something I'm supposed to do?" His cock was drenched
with her moisture as he swept it continually over her weeping folds. She
wanted to slap his face really hard but she didn't want to move for fear
he would stop doing what he was doing between her legs.

"You're... gonna..." her voice dwindled to near microscopic levels,
"f-fuck me."

"Think you got the wrong word there, love." He pressed his chest tightly
to her back, causing her to arch mindlessly into him in response.

What the hell was he doing to her? He had no business being there,
inside her head. Telling her those things, making her want-- She could
feel herself dripping onto the hardness nestled between her legs. Even
she smelled it now, the unmistakable heady musk of her deepest need. It
was a truth she could not stop. Jesus.

"We, Slayer. We are gonna fuck. You and me, lamb." He felt her jerk
subtly in his embrace. This was going to be so sweet.

"Shall we go then, pet? See where the night takes us?" He goaded her
carefully and threaded his fingers delicately through her hair.

"Yes." Her soft affirmation thickened on her tongue. It was a low animal
sound from the deepest reaches of her being. It was Spike's kitty waking
from her slumber. He could taste the lust percolating in her throat. She
wanted it was badly as he did.

"Right. Look at yourself then, Slayer. Watch yourself come." Buffy
looked into the mirror and saw almost a child's look of expectation and
uncertainty on her face. Spike pressed forward solidly into her slick
channel. She was lubricated enough for him to enter, but it was an
impossibly tight fit. He failed to achieve the bruising pace his lust
demanded but he pushed onward.

Buffy squeezed her eyes shut and gulped a shuddered breath in reply to
his urgent presence within her small body. Spike had size and feral
urgency in his corner. It hurt. She thought she knew what to expect, but
this was nothing like it had been with Angel. Her brow darkened as she
accepted the pain. She did not react at all. This was what she deserved,
nothing less. After all, the damned deserve their torment.

And she was one of the damned now.

No Vacancy

by kindred

9.

The dresser surface cleared as items rolled off the edges with each
successive thrust. The mirror perspective was quite odd. She saw her
body inexplicably thrusting forward and her hips being invisibly
pinched. Spike glanced at her reflection wanting to see the evidence of
what he was feeling, unrivaled pleasure. What he saw was a twisted mask
of pain on her beautiful features. He was hurting her.

"Fuck..." Spike clenched his jaw and stopped his hips. It suddenly
dawned on him that she was not much more than the chaste virgin of
Angel's obsession. The look of discomfort on her face troubled him
beyond measure.

"Easy, pet," he whispered directly into her ear, "it's gonna be so good.
You'll see, just let me..." He lifted her slightly and angled himself to
ease their joining. His voice gentled as well. The smug edge of his
interrogation left his tone entirely.

He meant those words and the realization floored him. Spike truly wanted
this to be pleasurable for her. He had no interest in hurting or
humiliating her sexually. His fingertips whispered a cascade of
sensation down her spine.

"Arch your back, Slayer." Buffy did so and something shifted internally.
"Is it better yet? There...yeah...can you feel it? Right there."
Turning his mouth to her cheek he spoke gently. "You feel it?" Buffy
gasped a faint reply and nodded. The pain was gone and replaced by
something tingling and fluid and spreading beyond the boundaries of her
mind. It was a graceful wordless communication.

Then she felt him inside her moving with her and moving through her.
Their bodies merged and eased in symbiotic concert. Instinctively she
knew how to move with him. It was an energetic cohesion, robust and raw
but not brutal.

Angel was stillness and slow progressions and deep soulful kisses, but
her jaw never vibrated like this. She could well condemn herself with
her approaching orgasm. It stalked her like a tornado on the horizon.
This was Spike inside her mind and body and she didn't feel punished at
all. He leaned forward again and met her turned cheek. She looked at him
from the corner or her eye. His hands roamed wantonly over her flesh.

"That's it, pet...oh yeah...much better...shoulda been more careful with
a kitten like you...you like it now? Like how that feels?" Spike put his
palms to the sides of her face and gently turned her to face the mirror.
"Look at yourself, love...look at what you want...what you need...what
you are...beautiful...beautiful..." It was the oddest thing. Buffy could
see Spike peripherally but he was nowhere to be found in the mirror.

His voice filled her mind with a truth she could not evade. "...Feel me,
Slayer...fuck, you feel so...ahhh that's right, move with me...I
know...I know, baby...it's okay...show me how you like it...yeah...oh
yeah...I could get stuck in you..." Spike continued to babble in a
stream of consciousness commentary. He was not exactly aware of
everything that fell from his mouth

Buffy tried to concentrate on her own hazel irises. She spoke silently
to herself. No cries of passion or pleasure escaped her lips. A few
plaintive gasps leaked out but she had said quite enough and Spike was
doing enough talking for the both of them.

