*************
The remainder of Maria’s house was just as perfectly ordered as the few rooms to which he’d been confined---dark wood polished to shine with an Old World charm that seemed oddly out of place in northern California, the occasional antique displayed in the most appropriate manner, corners squared with an obsessiveness that Giles would admire if it were under other circumstances.
In a way, he was almost disappointed. After finishing breakfast in his room, he’d opted to explore his temporary residence under the hope he’d find something that might better explain the entire situation. A secret room filled with sacrifice-laden altars, for instance, or a private stash of black magic books. All he’d actually discovered, though, was that the maid Maria employed liked to play canasta with the cook when she wasn’t on duty, and that his hostess had a penchant for Stickley.
The painkillers that he’d been given to counter the effects of the accident had made it possible for the beginning of the day to seem almost normal. Giles had yet to return to his translation duties, but with the hour approaching ten, he knew he wasn’t going to be able to postpone it for much longer. The scrolls the others were convinced gave the answer on how to locate Holly were proving much more difficult than he’d originally envisioned, and with time running out, Giles was eager to find the girl and put a stop to whatever threat she posed to Buffy.
Thoughts of his Slayer led to his all-too-brief conversation with Joyce the previous evening. Maria had granted him use of her private line, and then hovered at his elbow while he spoke to Joyce at the gallery. It had been impossible to say anything direct, so he could only hope that his references to a pet he didn’t have and the rental agreement he hoped she would find was enough to provoke her into action. It wasn’t so much for his own welfare that he cared; all Giles was concerned with was ensuring that Buffy was safe and secure and preferably unharmed.
On the way back to the study he’d commandeered for his work, Giles hesitated when he heard now-familiar voices whispering from behind a closed door. Silas and Paul. A moment’s concentration led him to the conclusion that it was just the two men on the other side, unless Maria was in there and remaining silent. However, in the brief time he’d already spent in her home, Giles had already deduced that she was not one to stay in the background in regards to this project of hers. At every opportunity, she was in the midst of their work, asking questions, providing guidelines. It was doubtful she was in there if he hadn’t yet heard her voice.
The whispering stopped as soon as he opened the door, and Giles was relieved to see that his assessment had been correct. Bent over a tattered book at a desk in the center of the room, Silas and Paul both looked up with a start at the sudden intrusion, lips pressing closed at the same time. If he didn’t know better, Giles would’ve almost thought it was guilt that was flashing in their eyes, but he quickly dismissed the notion as ridiculous.
“Hard at work?” he commented, stepping into the room. “Or hardly working?”
Paul was up like a shot, rounding Giles with a speed that only the legs of a crane could provide, and closed the door behind him. “A draft,” he mumbled in explanation at Giles’ raised eyebrow, and scurried back to the table with his head down.
“Is there something we can do for you, Mr. Giles?” A sheen of light sweat glistened on Silas’ forehead, but he held himself stiffly---too stiffly, Rupert imagined. “You’re not lost, are you?”
“Hardly. I heard you speaking. I was curious if you’d found something.” He ignored their furtive glances as he pushed his way in front of the two other men. Niceties be damned. If there was something up, Giles didn’t want to find out about it when it was too late.
“We were just discussing---don’t touch that!”
Giles was stopped in mid-reach by Paul’s angular grip wrapped around his wrist. Slowly, he lifted his eyes from the book he’d been scanning to stare coldly into McCallister’s. “I highly recommend you letting me go,” he said evenly.
Paul jerked back as if scalded. “It’s an antiquity,” he offered, as if the proof of it wasn’t lying just inches away.
“And you think I don’t know how to treat such an item?”
“No, no, it’s just---.”
“You have to excuse Paul,” Silas interrupted. “I’m afraid he’s a bit temperamental when it comes to rare books.”
Giles’ gaze returned to the text on the desk. The pages were yellowed with age, their edges charred, and in the direct center of the right was a sketch of a young girl. “What is this?” he asked curiously.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Silas bar the younger man from stepping forward again. “We’re looking into the spell Holly might choose to use,” Geen explained, and then hastily added, “At Maria’s request.”
His eyes were cool when they lifted from the book. “I was under the impression that Maria already knew the means her daughter was going to employ,” Giles said.
“Yes, well---.”
“We’re investigating other possibilities.” It was Paul’s turn to interrupt. “In case she decides to…change her mind. At the last minute. In case she fears we’re getting too close to stopping her. At the last minute. Just…in case.”
