Motivation
DISCLAIMER:No, I don't own any of the characters that appear in this story.
RATING:PG-13 to R(for the sensitive only)
BACKGROUND: Season 4 story. Occurs after "Doomed," but Riley and Buffy are not a couple. Buffy/Spike action.
"Alright, time to drink your daily meal," Buffy sang in her most sing-songy voice.
The black clad figure stretched out full length in the bathtub coolly eyed her with distaste. He shifted against the manacles and chain that held him prisoner. His gaze shifted from Buffy to the cup she was carrying. He recoiled in annoyance because it was Giles's "Kiss the Librarian" mug with a striped straw.
"Nah, not today Slayer," he replied shaking his white-blonde head.
"Look Spike, you have to eat. You don't eat, you get all fangy and blood-lusty, and none of us want that."
"Sure Slayer, like blood lust would do me a hell of a lotta good right now." Spike struggled with his chains, which reminded Buffy of his predicament. Ever since he'd been captured by the Initiative, Spike had been unable to bite or hurt humans. This made Buffy and the gang happy, but, even after he found he could hurt non-humans, Spike was the complete opposite of happy.
"I don't care, you need to eat this. When's the last time you ate anyway?"
"Oh, yesterday. The witch fed me," he said a little too casually.
Buffy knew that he was lying since Willow had told her what really happened. "She did? That's funny, she said she left you alone, and she caught you pouring it down the drain." Buffy's voice oozed with sticky sarcasm.
Spike scooted as far from her as his chains would permit and turned away from her.
"I also know about that other holy water episode. You know you can't drink it. You're chained in the bath tub right now because after you tried to stake yourself last week, Willow wants to make sure that you don't." She took a step closer to the tub. "I promised Willow you would drink this so you had better do it."
Smelling the pig's blood, Spike faced her and his game face briefly peeked through. He quickly controlled the impulse and returned to normal. "I don't want it you wanker."
She slid right to the edge of the tub, pushing the mug at him. "Take it, you need to eat." Before her eyes the demon slipped through again. Spike's hungry yellow eyes focused on the cup. He leaned forward to drink . . .
His arm suddenly snapped up to slap the cup. Blood spilled everywhere as he yelled, "I told you, I don't bloody want it!"
Buffy seethed beneath her newly stained camisole. By design or not, Spike had completely drenched her clothes, hair, and face with pig's blood. Wiping a spot of blood off of her forehead, she reached a decision,"That's it. No more nice Slayer." She seized his shoulder and felt his collar bone, ignoring his struggles against her strength. With her thumb she traced the veins along his cool neck. What she found surprised her. He was thin, very, very thin, the skin stretched painfully across his bones.
"You haven't eaten for at least a week! You shouldn't even be conscious, let alone fighting me!" She released his shoulder.
The yellow demon eyes glared at her for a second, but the effort was becoming too great. Spike collapsed back into his regular human features and lay back, appearing more like a corpse than usual. "It would be really sweet of you, Slayer, to cut this helpful crap and stake me right now."
"Not even I can put a helpless perso--creature out of its misery for no good reason."
He lunged at her; his full vamp face back on. Buffy didn't even flinch as his bounds pulled him back. Landing hard in the tub, he lay there his blue eyes glittering angrily. "Stake me already."
"I don't get it. You're always going on about how cool unlife is and how being undead is the life. Now you're begging me to kick your sorry ass?"
Spike leaned his head on the back of the tub,"You remember, oh, 'bout two years ago Halloween?"
How could she not? She had worn that costume from Ethan's shop that transformed her into a helpless seventeenth century lady. Spike and his little demon friends had tried to kill her, but Giles broke the spell at the nick of time. Spike had received the beating of his life, barely escaping her wrath with his life. "Course."
"Remember how helpless you were in there? That whole time you were trapped inside and couldn't even raise a hand against me. Not even I can deny you're a hunter. You hunt me and my pals, but that time," His eyes glowed,"You were the hunted with no way to resist."