She bit her bottom lip until she feared drawing blood to stop her from
saying anything further. She didn't want any words said during this
surreal experience to come back and own her. The unimaginable feelings
of ecstasy were devastating enough without betraying the truth aloud.

Spike was facing his own unexpected truths. What was it that Drusilla
shamed him with? That he was covered by the Slayer? Consumed by her? His
eyes traveled down over their heaving and dipping bodies. He was
floating in her, covered with her.

No amount of fantasy imaginings could have prepared him for this. This
was a sensation greater even than draining the life's blood from a
slayer. This wasn't about death or mayhem or darkness anymore. This was
truly sinful, and this bliss was theirs. It belonged to Spike and his
slayer and it wasn't going to be ending any time soon.

Spike's left hand eased up her sweat slicked back and unhooked her bra.
She moved her arms so Spike could pull it free from her body. Buffy's
palms returned to the wall. She obeyed his instructions. She wanted to
be led; she wanted to go where Spike would lead her. Long fingers
slipped around her body and cupped her breasts, finding her painfully
erect nipples.

"Give me some lube," he whispered and put a hand to her mouth. She
sucked three fingers inside and slathered them with her tongue. Spike
worked his fingers in and out of her mouth, entranced by the feel of her
suction; then he removed them and traced his wet fingers back to her
nipples working each one into a frenzy. She clamped muscularly around
his shaft in response. Spike buckled and leaned heavily into her while
he struggled for balance.

"Ahhhh...OHHH...sweet FUCK...do that again," he moaned, "strangle my
cock." Buffy clamped down on him. "GaaaHHH...that...ohhh...yeahhhh..."
he groaned and began to ejaculate. Unable to maintain control any
further, Spike morphed in his sexual delirium and bit deeply into her
shoulder. It was a non lethal strike, the purest expression of a swiftly
mutating desire.

The contents of Spike's mind dissipated as if spewed by a centrifuge.
All thoughts of killing her were summarily abandoned leaving something
else entirely in their midst. Something small and feral and dangerous.

Something that had no name.

"Spike!" Buffy cried out in pain and lust and an undulating orgasm that
snaked through her body. Her arms fell across her chest and held onto
his arms. Buffy's eyes snapped to her side and she saw his demon face
sucking and licking at her shoulder. His hips churned into her center as
he spurted repeatedly. A slackened mouth left her shoulder and nuzzled
deeply into her neck.

"Stay with it...fuck...come on...stay with me..." he begged with his
hips and a growling voice of unrestrained need.

Then he was swept by a wave of purpose. Spike pulled her upright against
his chest. He lifted her from the dresser and walked to the bed. His
left arm supported her torso while his palm encircled her throat in a
display of animal possession.

That sensation beat through Buffy's pelvis like a bass drum. She made no
attempt to remove his hand. She drank deep the forbidden pleasure of
submission to her sworn enemy, this demon inside her, the one to whom
she surrendered her body and her blood.

This unexpected submission raced unimpeded through Spike. It was a
stunning development. He did not stop to analyze or acknowledge anything
beyond purely sensory stimulation. Something primal was occurring.
Beyond speech, beyond reason, it was a solidness beneath bedrock,
spiraling toward magma. To the core.

Buffy had no words for the sensation coursing through her. She didn't
even know her own desire until she felt him take her blood. She wanted
to be taken, that was a blood beat scouring her soul. She wanted to be
taken by Spike.

Pure instinct took control. These were the dynamics of marking a mate,
of taking possession. Any thoughts of fucking the Slayer just for
bragging rights fled. This was no longer a game or strategy or a
perversion of combat. It was a pure animal calling beyond the boundaries
of his conscious mind. He wanted her now. He wanted to crush her and
rebuild her; he wanted to brand her and claim her.

He wanted to name her.

"Slayer," his demon snarl rumbled sensuously from deep inside his chest.
His fingers found her clit and worked her to another shattering orgasm.
An incoherent cry spasmed through her throat as she jerked and shook
through a wave of climaxes in his embrace. Scrambling for a handhold,
her sweaty palms merely slipped off his skin. He tightened his hold on
her in response. A vibrating snarl accompanied her soaring sensations.

She arched and curled around his vocalization as the thickened tones
sank into her being. She'd never heard a snarl like that. It was sounded
for one purpose, to accentuate and perpetuate her pleasure. Lost in his
larynx she floated far from shore.

A dim memory of duty and righteousness floated abandoned in her internal
atmosphere. Weeks earlier one of local cheerleaders handed Buffy a
brochure on abstinence at the diner with her tip. She actually read the
contents.

She could not rationally reconcile her feelings, but she left rational a
few stops back. This new feeling slammed into her like a freight train.
It was illicit and wicked and she wanted it. It was shiny and pulsating
and fun.