Each sentence was like a bullet exploding with a fresh burst of air. It would’ve been humorous if McCallister hadn’t appeared so much as if he feared Ripper would peek through again. As it was, Giles wasn’t entirely sure he wouldn’t.
“Tell me, Paul,” Giles said, casually perching himself on the edge of the desk with his back to the book. “Do I look as stupid as you seem to think I am? Or are you just this incredibly bad at lying?”
In the long silence that followed, only the ticking of the mantle clock could be heard in the room. “I’m that incredibly bad, sir,” the young man finally admitted, abashed.
“Paul!”
“Shut up, Geen.” Giles didn’t even bother to look at the shocked countenance of the other Watcher. “You should be grateful that at least one of you has a modicum of common sense.”
“But---.”
“He really doesn’t listen, does he?” Like a shot, Giles’ fist shot out and caught Silas in the jaw, sending the man stumbling to the floor behind the desk. He was standing over him before Geen could recover, glowering down with barely controlled rage, hands in loose fists at his side while he waited to see if there would be any retaliation. “Do you wish to try interrupting me again, Geen, or shall we have an instant replay?”
Wiping the blood mottling his lips, Silas shook his head as he shifted his bulk to a sitting position against the side of the desk. “I wasn’t---,” he started to say, but when Giles’ face darkened even further, he clamped his mouth shut.
Taking a swing hadn’t been the brightest thing he’d done that day, Giles realized when he finally relaxed. Though the drugs he’d taken had clouded his discomfort sufficiently enough for him to function, they weren’t meant to aid and abet doing his own Lennox Lewis impersonation. His abdomen was already aching from the strain he’d caused on the muscles, but to show a weakness now would counter everything he’d accomplished so far.
Even if he wasn’t entirely certain exactly what that was yet.
“Now,” Giles said, turning back to Paul, “why don’t you tell me what it is you’re doing in here. The truth, this time.”
“It is research,” he started in earnest. “And Maria did ask us to look into the possibility that a different spell could be used to corrupt the Slayer line. She seemed to be of the opinion that there was. ‘There’s more than one way to skin a dead cat,’ I believe her exact phrase was.”
Giles’ eyes narrowed. “Go on.”
“Well, there were a number of texts that I remembered spying in Maria’s private study during our last meeting with her---.”
“You’ve had private meetings with her?”
“You would have, too, if you hadn’t been so difficult on your arrival,” Silas said grouchily from his place on the floor.
Paul cast a furtive glance toward his elder before swallowing hard. “It wasn’t meant to be anything untoward,” he said quickly. “Merely informational. We’d relay what we’d discovered that day, which, most of the time, was little to nothing, and Maria would instruct us on how she thought it best to continue.”
“What exactly have you been working on?” Giles asked.
“Much of the same as yourself. Translating texts that supposedly detail how to track Holly.”
It was Paul’s deliberate usage of a certain word that made Rupert pause. “You say…supposedly,” he commented. Carefully, he took a step backwards to sit down in the overstuff leather chair near the wall. His ribs ached from his physical exertion and if he didn’t take the pressure off soon, he was going to topple over in front of the pair, and look like a right yob in the process.
“Poor choice of words,” Silas said. “There is no supposedly about it.”
“You saw the book---.”
“We don’t know if we’re right---.”
“How can you question that?”
“Because I have to, Paul.”
“That’s not what we do.”
“No, that’s not what we did.”
Watching the argument go back and forth between the other two men, both of them already having forgotten that he was still in the room, Giles grew increasingly confused as their quarrel degenerated into what boiled down to a playground “I’m right/No, I’m right” exchange. “Enough,” he finally said roughly. “This is getting us nowhere, and I imagine that none of us are interested in spinning our wheels even more than necessary, correct?”
His authoritative tone immediately dampened the rising tempers. “What is it you suggest?” Paul asked.
“I suggest we start at the beginning,” Giles replied. “As in, what exactly is our purpose here. Are we here to help Maria prevent the destruction of the Slayer line, or are we here to squabble like junior school guttersnipes?”
“This is ridiculous.” Silas lumbered to his feet, his handkerchief wiping the remainder of the blood from his mouth. “If you’ll excuse me, I believe I’ll retire to my room until dinner. I’m certain that I’ll prove much more useful if I return to translating the T’sabl prophecies. Good day.”
