By: joyful_dayz
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Locking the basement door behind her, Buffy stomped down the stairs to
where Spike was sprawled across his cot, lounging against the cement
wall.
She folded her arms and stared at him, still disgruntled at finding him
and Faith casually smoking together, flirting, on that very cot. After
several seconds, he raised an eyebrow, and said mildly, “What is it,
Pet?”
Scowling, she said, “I need to warn you about Faith. She’s a predator;
uses men and then discards them…She has her eye on you.”
Spike pursed his lips, and replied, “Uh Huh. Well, you needn’t worry
about me, Sweetheart, because my eye is on you.”
“…I just don’t want her to hurt you, like I did,” she whispered, looking
down in embarrassment.
Hope awakened in Spike’s breast. He hesitated, and then asked, “Buffy,
do you love me?”
Looking pole-axed, she stammered, “What? No…no…maybe.”
Standing up, he put his hands on her forearms, stared intently into her
eyes, and said, “If you don’t love me, I’ll stand by your side and fight
with you to the bitter end; but if you do love me, we have a
better chance of making it through this war, together.”
“What are you talking about?” she asked in confusion.
He took her hand and pulled her down to sit beside him. “You could marry
me.”
Impatience replaced the confusion on Buffy’s face. “Spike, we don’t have
time for this…”
“Shh.” He quieted her with a finger on her lips. “Love is the greatest
power there is, Buffy. It crosses all boundaries, even infiltrating
evil. Long ago, someone found a way to make love work for evil. The
vampire wedding, or mating ceremony has great power; but vampires rarely
marry, because it’s so dangerous. If their love is true, during the
mating his strength becomes hers, her strength becomes his, and then
their combined power is doubled again making each four times as
strong as before, because the whole is stronger than the sum of it’s
parts.”
Buffy raised her eyebrows.
“But that’s not all,” he said. “Your healing powers would become mine;
mine, yours, and then each would double again as well.”
Buffy started to speak, but again Spike put his finger to her lips.
“Wait. Nothing that can’t kill me could kill you. You couldn’t be
drowned or killed in a fall again, by being drained of blood, by a
broken neck, or die of a bullet wound. I couldn’t be burned by sunlight,
a cross, or holy water. In fact, nothing that can’t kill both of us
could kill either of us. Barring a wooden stake through the heart or
decapitation, I can’t think of much.” Spike shrugged, “Guess they could
douse us with gasoline and torch us, but it wouldn’t be fast.”
Buffy jumped up excitedly.
“Also”, Spike continued, “you would gain my vampire senses: acute smell,
hearing, eye sight, feeling when someone is near, sensing
what another feels: fear, pain, hate, desire, love. I would gain your
slayer instincts.”
“Spike, this could make a huge difference, we’d have a chance!” she
threw her arms in the air and began pacing back and forth.
“That’s not all. We would also gain each other’s personality strengths.
You’d get my determination to win, no matter what the odds or the cost.
I’d get your dedication to the mission…but if you don’t love me, we
can’t do it, because we’d be destroyed.”
Stopping short, she asked grimly, “How?”
“If one partner’s love isn’t true, then they gain each other’s
weaknesses instead of strengths. Get it?”
Buffy contemplated for a moment, “You could be slain by anything that
can kill me, I couldn’t go out into the sun, touch a cross or endure
holy water.”
“Yeah…” he said, “and our physical strength, healing, senses would
shrink to the human norm…we’d get each other’s character weaknesses
instead of strengths; before long, we’d be dead, literally.”
“This power, it’s from the dark,” Buffy said.
“No, the power of love is light, the dark just makes use of it.”
“I’m not a vampire.”
Looking resolute, he replied, “Cross species Mating has been done
before. It works. So, the question of the day is, do you love me?”
Buffy hesitated, and then said slowly, “It’s not that I don’t love you,
it’s that I don’t dare to.”
“Why?” he asked quietly.
Turning away and wrapping her arms around herself, she confessed, “Every
man I’ve ever loved has left me; every man, even my father.” Turning
back, and looking earnestly into his eyes, she stressed, “ I can’t lose
you, Spike. Not only couldn’t I bear it, but we need you in this
war!”