Damnation had never felt so right as now, with Spike as her personal
tour guide.
 

As she gradually calmed her eyes drifted over the contours of her room,
this unforeseen crucible. The small alarm clock told her it was 1:54
a.m. There was something she needed to do. Tomorrow's shift started at
noon. What was it? Her mind could not recall. A thought floated toward
her like so much flotsam in her consciousness.

"I need to get some sleep." The words fell absently from her lips.

Spike hushed softly. "Fuck now, sleep later." The tone of voice told her
he'd reverted to his human mask. He leaned sideways and flipped off the
ugly textured bedspread. "Pull down the sheets," he ordered quietly.
Slender arms reached forward and pulled on the sheets. Her weight
shifted and she slipped off of him with a loud suctioned slurp and
rolled.

He stood before her with his black jeans at his knees and his boots
still on. His hard cock stood in mid air craning for her. Buffy stared
at him slightly agog. It took her a few seconds to focus. 'What was that
sound?' battled 'Holy shit!' in Buffy's consciousness as she stared
wantonly at the vision in front of her. She'd never seen an erect penis
before or even a soft one for that matter. Angel's room had been dimly
lit and she only felt him inside her under the covers in his bed.

Spike grinned with satisfaction and amazement. This was the seemingly
all-powerful Slayer, the bane of his kind and he held her mesmerized by
the curve of his straining slayer-slathered cock.

"Want to touch it?" he grinned coyly as his hand stroked up and down its
length. His voice was barely a whisper now as it softened with each
acquiescence on her part. Buffy worried her lower lip.

"Come here," he said simply. Buffy moved to the edge of the bed and
tucked her hands behind her. Spike smiled at her, smitten by her
girlishness. Even with the physical evidence of what they had just done
coursing through her and leaking onto the sheets under her, Spike could
see this was not an act.

"No need to be shy love, not after we've gotten so friendly." Buffy's
breath caught in her throat. Was this what they were? Friendly? She
didn't really know.

"You can touch me, I'm right here." He stepped closer to her as though
she didn't already have a front row seat for his erotic display.

"It's gooey." She wrinkled her nose. He caught a laugh in his throat and
decided right then that he loved her nose.

"That's all you Slayer, your creamy pussy, see?" Spike showed her his
slick palm and then licked the residue from it. "Give me your hand."
Buffy obeyed. "Like this love, I like it like this." He curved her palm
around his girth and eased it up to the tip. The foreskin bunched.

"You have a turtleneck," she said naively and then reddened deeply as he
giggled.

"Foreskin, love," he smiled without derision. "Born that way, like all
boys." He released her hand to watch her actions. She brought up her
other hand and encircled him, sliding her fingers back down his shaft.
The foreskin retracted to reveal his reddened glans and oozing aperture.
This motion fascinated her and she repeated it. Again her hands slipped
down his firm length and back up to the fleshy tip.

"That's right, pet, feels real nice." He pulsed his hips forward
slightly, encouraging her.

The heat of her body still clung to him; she was not expecting that. His
skin was supple, moist and soft while his shaft was hardened with a
muscular appearance, but she knew it was all blood. Borrowed blood
poured into this rather unusual vessel. This is what had been inside her
so insistent and demanding. This was the evidence of simple desire. It
wasn't a veil or a sham but honesty. A simple human thing.

Brushing a fingertip over the aperture, Buffy came away with a smooth
slick substance. She worked her fingertips together in thought and then
a realization dawned on her. She was not aware of the smile that settled
on her lips. The look of discovery on her face undid him. His balls
tightened and he came again, surprising them both. An arc of jism
splattered against Buffy's shocked face and chest. All girlish
introspection and exploration dissolved into rage.

"Fucking jerk--" she roared and lashed out spitting and punching. Spike
dove on top of her and gripped her flailing form. He soon secured her
wrists over her head with one hand. He couldn't stop his chuckle at the
image of his come dribbling down the Slayer's face. This was a frequent
sexual fantasy of his realized.

"You BASTARD!" she grit her teeth with revulsion.

"Stop!" Spike's tone returned to commanding.

"Asshole!"

"Slayer--"

"You did that on purpose." He couldn't deny that his aim could have been
altered. "You went on my face!" she spat again.

"I noticed," he said with a giggle. "SLAYER!" his voice rose alarmingly
through gritted teeth, "calm the fuck down." He leaned into her and
licked his own come from her eyebrow, the edge of her eye and down her
cheek. That little maneuver stunned her.

"Yuck. You are an animal," she twisted her mouth and struggled in his
strengthening grip.

"It's just come, pet. I've got lots more." His tone returned to
seduction as he licked further down her face. His lips brushed against
hers.