Paul sighed when the door closed behind his elder, walking wearily to the desk and absently picking up one of the gloves that rested next to the book. “I suppose I should go as well,” he said as he slid it on his hand. “Maria will be wanting an update before we eat.”
“Wait. I’d like to discuss what just happened here.”
His hand hovered above the ancient book. “But…we have work to do---.”
“And it seems to me that some of that work involves whatever it is you’re trying to remove from my presence.” Carefully, Giles rose from his seat, trying to hide his annoyance about being trapped in the company of such an insufferable tosser, and returned to the desk. “Now, stop being as thick as I know you’re not, and tell me what the hell is going on here.”
The summary, when it came, wasn’t entirely what he expected.
“I managed to slip this book into my research materials during our last meeting with Maria,” Paul confessed. “Silas didn’t know, or he would’ve attempted to stop me. His allegiance to Maria borders a bit on the fanatical, in case you haven’t noticed.”
“Yours did, too, if I remember correctly,” Giles observed.
“That was before I saw this.” Using his gloved hand, Paul angled the book so that the other Watcher could see it more clearly. “The title intrigued me, and though I didn’t presume to think I’d actually find something useful in it, I was curious about what it could contain. This…” He pointed to the picture of the girl. “…especially caught my eye. But when I brought it to Silas’ attention, he told me that it was complete falderal and that we should return the book to Maria’s study before she realized it was gone.”
The sketch was crude, a small child poised upon on altar for sacrifice, with blood dripping from her chest wound into a waiting chalice. Surrounding her, there were three sets of triple symbols, each at the apex of the triangle that enclosed the drawing.
“What are these?” Giles asked, gesturing toward each of the trios.
“I’m not certain on those. But this set…” He indicated the three at the top of the triangle. “…are glyphs for warriors.”
“Slayers?”
“That’s what I thought at first, but it can’t be. At least one of those is masculine.”
Giles shook his head. “So why do you think this has anything to do with Holly’s plans for the Slayer line?”
“I haven’t been able to translate all the text, but the portions that I have…it speaks of the Chosen power. How it’s passed on from girl to girl, and how the proper forces could decimate that.”
“But this suggests a blood sacrifice. Maria mentioned nothing about Holly requiring some sort of blood to sanctify what she’s doing.”
Paul’s face was grim. “I know.”
At least Giles understood now about some of Geen’s concerns. These were serious allegations to wage against their hostess, and while Rupert wasn’t exactly her head cheerleader, he had seen enough to know that Silas was. “What makes you think Geen won’t go to Maria and tell her what you’ve found?” he asked the younger man.
“Because he’s afraid of her,” came the reply. “She’s very powerful. Not just in wealth, but in magics as well. Holly’s talents came directly from her, she says, and it’s her fault that her daughter is as well-versed as she is. Maria’s the one who orchestrated getting you here, though she needed to supplement her abilities with mine and Silas’.”
“It would’ve been nice to be told some of this,” Giles muttered, returning his attention to the book.
“Yes, well, we did what we felt we must.”
“And now?”
“Now?” His eyes were bleak, his gloved fingers caressing the soft-worn edges of the pages. “We forge onward, don’t we? We have Slayers to save.”
“Yes,” Giles agreed, those his mind was already miles away. “The question is, though…from whom are we saving them?”
*************
Joyce frowned as she replaced the phone on the receiver. Calling the car rental company had proven to be a waste of time in the long run; they refused to divulge any information regarding Rupert’s lease without speaking directly to him. Even pretending to be his wife hadn’t done her any good.
Her next step was the police department. Logically, it made sense that if something had happened to Buffy and her Watcher, there would be a report of it somewhere for her to find. The trick would be to find someone who would get the information for her without asking too many questions.
It’s a good thing she lived in Sunnydale. It was impossible not to have some sort of blackmail material on at least a few of the cops in this town.
She’d almost listened to the entire rendition of “Achy Breaky Heart” on their hold music before she got put through to the officer she’d requested. “Hello, John?” she asked, forcing the smile on her face to radiate in her voice. “It’s Joyce Summers.”
The long pause made her wonder if he was going to hang up on her after all. It had been almost a year since the last time she’d spoken to him, and those circumstances hadn’t exactly been her finest hour. Whoever it was who told her “MOO” was a clever acronym, needed to be shot.
“What can I do for you this morning, Ms. Summers?” he finally replied, and there was a definite coolness to his tone that made it clear that doing anything for her wasn’t very high on his agenda.
