Sang et Ivoire

By Holly

Chapter Twenty-Two

The room around her was blurry - a wave of fuzzy shapes and seemingly intangible objects. A sharp pain jittered across her back, alerting her to the numbness infecting her neck. Buffy squeezed her eyes together and took in a shuddering breath. Her body ached in affect. She didn't want to see where she was.

The surface was cold. Long minutes ticked by, revealing nothing but silence that stretched forever. The air seemed odorless - she had never made study of the atmosphere's various tangs, and wouldn't have noticed it if there was something to notice.

There was nothing.

The events accumulating finally came soaring back. Buffy's insides went cold with dark comprehension. Her tinglies were shooting off the wire, something sharp though insubstantial jabbing her in the gut.

"Dawn," she murmured, attempting and failing to sit up. Her voice sounded far away, dry and raw - leaves scratching at her throat. At last her eyes edged open, but there was nothing to see.

Nothing.

"Dawn?" she called again, knowing somewhere that it was fruitless. No answer came.

Blackness.

Buffy drew in another painful breath and forced herself to wobbly feet, stumbling over as her hand shot out to find an entity of measurable support. Nothing greeted her for several yards, and the thought arose that she had been abandoned somewhere in the wilderness. It sounded too ridiculous within her mind's cavity to voice aloud, and just as the notion passed, cold steel brushed against her skin. An undeniable barrier. Pieces were slowly fitting together. Seconds calculation verified she was in a room. A holding pen.

Trapped like an animal.

The Slayer let out another quaking breath, pressing her back against the wall before sliding to the ground. Though awake, she could tell she had been sufficiently drugged. Her voluntary reflexes were not obeying - rather behaving as though under supervision: monitored and even controlled. Abandonment seared every responsive nerve, ignoring the thousands of questions that bombarded an already overloaded mind. Where was she? What had happened? Where was Dawn? What had they - (and who were 'they'?) - done with Spike?

Buffy's breathing leveled as her nerves calmed. There was little dispute concerning whom had taken her or for what purpose. Her mind raced with unnerving consideration. Her last distinct memory entailed falling forward and landing into the platinum vampire's arms. The attacker had targeted her from the shadows - and she knew William would not have given her over. Whoever it was had incapacitated him, as well.

Or worse.

That thought sent a sour taste down her throat. Buffy exhaled again and her stomach rumbled. She hadn't eaten since that morning.

Something flickered in the far corner, bursting through the silence with unspoken calamity. The Slayer started in surprise, heaving herself to her feet out of defensive reflex, but finding the legs she depended on were too wobbly for support. Then her insides engulfed in warmth, and a premature sensation of unbridled relief washed through her.

In the corner opposite her sat William, lighting a cigarette.

Somehow, through unspoken understanding, he realized the exact minute she recognized him that she had made the connection. The calm in his voice was disconcerting. She would have preferred a bit of panic. "You're awake," he observed softly, indicating he had been watching her for some time.

"Wh...where are we?"

"Don't know." A huff of smoke materialized through the darkness. "Did plenty of bangin' around earlier that you slept right through. Can't find a bloody door or light. Might be in Bulgaria, for all I know. Guess they gave you a stronger dose than me. Prolly didn't reckon takin' out two at once."

"How long have we been here?"

William sighed, and a cloud of smoke rolled with him. "Woke up 'bout an hour ago. How long we were 'ere before that is anyone's guess. Made sure you were all right, then tried to find the sodding exit. Gave up. Watched you sleep."

Buffy nodded and again attempted to rise to her feet, but her footing caught her off balance and once more, she fell to the ground. Only this time, the vampire - lithe and limber - had bolted from his position to catch her. She found herself in his protective arms, lighted fag dangling between his lips. The smell - one she usually rebuked - comforted her in an oddly familiar fashion. A reassurance that he was here. That she wasn't-as she so often found herself - alone.

"Careful, luv," he cooed soothingly, guiding her to the wall once more, finding purchase with her. "They drugged you up right good. Made me a bit woozy, too, wanderin' 'round 'ere." A breath rumbled through his body, and she relaxed against him, giving into the temptation set by the chemical compounds fighting through her bloodstream. "I 'aven't heard or seen Dawn, but I got a feelin' she's nearby."

The sound of her sister's name brought her back from any pivotal edge of tranquility. "Dawn," Buffy muttered, attempting to sit up, only to be brought back by the vampire's insistent embrace. "No. Stop. We got to...Dawn...gotta get to..."

"Shhh, shhh. Save your strength, luv. Bloody prats won't leave us in 'ere forever, an' I'd much prefer to 'ave a slayer at full power. That stuff they doped you with was mighty potent." William stroked her hair calmingly as she settled against him once more, reluctant vibes quaking through her body. "'S only a matter of time."