"I'm NOT kissing you with that yuck on your tongue." Her angry pout was
so outrageous he'd have come again if he had any reserve left at all
just then. She had no clue what she did to him.

"Aren't you curious? At all?" As much as he wanted to see his come on
her tongue he didn't want to press, they would have time. She wasn't
going to be able to get rid of him so easily.

"No, curiosity ends here." Buffy began to wiggle again in his grasp
trying to break away. She felt his still hardened cock against her
thigh. How can he still be hard? He put his fingers to her closed legs.

"Open Slayer."

"Sorry, closed for the night," she snapped. Spike gently tickled the tip
of her clit. "Stop that!" she tried for fury but failed.

"Open up love," he whispered softly, "we're still fucking."

His tongue swept across her chest and teased a nipple before suckling on
it. She arched into his mouth and gasped. "No...unnhh fair...
that's...oohhh god..."

Spike pulled on her nipple gently with blunt teeth until it slipped from
his mouth and then attacked it once more sucking strongly before
releasing her red swollen flesh. "Not finished yet, are we love?" He
looked up sweetly into her addled face and released her wrists.

A wandering thought appeared in her mind: this will never be finished.
Then a shudder of certainty filtered through her body. They would never
be done. She wanted him again and her returning desire was only a
disturbing amplification of her initial feelings.

He was a thing that had killed, that would kill again and again, and all
she could think of was his tongue, hands and cock and how he made her
come. She merely shook her head in agreement and shuddered as his tongue
traveled up her chest and onto her neck.

He snarled a whisper into her neck. His mouth covered her jugular and
sucked sensuously at her skin. His neglected erection throbbed painfully
against her thigh. Buffy's fingers moved automatically to his head. No
thought of death entered her mind. Her only thought was to prolong the
exquisite waves of pleasure emanating from her neck and engulfing her
totally. She needed his mouth at her neck and his cock planted deeply
within her.

A muscled tremor signaled movement in her legs. Spike moved off the bed
and kicked off his boots and socks. His jeans slipped down to the floor
and off his feet. The discarded belt appeared in his hands. Buffy's legs
stilled and her mind stopped churning erotic scenarios.

"What's that for?" her voice was a dry wisp. Spike sensed fear for the
first time that evening. He needed to calm her. As incongruous as that
thought was, it was true. He did not want her fear.

"For games, pet. You know any fuck games?" He asked evenly, already
knowing the answer. An audible gulp sounded from Buffy's throat.

"Um..." She hoped that didn't sound lame.

Spike snickered internally. He couldn't believe how Angel had cheated
this wide-eyed girl. Angelus was always an enthusiast for penetration
and not much else. He was always lacking in the imagination department.
Evidently Angel was no different. It didn't matter. Angel's selfishness
put them both out of the picture and this fuck soaked slayer on a bed
with Spike.

Destiny, apparently, was not a bitch after all.

11.

"Give me your wrists," his voice curled toward her. Buffy hesitated but
her breath thickened. This new prospect was turning her on. Spike
struggled to control his smirk. He wanted her aroused, not defensive or
annoyed. There was a complex set of variables to balance, but the
outcome was well worth it.

This one was worth his effort.

"This isn't about hurting, is it?" Buffy spoke in a voice of
inexperience. A dim recollection of Xander's adolescent bondage
references passed through her mind.

"You know about this? Why does that not surprise me, kitten?" His slow
smile widened. "I knew you'd be an adventurous girl." He playfully
wrinkled his nose at her, signaling nothing untoward in his meaning.

Buffy shook her head and gulped a swallow. "Heard of it...from demon
research." She winced faintly, knowing that was a lame cover.

"I see," he nodded seriously and then winked. "Don't worry, pet, your
secret's safe with me." Buffy stared at the belt undulating between his
hands as her cheeks flushed with color.

"Um," she said quickly and with conviction. He smiled at her hesitation.

"It's just this, love." Spike offered something tame. He looped the belt
through the buckle and slipped it over his own wrists. "Nothing big,
just a little restraint. If you don't like it, just take it off." He
demonstrated a quick release. "It's not about forcing," he spoke with
tender promise, "it's about releasing, giving in. You'll come so hard,
love, you'll--"

Buffy interrupted him with a small voice. "I'll try it." She surprised
herself but her curiosity got the better of her. It was a risk she chose
to take. Looking directly into his eyes she held out her trusting wrists
with no hesitation.

"Yeah...in for a penny and all that." Spike's shaky voice merely
accentuated the expression of wonder that crept onto his face. He
couldn't hold back his amazement or the extreme rigidity of his aroused
flesh. This is how far they had come from a hate fueled fuck. His sworn
enemy held out her wrists for him to bind. That was something beyond
hate.