Frustrated, Spike jumped up, grabbed her shoulders and shook her, each
phrase getting louder. “Buffy Anne Summers, I am not your father; I am
not that git Finn; and I am bloody well not Angel!” he roared. Then more
calmly, “I gave up the world for you! You are my world! I will never
leave you!”
“And your soul? Is it safe with me?” she asked quietly.
His frustration melted away and a soft light entered Spike’s eyes.
Stroking her hair, he whispered, “I loved you first without my soul. I
won it for you; I didn’t have to be cursed with it. My soul is my own. I
won’t lose it.”
Hugging him until his ribs threatened to crack, Buffy cried joyfully, “I
love you, Spike!”
His whole face lit up, and kissing her passionately, Spike murmured,
“Will you marry me?”
Buffy gasped, “Yes. Yes.”
Raining kisses over her face and neck, he said, “Here’s what we do. At
the height of passion…”
Buffy pulled away. “The height of passion?”
Quirking his eyebrow, Spike smirked: “Yeah, the height of passion, it is
after all a Mating. Just before climax, I say to you, ‘I’m yours.’ You
repeat to me, ‘I’m yours.’ In unison we say, ‘Heart, Body, Blood, We are
One.’ Then, as we come, we bite each other and drink.”
Horrified, Buffy jumped back. “WHAT!?!” she cried shrilly.
He touched her cheek softly. “Not enough to sire you, just enough to
join our blood, as our hearts and bodies are joined; and the
transformation takes place. Remember, bite me hard, so that you draw
blood and can drink.”
“Ewww.”
“It’s imperative, Love.”
Buffy stuck her lower lip out, and questioned, “No fancy dress, huh? No
wedding dinner to fight over seating arrangements?”
Pulling her back into his arms, he nibbled on her lower lip, “No,
Sweetheart, just us. Together.”
“If I end up a vampire, I will really bite you!” she groused.
Spike tilted his head and smiled. “You won’t.”
Buffy had a sudden thought and frowned, “Did you marry Drusilla?”
Spike’s face shut down. “No. Drucilla’s insane.”
Buffy smiled slightly, relieved, and leaned into Spike. Taking his face
between her hands, she gently kissed him. Slowly, he relaxed and they
sank onto the cot…their caresses becoming more fevered, more intense . .
. eventually they whispered to each other, swallowed, convulsed; and
power, red and yellow light washed over them, stunning them.
Later, lying in his arms, Buffy stroked Spike’s bicep and said, “It’s
been so long, and I’ve missed you so much…I want to wake up in your arms
every day for the rest of my life, but being Dawn's guardian, it needs
to be legal. Will you marry me again? Human wise?”
Joyously, Spike began kissing her again, “Yes! God, yes!”
Flipping over and stretching out on top of him, Buffy nuzzled into his
neck, “Mmm, you smell delicious. So you’ve been able to sense my desire,
my love all along?”
Stroking his hand up and down her back, he murmured, “Mmhmm.”
“For how long?”
Sitting up and lifting her across his lap, Spike kissed the top of
Buffy’s head, and answered, “Since the night I stood up to Glory for
you.”
“Then why didn’t we do this sooner?” Buffy pouted.
Spike licked her lower lip, and replied, “Because until you could admit
that you love me, it wasn’t strong enough. Tonight was the first time
you even came close to telling me; the first time you’ve given me the
feeling you ever would tell me.”
Buffy was silent for a few moments, then, “Your bite, it’s already
healed!” she said in surprise.
“So’s yours.”
“But it scarred!” She exclaimed.
“They’re Mating Bites, Luv, they’re permanent,” he said, licking the new
scar on her neck that over rode and obliterated the old ones beneath it.
“Lets go watch the sunrise, Pet, it’s so beautiful…like you; always was
my favorite time of day. Been over a hundred years since I’ve seen it.”
“They climbed the stairs and walked outside to watch the sunrise in each
other’s arms.
End