Little by little, she was warming up to him, softening into his hold. Allowing him to hold. It was beyond sensationalism. Beyond any form of soothing remedy the petty world could offer. Buffy's eyes fluttered as she battled again with sleep. No, no. Had to stay awake. Had to in case...

Had to talk. She would stay awake as long as she was speaking. "Why didn't you say something when I woke up?" she asked, wondering when on God's green earth William became so comfortable. Had he always been? She knew she enjoyed resting against him after times of intimacy - despite how feverishly she had denied it - but this was just soothing. Reassuring. The sort of embrace people spent their whole lives trying to discover. The way he held her with such warm encouragement and unspoken love.

The vampire hesitated and rumbled into her hair. "I was watchin' you, pet. Guess I got caught up in it. Didn't think to speak till I saw you thought you were alone."

Buffy smiled against him, and felt a growl ripple through him in return. "Very reassuring."

He ran a hand through her hair appreciatively, clutching her to him, as though trying to absorb her warmth. When she did not complain, he rested his cheek on her head, enjoying a moment's peace.

For a long beat, there was nothing in the universe save two kindred souls locked together in a moment of closeness so exceedingly greater than anything the union of two bodies could conjure. A world of abbreviated concern - where these earthly agonies failed to drive anyone away to a proverbial point of reasoning.

It amazed her - this continuous kindness. No matter how horrible she was to him, he always came back.

Buffy sighed, closing her eyes tightly and willing herself away. "Why not just kill us?" she whispered. "Why go to all this trouble?"

His arms tightened around her. "Bloke wants us to suffer. Prolly aims to make you watch a whole walloping load of badness before offing you. 'S not any fun if you can't soak up the pain."

"I need to get to Dawn," she stated again, making no bodily move to suggest any intention of rising. "She must be so scared."

"Not now," William retorted. "At first, sure, but the Nibblet's got a good head on 'er shoulders. She's sharp enough to know if they 'aven't killed her by now, she's safe for the time being."

The Slayer went rigid. "Until the Master decides she's served her purpose. God...I...I got to get out of here."

"An' you will."

"How can you be so sure? So...calm?"

"'Cause I know panicking won't do a bloody thing to help."

Buffy heaved a breath and sat up, painfully retracting herself from William's reach. "What about Angel?"

With annoying negligence, he shrugged. "Dun know. Let's hope 'e got to Ripper when we didn't meet up with 'im. Only problem, luv, is the Scoobies wouldn't know the firs' place to start lookin'." A shuffle behind her as he sat up, leaning comfortably against the wall. "IF they got 'im, though, 'e's prolly in another holdin' cell, or what all."

A small silence settled between them, almost awkward where noise desperately needed to fill the empty gaps. Buffy took in everything. Apart from the vampire's huffs of nicotine, there was no visible light anywhere in the room.

Something took command of her - dawning with irrefutable knowledge. She was drastically unprepared for whatever it was she was aiming to face. The past couple weeks had been void of conventional study. Too enwrapped was she in settling the matters of her personal affairs. Had she stopped nagging William for three minutes about this business concerning his soul and his reluctance to rekindle their doomed-from-the-beginning affair, she could have prevented Dawn's capture. Could have prepared for what she would inevitably face. These past few years were colored with over-confidence. She had reached a point where death was just an omen - non-existent in all regards.

It was a simple conclusion to reach, given her inability to die and remain dead.

"My fault," Buffy whispered, voice practically inaudible.

The vampire stirred. "What?"

"This...this everything. Dawn's in danger now because I've been so goddamn selfish. Wound up in my own little world with my issues." She growled in frustration and banged her head against the wall. "God! I've been so...stupid."

William's face darkened - though she couldn't see it, and a snarl of discontent tickled his throat. "No, this is not your fault. Don't even begin to think it is."

"Well, how else am I supposed to look at it?!" Buffy cried ardently. "I've been so focused on dealing with you that I overlooked the big picture. I stopped worrying about my friends and more about making things right with you that I allowed my sister to become the bait to lure me here. That's wrong, Will. It's so wrong. I can barely see straight for being so pissed at myself. I'm a horrible, horrible person."

William growled and lunged for her, pinning her to the ground as shots of self-exasperation flared behind wounded albeit understanding eyes. "Then it's not your fault, luv. 'S mine. All mine. You can't blame yourself for my mistakes."