“I’ve got a bit of a problem,” she explained, “and I’m hoping you might help be able to help me cut through some red tape.”
“Well, now, that red tape’s there for a reason, I’m sure.”
He wasn’t going to make this easy for her, now was he?
“You’d know that better than I would, John,” Joyce said, laughing. “I mean, weren’t you the one who helped Principal Snyder get the permissions to search the kids’ lockers last year?”
Uncomfortable, he cleared his throat. “Yes, well now, those were…extenuating circumstances, don’t you think?”
It was a good thing he couldn’t see her roll her eyes. Extenuating, my ass. I saw you knock out Rupert yourself, you putz.
Out loud, she simply said, “I’d like to think we learned a lot from those days. Like…who you can trust and who you can’t.”
The silence on the other end of the line translated into he’s going to hang up on me, the asshole before she heard the distinct sound of a door being shut.
“What exactly is your problem, Ms. Summers?”
Briefly, she explained about the rental, glossing over the details of why she would be suspicious of wrongdoing and instead blaming it on not getting a response from the resort. “So,” she said, “I was hoping you could do some kind of check on the car. Just to make sure it hasn’t been in an accident or something. As long as Buffy isn’t hurt, I know I don’t need to worry.”
OK, so she’d worry anyway, but he certainly didn’t need to know that.
“Rupert Giles. Wasn’t that the librarian from the high school?”
“Yes.” The one you clocked, remember? “I’m sure you remember what a mentor he was for Buffy.”
Another uncomfortable cough. “Um, yeah, well, yeah. So…all you want is to know if the car’s been reported in an accident, right?”
Hope flared in her chest. “Yes, that’s all I want.”
“Do you have the details?” As she read them from the rental agreement, Joyce heard him scribble them down before adding, “I can’t make you any promises, but if you hang on for a second, I’ll see if anything pops up right away.”
“Thanks, John.”
Billy Ray came back on the line, crooning about some storm in the heartland, but her spirits were so much higher that the thought of listening to the country singer’s greatest hits for the next ten minutes didn’t even faze Joyce.
Fifteen minutes was another story. She had to resort to putting the phone on speaker and doing some paperwork at her gallery desk while she waited for John to return.
“You still there, Joyce?”
She snatched up the phone, almost dropping the acquisitions request she’d been looking over. “Right here,” she replied. Only then did she realize he’d called her by her first name and not by Ms. Summers. Did that mean…?
“…not sure if this is what you want to hear,” he was saying, “but that car turned up in an accident up north of here. They found it the morning after that storm hit.”
An accident. But Rupert was all right or he wouldn’t have called. What did that mean for Buffy?
“Does it say where they took my daughter?”
“Well, that’s just it. There wasn’t anybody in the car when they found it.”
“What?”
“It was empty. They found blood in the passenger seat, and some bleached white hair strands in the back where it looked like someone might have hit their head, but other than that, the car was stripped bare. Sorry, Joyce.”
After getting the location where the car had been found, Joyce thanked the officer and hung up the phone, the weight settling inside her chest as she mulled over the latest information. Rupert hadn’t sounded injured when she’d spoken to him, though obviously he’d meant for her to find out about the car accident, or he wouldn’t have bothered contacting her.
Buffy. It all came back to Buffy. She wasn’t with Rupert. She wasn’t in the car.
But then…
Neither was Spike.
It was a good thing it was two days before Christmas. Joyce wouldn’t have to take any extra time off from the gallery when she drove up to where the accident was to figure out what happened.
*************
He didn’t want to wake up.
Not when the dream was as luscious as this.
Outside Rupert’s flat. Past midnight.
One of those nights where the air was so crisp, it made his mouth water. Where each pinprick in the black satin above challenged him to find something more pure, more shameless in its beauty, somewhere on the earth below.
Where Spike was cock of the walk, and the creatures, human and not, bowed to his supremacy.
He knew without having to be told that he didn’t have the chip. One of those dream facts that came unquestioned as fact. And he was back for his revenge on those who’d made his impotence most unbearable.
Starting with Rupert.
Knocking at the door elicited a resounding, “Come in already!” from Giles inside. Spike opened the front entrance and sauntered inside to see the Watcher standing in the galley kitchen, big floral oven mitts on his hands and a steaming Christmas pudding nestled in his grip.