The raw eroticism of the situation seized him. All that remained within
him was naked need: to see her face when she came, to hear her breathe
his name in ecstasy and to see that shard of iris glint gold in her
green brown eyes from an inch away.

He bound her carefully, showing her how to escape the tether as he
proceeded. It was a thoughtful discussion but unnecessary. Nothing would
hold back the Slayer if she wanted free of the restraint. He simply
wanted her to know the only motivations he had were purely pleasurable
ones.

Then he pushed her back onto the bed. His preparations were gentle and
sensuous. With a deliberate slowness he placed her wrists over her head
and spread her legs apart, readjusting the positioning of her knees with
kisses and gentle caresses. "That's right beauty, make me welcome."
Buffy felt light-headed with anticipation. She followed his progress
with interest and a renewed arousal.

Buffy understood 'horny' and other snicker worthy generic sexual terms.
They always struck her as goofy and silly. The halls of Sunnydale High
hummed with near constant sexual innuendo supplied most days by Xander
Harris, proponent of the 'wink, wink, nudge, nudge' school of thought.

This night expanded Buffy's vocabulary one hundred fold. Words entered
her mind and her body accompanied by Spike's caresses and the urgent
sounds of his pleasure.

She knew now that sex was not something ominous nor puerile you did and
whispered about later with your friends. It was something you were, a
presence inside you as defining as your heartbeat and breath. It was
something to remember, something she'd always be grateful for.

Spike looked at her with a combination of drunken depravity and genuine
tenderness. She needed to memorize that look on his face. Bloodlust,
hatred, frustration, smug defiance: all of these were familiar
expressions. She'd never thought him capable of the look he was giving
her now. He showed her the simple desire of a man for a woman. She felt
it numbing her jaw and thickening the back of her dry throat.

Nuzzling deeply into her neck, he slid solidly back into her. He started
a slow meditative rhythm but soon his hips crashed possessively into
hers over and over again. When he finally raised his head to look into
her face again he was shocked to see her eyes clear and focused and
boring into his. Those were the Slayer's eyes, not those of some
wandering child.

Her tethered wrists fueled something inside her. It was a darkness Spike
knew intimately; a well of renegade ferocity, passion and defiance.
Buffy felt this truth of her sexual identity for the first time. Instead
of guilt she felt emboldened and awakened as if from a long slumber.

Struck by her ravenous responses, Spike felt a sudden urge to introduce
himself drift across his mind. What couldn't they have if this was their
starting point? Instead, Buffy bit his lips into a kiss and took him
over the snarling precipice of coherence.

The realization that he was being swept away within her had not dawned
on him fully even though he felt his own surrender begin to unfurl. He
simply let it happen. It was a delicious fullness he'd only dreamed
about and he'd been a slave to far less delicious sensations in his long
and perverse existence.

All previous dreams of this sort of perfection had been for Drusilla,
when she finally turned away from Angelus and toward him totally. Those
were now mere details that no longer mattered. Besides, Drusilla had
been rather specific in their last parting. He'd truly been a fool to
wait for her for so long. This sensation was immediate: rich, ripe and
warm, and opened willingly beneath him.

Opened willingly beneath him. Such a gift. Such a chance. The poet in
him sang a mouthless aria. Words, there would be time enough for words.
William would see to that. The echoes of this night would last.

The lady was willing.

Spike's mind convulsed with pleasure. The warmth of the Slayer's honeyed
skin, the shyness of her inexperience and the growl of her animal need
were snares he had not anticipated. Spike was a conquered man, done in
by her girlish curiosity.

She had infected him, infused herself through him. He was not alone
under his skin. She was there as well with her fruity lip gloss, her
manipulative pout and her crushing right cross.

His previous thoughts of training her to meet her death at his hands
transformed in the elasticity of his mind. A different type of training
tickled the edges of his mind. This new fantasy was as potent as the
other one, perhaps even more so.

It certainly deserved as much time and attention as he'd given any of
his other fantasies. Yes, only his careful and undivided attention would
suffice now.
 

Buffy opened her eyes and looked at the clock. It was just after nine.
Gradually she became aware of the cool hard chest flush against her back
and the cool hard cock gliding effortlessly and slowly in and out of her
body. Slowly she started to respond to that now familiar sensation. Oh
god. Spike.

Gentle deep tones of hushed desire filtered from Spike's throat through
her body. "There's the sleepy girl...so soft and warm...been waiting for
you to wake up...thought I'd give you a nudge, yeah?...Lovely...sleepy
girl...bet you taste good in the morning..." The tip of his index finger
traced a strand of hair away from her eye. His touch was so comforting,
soft and firm.