"I do blame you!" she spat, writhing ineffectually beneath him. "If you hadn't come back, I would never have gotten this distracted. If you had just come clean with your goddamn soul in the first place, I wouldn't have had to force it out of you. We spent more time arguing about blame and who had more right to love than...wasted. It's all wasted. This is why a slayer is destined to be alone in life. Because of all the fucking distractions!"

The vampire grumbled course disapproval, but sat up and allowed her space just the same. "I didn't want to come back. Hell, I told Ripper it'd be a sodding distraction."

"Yes, so you've told me. And told me. And told me. Fuck your excuses. Fuck it all."

"Look, pet, I didn't ask for anythin'. Goodwill, love, forgiveness, any of it. Least of all forgiveness. An' yet you insisted. I tried to distance myself, an' it didn't work. You came to me anyhow. All right?" William fought to his feet. "But if it makes you feel better to hate me fo' it, go on about it, then. Your hatred is easier for me to accept." There was no revocation of the proffered recognition of blame he voiced just seconds before, and though his eyes were cold, she knew he spoke the truth. "That's the Buffy Summers I know."

The look she portrayed nearly resolved all negative means. Another aching wind suddenly grasped her tortured core. Stubbornly, she turned away from him, refusing to allow her mind and will melt again to the secretion of sweet tidings. She could not look into those eyes she had hurt over and over. Things were so much easier when she was angry with him. There was that air of undeniable familiarity. That which she knew how to react. Where she knew what was expected of her.

But she did look at him, and it was her mistake. No blame burned behind the ocean haze of his sea-born eyes. None of these things could rightfully be accredited to him in harmful partiality. That was her folly, lived and relived as some infernal purgatory.

Buffy drew in a quivering breath and stifled a sob, returning to her original crime. "I'm...I'm a horrible person."

The shaded hurt and anger dissolved from his expression without any potent influence. At once, he was at her side again, taking her hands in his as she forfeited her tenacity to tears. He caressed her sodden face with tender affection, beckoning her gaze to his with no success.

"Buffy, look at me."

"No. Leave me alone."

"Come on, Slayer. What-"

"How can you do this?" She granted him her swollen eyes, though grudgingly. "I'm so awful to you. I always have been."

William smiled poignantly and wiped her face free in a motion of the utmost attachment. "Because you're Buffy," he replied softly. "This - being with you, feeling what I feel...it means all of it. Every bloody part of what makes you who you are. Wouldn't change it fo' anythin', luv. You wouldn't be worth pain if you were any different."

By now, she had stopped crying and was back to staring at him in endless wonder. Every breath he took, needed or not, seized hers from her lungs. Poetry was a harp he played beautifully, pulling at each string even when he wasn't trying. Her many faults were overlooked time and time again, reflected without judgment and always forgiven - no matter how she hurt him.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, running a hand through his hair. "Even when I'm supposed to love you, I end up doing something that causes more pain..."

"Don't," he murmured in soft protest. "Don't say that. Don't-"

"Someone once told me that you always hurt the ones you love."

William pursed his lips to trap a rumble. "Someone that wasn't me."

Buffy sighed and cast her gaze downward. "I know. Oh, I know. But you...you're so different now, and the same. There's a part of you that will always be Spike."

At that, he looked away, face falling out of her reach. "I'd change that 'f I could."

"I wouldn't. Spike wasn't like Angelus."

"And you love him."

"I love you - whoever you are. Isn't that enough?"

The vampire smiled sadly. "Once, maybe."

"Stop being a gentleman. It really wigs me out."

William arched a flawless brow. "It's me, luv. As I am now. Take it or leave it."

Buffy sighed and urged his eyes upward, caressing his face with gentle tenderness. A shuddering breath quaked through his body, trembling under her touch and doing little more than prompt her onward. Through the darkness she saw his face - drawn to the heart of his blue gaze, as though it alone was the center if illumination. Softly, cautiously, she moved forward, touching her lips to his with deceiving chasteness. She felt him draw in sharp breath, not responding and not pushing her away; rather sitting there to enjoy the feel of forbidden bliss. When she moved to deepen her touch, William rumbled against her, returning her fire with his own. Lips clashed as their tongues battled mercilessly, small involuntary sounds filling the space silence once resided. As soon as her knees buckled and threatened to collapse, he returned her initiative and gently pushed her to the ground, covering her body with his.

Then his hands were everywhere - encouraged and unbidden as his mouth became more insistent. When at last he pulled away, Buffy took a much-needed breath of air, having forgotten its necessity in the surrender of pure rapture. He darted to taste the still lingering salt of her tears, teasing her skin with blunt teeth as her hands swept through his hair and caressed the muscles in his back.