She closed her eyes briefly, somewhat surprised he knew how she had felt then. He always seemed to know what she was feeling no matter what was going on. Spike was right: she had hated that helpless feeling beyond all things.
He continued on,"You got out and wailed on me. Unlike you Slayer, I can't get out. Look at me!" She complied. "I'm worthless now. I'm being fed and beaten up by Happy Meals. Its like going to McDonald's and getting attacked by the french fries!"
The edge of despair in his voice almost struck a chord within her. *Stop it,* she told herself, *if he weren't defanged, he'd be sucking your blood, not having a conversation.* Buffy set the mug on the side of the bath and leaned over him. "It's not all bad. You can still kill vampires and demons."
"Sure, that's cool, I can only bag my friends. Not like they'll even let me get close since I've definitely joined forces with the Slayer." His eyes slid over her, taking in her nearness and her scent. Vanilla, he knew, Angelus had been obsessed with it.
"So you're trying to weasel your way out of this, just getting staked." Buffy was so close now she could feel his coldness radiating from his skin. She wondered for a second why she was getting so close; it was insane. Pushing the thought aside, she went on,"You know what it makes you? A loser."
Spike could actually hear her heart begin to race and noticed her slight, slight, hardly perceptual shiver. "Tart," he whispered.
Buffy's mouth was an inch from his. "Coward."
"Harlot," he replied and closed the inch.
Open mouthed they inhaled each other. For him, she was there, human, and for a moment all his. For her it was a touch with something inside her she tried to ignore for so long. Neither of them thinking of much at all, they tried to get closer.
Her arms wrapped around his neck as she climbed in with him, trapping his chained hands between them. Hot on cold, their tongues battled for dominance which only served to deepen the kiss. Spike's hands played across her breast, and Buffy broke the kiss to lick his neck with her small tongue. Warm hands pushed up his black T-shirt. When she moved her head down to tease his flat nipples, he used her change of position to free his arms and slide them over her head, encircling her with his arms. Groaning in pleasure as she laved his chest, he reached behind her bloody camisole and unsnapped her bra. Suddenly free from the bra's constriction, Buffy gasped when she felt his hands come to rest at the waistband of her jeans.
Buffy glanced up at Spike for a second, long enough to see the dangerous glimmer in his eyes. Slayer senses coming alert for danger, she barely saw the sudden downward plunge of the stake.
Reacting on instinct, Buffy slammed the arm from its intended target, Spike's heart, and deflected it into his arm. Grabbing the wrist in a bruising grip, she quickly disarmed the hand and held the stake up close to Spike's face.
Spike remained motionless, ignoring the blood pouring out of his arm. Buffy's eyes glared at him accusingly,"You tricked me. You only wanted to get close enough to steal my stake."
The bleeding mostly stopped, Spike answered her in a flat dead tone,"Well, I couldn't see another way. I lost Dru, alienated my sire, betrayed my kind to the other side, got defanged, asked a Watcher for help, drank pig's blood out of a bleating librarian's mug, and just started planning how I was going to shag you, the slayer, my mortal enemy, and my sire's girl to boot, in the Watcher's tub." Shoulders slumping helplessly, he bit out at the Slayer he still held in his arms,"Life can't get worse."
There was silence for a long moment. Guided by a pang she could not explain, Buffy said in a soft voice,"You're right. It can only get better." And she leaned forward to kiss the stunned vampire again.
He struggled for half a moment, but gave into the red wave of passion that overwhelmed them. Disentangling her tongue from his, Buffy ran hers over one of his rapidly sharpening canines, and Spike knew he'd been caught.
Blood ran, warm, sweet, coppery into his mouth. He began to suck on her cut, tasting delicious human blood for the first time in months. A sense of her filled him as he tried to drown in her taste, her scent, her warmth.