Buffy closed her eyes with a sigh and Angel was there. Soft confused
brown eyes...mouth open and disbelieving...the sword thrust...that
horrible sucking vortex and the end of her world as Angel disappeared
into the void.

Buffy erupted from the bed, kicking wildly at Spike and the bedcovers.

"STOP! Not like that, stop!" She sprang from the bed shaking, a volcanic
pain coursing through her mind. When at last she focused on the figure
in bed a horrified expression gripped her face. Spike lay naked and
shameless before her, his torso littered with scratches and bite marks.
He stared at her with eyes thickened by returning lust.

Buffy's mind quaked. A shameful recollection emerged: the belt on
Spike's wrists, his goading lust filled encouragement, the bitter taste
of his blood, and how he howled as he came. The unsullied truth of his
need galvanized and hardened her as he spoke his desire.

He said yes. He said again. He said more.

She had done this damage, tasted his flesh and flayed his skin with her
fingernails and teeth and a hunger that rumbled deep within her bones.
That was all her, from some darkness she tried so hard to repress. That
was the kiss of the devourer.

A sassy tired voice spoke up. "Who would have guessed? Fucking all night
makes the Slayer a cranky girl." She forced her mind to calm. The
sensations of the previous night's ecstasies mingled with her horrible
memories of that awful day. Buffy's mind shook. An unwanted tingling
sparked in her pelvis. She felt nauseated and trapped: an animal in a
snare. Escape was the only option.

"Get out."

"Sun's up," he repositioned himself on the bed ready for more.

"OUT!" she pointed desperately at the door.

"NO," he growled at her.

Buffy fled into the bathroom and slammed the door. She wretched in long
painful dry heaves. Her stomach emptied hours ago, so only the whispers
of bile touched the back of her throat. She sat on the toilet with her
head between her legs trying to find firm ground.

The truth rose within her with each violent and elongated heave. She
deserved punishment. She hadn't expected Spike to make her feel as he
had. Spike did not fulfill his role of villain as she had cast him.

Darkness and misery was what she wanted but Spike was not accommodating.
He did not fill her with darkness. She felt alive again and she did not
want to feel that. He peeled back her self-imposed barrier and let in
the light, the air, and with it the memory of Angel impaled by her hand
and sinking into that horrific tempest.

After the toilet tank stopped filling she started the shower. She buried
her head in that fierce stream, rinsing her mouth compulsively and
trying to wash the taste of that horrible image away.

Her only pitiful consolation was that Angel would never know what she
had done and what she had become. She was just an empty shell who let
Spike fuck her. As her mind drifted to just exactly what Spike had done
with her during the night, 'fuck' didn't seem descriptive enough to
cover it.

An urgent need to wash the night away swept through her. She felt
stained from the attentions of a thorough lover. As the shower curtain
shifted and Spike stepped inside the bathtub, Buffy snapped from her
stupor.

"What is it, love?" he asked softly, back to the persona of a lover.
Buffy glared at him. She would use every last molecule of slayer
strength bestowed upon her not to tell him anything. He was not worthy
to know her truth, to know that she'd sent Angel to hell and not
Angelus. Spike was nothing to her and he would never be anything to her.
This thing they did was a glitch that needed to go away fast.

"Go away," she gruffed.

Ignoring her, Spike filled his palm with shampoo and lathered her hair.
Despite her best efforts, Buffy uncoiled beneath his skilled fingers.
Soon she simply leaned into this chest with eyes closed as long ropes of
shampoo lather coiled down their bodies. He shampooed his own hair and
then rinsed them both thoroughly.

She felt the sensation of tasting his voice when he spoke. "You don't
want me to be gentle?" he murmured, lifting her wide against the slick
wall tiles before she had sense enough to protest. "Is that it? Want to
pretend I can't do this?" He slid into her still swollen passage softly.

"You have no idea what I'm capable of Slayer. I know what gentleness
is..."

Spike could not believe the words he was hearing spill from his lips. He
didn't stop to think, as usual he went with his gut impulse. He guided
her legs around his waist and held her securely with his hands tucked
under her bottom.

Something deep inside him knew that the last few hours were the most
dangerous risk of his long, visceral life. He ignored that truthful
voice with sullen defiance. The Slayer was so rich and decadent he could
not stop. Suddenly he wanted things he'd never thought of before.

He wanted her sighs and coos, to see her eyes full of him. He wanted to
be gentle for her and to have her blood on his tongue forever. Deep
within his leathered shell his most secret yearnings came forward.

He wanted to be a part of something, to belong in the world. He wanted
to matter, to be allowed and connected. He wanted his invitation in a
decadently thick gold embossed envelope. He wanted a freedom beyond the
tasting and for his thirst, at last, to be quenched.