William turned his attention to her throat, nuzzling affectionately with an occasional nip at welcoming flesh. Her legs parted and he accepted the invitation, rolling to lie between her thighs. When she moved to draw his shirt over his head, he stiffened but did not refuse; and if anything, his attentions sharpened with alarming vehemence. He crooned in pleasure to feel her hands against bare flesh, and a groan of ecstasy escaped her throat in rugged reply.

"Oh God!" Buffy gasped, throwing her legs around his waist, seeking more friction.

William growled as she rubbed against him, tearing his mouth from her skin and blinking harshly to return to some sense of self. "Buffy," he panted desperately. "If I don't stop soon, I won't be able to."

"Then don't," she pleaded, drawing him down for another kiss.

A moan, plain and simple. Sweet surrender. His hands traced patterns on her belly, reaching to untuck her shirt and raise it over her head. Her legs pulled him down further with brute force, earning another whimper and a frenzied tear of her upper garment when his seemingly infallible patience got the better of him.

Skin on skin. Infinitely better.

William sucked a sliver of the flesh on her neck between his teeth, hand covering a laced globe of flesh. Buffy cried out in joy as he ground against her, and a single name past her lips, colored with bright elation.

"...Spike..."

And just like that, it was over. William paused in his ministrations with painful restraint and raised his head to look at her. A small yelp squeezed out of her throat at the sudden standstill, demanding him without words, pleading him to continue. But he would not.

She reached for his face to see his eyes; her own filled with need and confusion as he pulled away completely, and out of her reach.

Buffy panted immodestly. "What is it?"

Through the darkness, she could see him. A silhouette against a darker backing. She could nearly make out the soft, heartrending smile on his lips. A deeper sort of understanding that left her miles from comprehension.

"It's not me you want, luv."

"What?" The Slayer heaved a breath, attempting unsuccessfully to calm down. She knew she was flushed and didn't care. "How can you say-"

"An' despite everythin'...even if you love me, it'll never be what you need. What you're lookin' for."

Tears sprouted to her eyes and she angrily blinked them away. "Goddammit! Why must you be so fucking rational?"

"Because no matter what you say, pet," he returned softly, "I am not the one you want. Not really. An' I never will be. To use your image of what you desire to get my ya-ya's would be wrong an' selfish. I won' do that to you."

Buffy shook her head furiously, tears flowing freely. In one last attempt, she reached for him, leveling their gazes even as he shrank with reluctance. "But I love you."

William sighed. "Only cause 'e was 'ere first."

"No. That's not it. That was never..." The Slayer saw she was fighting a losing battle, sighed in turn and looked down. "Do you love me?"

Foul play. An inequitable question - a startling shadow of an understanding she had once traded with Angel. That seemed lifetimes ago.

The vampire frowned as his eyes darted away. "I can't answer that."

A note in her voice grew desperate. "Why not?"

"'S not fair, pet."

"To who?"

"Either of us." William heaved another breath and edged away, out of her reach. "I can't say. Either answer would hurt you." He paused once more. "An' hurtin' you's something I won' do. Never again."

"You're hurting me now!" Buffy spat in empty respite, moving urgently to touch him even as he shifted further away still. "This is killing me, William."

"An' if I were to say no?" the vampire replied rhetorically. "That wouldn't hurt you? Or yes? That I love you so much I won' let myself 'ave you? Won' let you 'ave what you say you want? That wouldn't hurt you at all?"

Buffy emitted a muffled sob and shook her head furiously. "Then you do. I knew it. I knew you had to."

"Spike had to. As much as he hated it, it was somehow in his nature. It was what he was meant for." His eyes hardened but she saw shots of self-aimed disgust spark behind the façade. "He left it to my duty."

Those were not his words. He could not have convinced her even if he had not flinched. She understood his motive, and even though that singular knowledge kept her from breaking completely, a deep wound carved her heart.

And she looked at his face to reflect her hurt and conception, drawing strength into her tone. "The vampire doth protest too much, methinks."

William's gaze shot upward in immediate acknowledgement at her insight. A small smile of impressed stability favored his features. The streaming fondness that poured into his eyes betrayed everything he was trying to accomplish. The love she saw took her breath away.

"Buffy," he whispered. "I-"

A sudden burst of light shone into the room, so blunt that William hissed in instinct and recoiled into the shadows. The Slayer gasped and seized her shirt, bringing it to cover her state of undress. It came from above - the abrupt interruption, and she saw immediately that it was not sunlight that buffed so zealously. Artificial brightness filled the pit, leaving nowhere to hide.

Buffy's vision began to clear, and she called out with false hope. "Dawn?"

Then she saw them. The deepest pair of maroon eyes anyone had ever possessed watching her with amused withdrawal, blinking once in silent repose.

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