Buffy drew back her lips red with her own blood. Oddly enough, she had actually enjoyed that. Judging by the expression on his face, he had too. Before he could stop her or even know what she was about, she rolled up her sleeve and made a sharp cut across her wrist with the stake. Blood welled up and, in a gesture totally against everything a Slayer should have done, she offered it to him.
Spike resisted at first because he knew that drinking her blood would probably be signing his own execution order. The hungry demon inside him overcame his reluctance, and he clamped onto her wrist, drinking her down. They sat in silence, eyes locked, he holding her in his arms, and she gazing at him feeding on her. After several seconds, warned by the blank look in her eyes, Spike forcefully dragged himself away from her.
She avoided his eyes as she searched for a way to bind up her arm. Spike pulled his arms back over her head and tore a long strip off the bottom of his much rumpled T-shirt. She took it from him, shaking as what she'd just been doing began to sink in. Her shaking was so much that he had to help her wrap it.
"I . . .I never did that for anyone, except for Angel," she stammered sitting up on him.
Despite the rage boiling up in his newly rejuvenated veins, he stiffly reached out, plucked the mug form the lip of the bathtub, and downed it with a single disgusted gulp. "Why does it always end up to that great poof?" The predator obviously felt much better since the next words of out of his mouth were,"Slayer, you have got to fix your clothes. You look like you've been . . .ravished by a vampire." He finished for lack of a better description. His words forced her to realize what she looked like and how her position could look to others. She was covered with flecks of pig's blood, her shirt was all askew, and her bra was pushed up. She was also straddling Spike's thighs, which felt far too good, and she was holding a blood covered stake. Combined with Spike's rumpled clothes, satisfied expression, and new energy, her position couldn't have appeared less professional.
After reclasping her bra and straightening her shirt, the bathroom door opened. Buffy quickly moved the stake over Spike's heart and heard Giles's "Buffy-oh my."
"Hi Giles," she answered locking gazes with the peroxide blonde she had just spent a few minutes in serious liplock with, daring him to say a word. As casually as she could, she wiped some hair out of her eyes with a bloody hand. "Spike and I were having a . . .discussion. He's agreed to drink his blood from now on without a fight, right?"
"Right," Spike agreed too quickly. "She was very convincing." Buffy shook the stake warningly and Spike decided not to continue.
Giles adjusted his glasses and searched for an appropriate reply. "Ummm. . .that's good. Willow called. She says that you are late for your date with Riley. He is waiting at your dormitory room."
"God, I almost forgot. What can I do about this?" Hopping out of the tub, she indicated her bloody clothes. She ignored the stare she felt she was receiving from Spike. "I guess I'm going to my house to change. That'll fly with Mom."
"I am sure Joyce will understand," Giles soothed taking her departure as a chance to examine Spike's bloody arm and torn T-shirt.
Seeing the questions plainly written on his face, Buffy decided now was the time to make a hasty retreat. "Giles, I'm late. I've gotta go. I'm sure Riley's wigging as it is." She fled the room, running from the questions and her doubts about what she and Spike had done.
Spike watched her leave and said to Giles,"Watcher, you're just the bloke I need to talk to."
Buffy avoided Giles's house for two days. Nothing dangerous had cropped up in Sunnydale so she sent Willow to feed Spike. She did not feel up to dealing with him. Why had she kissed him? Why had she forced him to live? Why had she given him her blood? Worse yet, why had she enjoyed it so much? There could have never been a slayer who had broken as many of the still unseen Slayer handbook. Letting Angel have her blood was frowned upon, but understandable since he had a soul and had been dying. Forcing her blood on Spike, a soul-less vampire, had to be an unforgivable sin. Her date with Riley had been fine, but he didn't make her blood rush or her heart speed or send shivers down her spine. He didn't make her want to join with the darkness. . .
She snapped out of it when her phone rang. Picking it up, she sat down on her bed and was surprised to hear Giles.
"Buffy, it's Giles."
"Yeah, it's me. What's up?" She mouthed 'Giles' to Willow who was on the other side of the room studying.