These desires flooded his mind and clogged his thinking. It had been a
long time since his desires expanded beyond blood or sex, the narrow
confines of the flesh. These unrestrained thoughts were doubly
intoxicating for their perverseness.

Now he started thinking in ways he'd denied himself for decades. A
word...a thought...a possibility beyond what he had known, what he'd
been content to be: Drusilla's own.

Something from long ago tickled his mind, something from the old days,
his human days. It was ridiculous but it wouldn't let him alone. What
was that story again? Something about conversion, change. Becoming
oneself. Saul on the road to Damascus.

Becoming.

Spike thought such things were long past. Drusilla was his salvation.
She delivered him from mediocrity. She was his conversion, his road to
Damascus, traveled all those years ago in another century. Was such a
thing even possible again?

It was worth thinking about, but later. He had a slayer in his arms and
his own rising needs to tend to.
 

"It'll be good, Slayer, you'll see," his soft promise hushed through her
body as he initiated gentle measured strokes. Buffy began to tremor
dangerously. Her torso and head shook. Spike stilled his actions when he
realized she was crying. He tried to withdraw from her body but she
clung to him like a parasite. Her legs wrapped convulsively around his
waist and her fingernails dug into his neck and back.

Such a response would normally have driven him wild with lust but he did
not respond in that way. His body chose an action before his brain could
evaluate options. Bracing his feet he pressed into her and held on.

Wave after wave of catastrophic grief poured out of her. She wailed in
horror and loathing, in need and rage, in sorrow and anguish.

Mucus poured from her eyes, nose and mouth. Spike thought briefly that
she might actually explode. Buffy had taken his hatred, his arrogance,
his bragging and his testosterone fueled 'Fuck King' man crap for hours.

She had felt the raw surface sensations flow over and through her with
impunity. But softness, genuine tenderness and a lilting voice in bed,
even against the shower wall was too much. It dug deeply into her, past
her well barricaded exterior. Spike pried open the door that Anne had
slammed shut.

Buffy's denial ripped through her and spiraled down the drain. She had
destroyed her world, not Acathla. She didn't even deserve a pitiful
plastic dress and the loose coins left on her tables.

Spike held on and grounded her through her hurricane. Tears had always
been a problem. Drusilla's tears flattened him almost to nothing while
the tears of his victims always hardened him to stone. It was a
difficult juxtaposition. The tears of this girl in his arms cut into
him. He had not anticipated such a reaction but he steeled himself. In
this sanitized bathroom Spike simply pressed Buffy to the wall so she
wouldn't spiral down the drain as well.

Everything ebbed away as her tears gradually lessened. Her face swelled
as if she had been beaten, and still Spike held her. Eventually he moved
her under the water again and tenderly washed the ruminants of sorrow
from her tanned skin. She shuddered and hiccuped and looked into eyes
that, amazingly, reflected compassion and concern. Then her mouth was on
his saying with actions what she never would in words.

He had succeeded in opening her. The build up of emotional placque that
had clogged her mind had been released and rinsed clean. She could face
the day again, face the past, the present and the future. She could
finally begin to face her decision, with what she had done and be the
Slayer again. All because of Spike. She owed him for the chance of a
fresh start.

Buffy swept her tongue softly across his. The games were finished. The
taste of fog was long gone. There was clarity and stillness now that the
storm broke. She tasted of silks and velvets. Her Devon custard tongue
ignited their shared need once more.

Something changed, something small yet vital had shifted. He no longer
knew where he was or what he was doing. Where was this place? This
pause in the cosmos? He wanted nothing more than to be inside her, to be
beside her, to be filled by her. To be hers.

Spike established a slow rhythm as he thrust deeply and lyrically within
her. His hips murmured a softness she absorbed with a sumptuous
response. Their skins blended to new flesh. Their eyes locked, never
wavered and barely blinked. This was her gift of thanks and he felt it
singing through him, overtaking him.

Completely unaware of what he had done for her he felt her body lulling
his, wanting him wholly. It was an intimacy that shook him and grounded
him. For the first time in a century he saw himself reflected in a face
that was not Drusilla's. Spike had always been her perfect beast. In the
eyes of the Slayer however, he saw something else entirely. Something he
could not ignore.

He saw the shadow of a man reflected in the features of his enemy, an
enemy no longer. It took an adversary to reveal once again the man
inside the demon to the demon inside the man. Buffy gave him a vision of
what might be...what could be.

Spike on the road to Damascus.

He had a choice of a new direction as well, if he chose to acknowledge
it. This realization shocked him. Found anew it never occurred to Spike
that he had ever been lost. He didn't quite understand it but it was a
tantalizing possibility he did not want to discard. Just to hold it in
his mind was an exquisite luxury.

Buffy was as oblivious of her gift to Spike as he was of his gift to
her. He came hard and helplessly into her welcoming body and eyes.