"You need to come down to the house."
"Why? What happened?"
There was some reluctance in Giles's voice,"It's about Spike."
Worry rushed up her throat. Had Spike carried through on his threats, was he dead- Buffy again forced herself to control her emotions, and gave Giles a calm reply,"Did something bad happen? More like, is he dead?"
"No, he is not dead. Good or bad is a matter of opinion. I do need to talk to you."
"Okay, I'll be there in . . .say five minutes." She hung up the phone.
"What's up?" Willow asked.
Buffy waved her hand casually,"Nothing bad, I guess. Giles needs to talk to me, something about Spike." She picked up her Slayer bag and checked her watch. "It's about 8 now. I'll probably go patrol after I see Giles, so don't wait up."
"Got it. I'll study since this doesn't require any of my witchy talents." Willow returned to her books and didn't look up as Buffy hurried out the door.
Arriving at Giles's house in precisely four minutes, Buffy rang the doorbell. She was surprised when Spike opened the door. Watching her scramble for her stake, Spike gave her his fangiest grin and said,"Come in."
"It's okay, Buffy," Giles called from his living room.
Buffy entered and saw three black duffel bags neatly stacked by the door. Checking out Spike, she noticed that he was wearing his favorite outfit, red shirt and black duster.
"What's going on here?" she asked Giles who was sitting on the couch.
"The long and short of this issue is that Spike and I had a bit of a talk." Giles made his signature annoyed clicking noise in his throat. "Spike feels he is being suffocated here."
"I don't breathe," Spike put in.
Ignoring the interruption, Giles plowed onward,"He, being suffocated, wants to move." He raised his hand before Buffy could protest. "Not moving away, I do not trust him that much. He would just be moving out of this house. He would stay somewhere in Sunnydale and come here every night. He has even agreed to go and patrol with you, as long as he lives, sleeps, and eats at his own place."
"Eating, as in people?"
"I can't even get a mouthful of a real live human! I just gotta put some distance between you and me," Spike broke in giving her a hard stare.
"Look, this has nothing to do with us-" Buffy was flustered. Had Spike told Giles he was moving out because of the kisses?
"I need to distance myself from the Slayer cause I don't fancy getting staked by my own kind." His gaze got harder,"This working with the enemy thing is going to be secret. I live, I patrol, and we practice zero tolerance on all vamps.
"You help me kill every single vampire we meet? Yeah, I can see that. Also I hear voices and see spots," Buffy spat back in disbelief.
"Look, I may have switched sides, but that doesn't give me a death wish." He paid no attention to Buffy's eyes rolling at the last statement. "I may not have a soul like the poof, but my survival instincts work just great. The second anyone finds out that not only do I help the Slayer, but that I stake with her, I'm dust. I might as well go swimming in holy water or step outside for a suntan, they'll hunt me down that quick." His face shifted into the demon,"So when I'm there, everyone gets it, my friends or not."
"Spike needs your approval of his moving, and," Giles took a breath,"In the interests of his secret 'identity,' he'll tell only you where he is moving. That is my signal to leave." Obviously relieved to be finished, Giles practically ran up the stairs. "Don't break anything," he threw over his shoulder.
Buffy plopped down on the couch, and Spike lounged on a nearby arm chair, demon inside again."So you move out, you agree to kill only vampires and what-not, and you tell only me where you live."
"Basically, yeah. Except the part where I get a job."
She laughed at him,"Spike, you? A job as in one that get's money?"
Vaguely annoyed, he replied,"Yes, a job."
"What will you do? Since when do century-old undead guys have any job skills? Let me guess, head torturer, face painting? Why do you even need a job?"
Spike rolled his eyes,"A job is excellent cover because I'm moving onto the campus of UC Sunnydale."
"What?" Buffy was expecting him to move into a factory, warehouse, or crypt. "How?! What?!"