Buffy never spoke a word.

*

The whir of the blow dryer filled the small bathroom as Buffy caught
sight of something unusual. Her uniform hung on the back of the bathroom
door. She stared at it dumbfounded. It was yesterday's uniform but the
motor oil stain was nowhere to be found. When exactly did that happen?
Spike must have scrubbed it clean sometime during the night while she
slept.

She couldn't quite get her mind around that bizarre notion but there it
was, damp and drying on a hanger and no longer stained. Try as she might
the dots defied connecting. Do you scrub a stubborn stain from the
clothing of your sworn enemy? Somebody should have told her.

Perhaps that was included in one of Giles' thrilling yet sleep inducing
lectures when she zoned out in favor of more pleasurable thoughts, such
as the latest sale at the galleria. Maybe that tidbit was something to
be found in the elusive slayer handbook, perhaps under the heading:
vampires, domesticity and; or vampires, unusual battle tactics. She
really needed to get her hands on that little treatise if this was the
kind of information she was missing out on.

Without reference to the handbook, Buffy needed to check the Webster's
definition closely. 'Enemy' didn't quite describe what she and Spike
were to each other now. She wondered briefly if they had a word for
that? Nemeses interrupted? No, that's two words.

She dressed quickly and checked the clock. 11:30 a.m. That was just
enough time to get to work and have a juice and a muffin before her
shift. Buffy exited the bathroom and saw the sated body of Spike
sprawled across the bed, naked and relaxed in a manner illegal in half
of the states in the union.

"If you're still here when I get back, I'll stake you." Despite her
body's unconscious reaction to his continuous state of undress, Buffy
lied and flashed him her best slayer glare. She struggled to keep her
eyes away from his. She wanted nothing more than to dive back into that
bed, into his mouth and body.

"Yeah, I had a nice time too, pet." He grinned lazily from the bed and
stretched wantonly before her. "Hey Slayer, you ever think about Hawaii?
What about Paris? You may need a vacation." His tone was one of
seriousness.

He'd been doing some thinking in that regard. It could be a business
trip. He knew there were plenty of vampires in Paris that needed
killing, certainly a number he could name personally. They could have
fun there: the Eiffel Tower, the shopping, the little cafés, the night
life. Spike could already see them set up in a small anonymous turret
bed-sit shagging themselves stupid for a year or two, with emphasis on
the shagging part. He'd been mulling over a number of possible scenarios
while she dried her hair.

Entranced for a moment by the thought of Spike on a moonlit Hawaiian
beach, Buffy pulled on her jacket and opened the door carefully. "The
Slayer doesn't get a vacation." The dead weight of her words hung in the
air. He detected a note of regret in her countenance.

Ever the optimist, Spike soldiered on with another viable scenario. "So
maybe I'll need to vacation in, say, Sunnydale?" Spike caught the subtle
smile that escaped her lips. Oh yeah, Sunnydale was definitely the
preferred vacation destination, and a certain hot-blooded slayer's body
the resort of choice.

Buffy grabbed the 'do not disturb' sign and slipped it over the
doorknob. It was a small gesture but Spike noticed and nodded his thanks
and a silent farewell. She let her eyes caress him one last time as the
door closed.

Spike slept soundly all day. Drusilla never once entered his dreams.
Over the years he'd often thought he was incapable of thinking of
anything but her, even asleep. This was a momentous day, indeed. This
day his dreams filled with the tiny merciless fists of the Slayer, her
heady gasps of passion released and the sweetly scented elixir of her
flesh.

When he woke, feeling refreshed for the first time in years, Spike
straightened her demolished room. He left long before she returned in
the evening. She was a little disappointed when she returned and found
him gone.

Buffy gave her notice at work the next day. She said that a family
emergency called her back home. Millie was saddened to lose the best
employee she'd had in a decade.

The last day of work was her best one. Buffy smiled honestly at all her
customers and chatted up the regulars with wit and patience. Jokes she'd
heard a dozen times suddenly made her giggle. The 'good-bye Anne' tip
jar overflowed with generosity.

Her eyes darted frequently outside to marvel at the sunlight glinting
off the leaves on the tree lined street. She could hardly believe it,
there were leaves on the trees, shimmering like jeweled ribbons in the
breeze. It was a wonder to behold.

She'd never even noticed them before.

The End

There you have it. My aim was a hopeful ending. You'll have to decide
for yourselves if I succeeded. For everyone who read this story, thank
you. I appreciate having the opportunity to share it with you. As always
I am deeply thankful for those of you who took the time to send me your
thoughts and encouraging words. A particular thank you goes out to Marla
and Tallgent...you made me pause and think and smile.
 

 *Text borrowed from  Vampires Kiss *

sequel Open All Night