"Actually I got the house because things weren't working out between me and Harm. I kept fighting the urge to stake her so I made plans to move closer to you." To demonstrate he stood and sat next to her on the couch. A red flush hinted in her as her traitorous body reacted to his nearness.
"And where did you get this house? Do vampires have long-term savings accounts? Are you eligible for a loan?" She said fighting her sudden desire to kiss his far-too-near mouth.
"It's owner died an . . .untimely death. Fortunately he willed me all of his earthly possessions before his poor soul passed on." He lay one hand on her arm, barely managing to control his urge to pull her into his arms. He whispered into her ear,"I was going to kill you from there, but that's not an option now, is it?"
Closing her eyes and gathering her will power, she leaned away from him. Trying to keep her thoughts straight, she mentally repeated the words: vampire, bad, Angel bad, vampire, bad, Spike, evil. "Your-your job. What do you do?"
"Internet history tutor. College set me up with my own site and pays me," he chuckled. "I also fix electronics."
"I didn't know you could do that," she stammered.
"There's lots you don't know about me, pet." He leaned forward and brushed his lips against hers.
Ignoring the thrum of pleasure that accompanied the short kiss, she stood. "Is that your stuff by the door?"
"Yes," he followed her to the door with the easy stalking grace of a hunter. "Can I move out?" His voice had dropped almost to a purr and the burning look in his eyes belied the casualness of his question. She took a tentative step back from him and bumped into the door.
"Go ahead. Don't let me stop you."
His dark eyes now tightly controlled, Spike calmly slung his duffels over his shoulder. He reached into one of his inner pockets and pulled out a small piece of paper. "This is my new address, phone number, and cell phone number in case I'm not there."
"Got it." She took the paper from him, her warm hand touching his cool one. That short second of contact was a mistake because she lost her battle with herself. She gave a small cry and threw herself into her arms.
Arms wrapped tight, the kiss absorbed their entire beings. Human, vampire, it all faded underneath the intensity of the kiss. It was perfect; it was wrong. It was everything, but it had to be nothing. Never had such a delicious nectar tasted so sweet or so forbidden. Buffy moaned softly against his mouth, and Spike responded with a deep growl from the back of his throat.
Unbidden the thought crept into her mind, *Angel, now Spike. What is your duty?* She hesitated, and Spike, having similar thoughts, pushed her away.
"Now you see why I can't stay," Spike said his jaw set. "This is not natural. It should not be bloody happening." He pointed his finger at her. "You are the Slayer. I am a vampire. I don't have a soul or want one. You are my sire's girl, and you know it." His voice became harder,"We are enemies, and enemies don't do this."
He seized her and delivered another mind-numbing kiss to her mouth. Then he pushed her away and savagely opened the door, marching outside.
Her mind still reeling from that the self-loathing she'd tasted on his mouth from the last kiss, she followed him out. "Spike."
"What?" he bit out.
"--take care of yourself." She debated what to say next. How was the best way to tell an angry vampire not to commit suicide? "Don't do anything majorly stupid, like holy water. Get my drift?"
"Don't worry, luv. I think I found some motivation now." His eyes had that gleam again.
"Motivation?" Her motivation at this particular moment was to grab him and start the kissing all over again.
"Yeah. The usual, I want to save the world. Get my teeth back. What else?" He gave her one of his most daring grins. "You know how I like challenges. If this doesn't kill me again, I'll only be stronger. Gotta go, toodles." He turned away, all bravado, and started toward the street.
"Wait." Buffy rushed forward an planted a hard kiss on his open mouth. Before it became too intense she shoved him back. Again she wondered why the hell she was acting this way. He was the enemy, kinda.
He wiped the back of his hand across his bruising mouth. "You and I need distance. You know it too." She nodded once again knowing he was right. "This can't be happening again." With that he headed off into the darkness. Buffy watched him go in silence, alone, wondering if he wasn't lying. Would it ever happen again? She felt her tender mouth and decided she wouldn't bet either way.