“Well, don’t be a prat and just stand there,” Giles scolded. “Get the brandy.”
Without thinking, he went straight to the liquor cabinet where the Watcher hid the good stuff, and extracted the bottle of Remy from its depths, pulling off its top as he headed back to the kitchen. Only then did he notice the apron covering Rupert’s suit, the proud “Kiss the librarian” emblazoned across its front in Gothic lettering. “You better not have mistletoe in here, mate,” Spike said as he poured the liquor over the pudding.
“Oh, no, Buffy has it in the bathroom,” Giles replied. Brushing past the vampire, he carried the dessert to the waiting table, and set it triumphantly down in the middle. “She’s been in there an awful long time, though. Do make yourself useful and see that she’s all right, won’t you?”
He bristled at being so casually ordered around. “If you think I’m here for whatever you do-gooders call happy holidays, think again. The Big Bad is back, and this time---.”
“Yes, yes, I’ve heard it all before.” He cut him off with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Maim and torture, rivers of blood, screaming for mercy. Really, Spike. We go through this every year. Now, why don’t we just skip past all your delusions of self-importance and get straight to the merry-making, shall we?”
Spike growled in frustration, taking a menacing step toward Giles, only to come to an abrupt halt when the Watcher pulled out a cook’s blow torch and set the Christmas pudding ablaze. He started to retreat from the flame, but bumped into an unexpected warm body, whirling with fangs bared to see Willow with a huge tray of cookies.
“Happy Hanukkah!” she exclaimed with a broad smile. “Want a cookie? Ease my pain.”
Spike shook his head. “Thought you were in the land of cheese, Red.”
Willow shrugged and brushed past him. “Cheese can’t compare to Christmas on the Hellmouth. Not even muenster, which, you know, sounds a lot like monster, now that I think of it.” She giggled. “Monster cheese. I wonder if we’ll ever have an apocalypse like that around here.”
Giles looked up at that point, his eyes widening. “Are you still here, Spike?” he said. “I thought I told you to check on Buffy.”
Revenge would have to wait.
Or rather, revenge could start at the top. With the Slayer.
With a gleam in his eye, Spike stalked down the hall for the bathroom, hesitating before the closed door. An overwhelming urge to knock first actually made him lift his hand in preparation, but the vampire caught himself just in time, shaking his head at his momentary lapse.
“Slay-er!” he called out as he pushed the door open. “I’m home!”
The entire ceiling was a sea of green, elliptical leaves spreading like fountain water to hide the sterile décor. But the shoots went ignored, the significance of standing beneath their canopy lost as Spike gaped at the sight before him.
In the bathtub, with shackles running from her wrists to her ankles, a naked Buffy blinked up at him, green eyes furious, nipples surprisingly hard in the sultry air.
“Took you long enough,” she groused. “Do you have any idea how long I’ve been waiting in here?” She held up her chain wrists as high as they would go, exposing her scratched palms. “And that mistletoe was a bitch to put up. You just better appreciate it. Though I’m beginning to think that maybe I just won’t give you your Christmas present this year.”
His cock throbbed inside his jeans at the sight of the heavy black iron against her golden skin. Maybe torturing the Slayer could wait until after he’d had a spot of fun with her first, he reasoned.
“Well?” Buffy demanded. “Aren’t you going to unwrap me?”
He took a few well-placed steps closer, but stopped before getting within reaching distance. “That sounds distinctly like an order, pet,” he said with a contemplative tilt of his head. “And to quote my favorite Slayer…me and orders? Not so mixy.”
“But…” A hint of hesitation darted behind her eyes. “…I thought this was what you wanted.”
“Since when do you care about what I want?” He could smell her now, but why the bathroom smelled like pine and peaty smoke, Spike had no idea. All he knew was that it made him want to bury his face between those powerful thighs of hers and not come out until New Year’s.
“I don’t.” She flushed when he cocked his eyebrow, a lovely shade of blood-affirming pink that spread down her neck and riveted his gaze to the upper swell of her breast. “Well, I didn’t. If that’s changed now, it’s completely your fault.”
“Is that so?”
“You’re the one who went and saved me. I wouldn’t be in this tub now if it wasn’t for you.”
She had him there, but damned if he was going to let the bitch see him falter.
Crossing him arms across his chest, Spike deliberately stood there with his feet planted firmly apart, proudly displaying his erection within his jeans for her to ogle. “Tell me what’s in it for me if I let you go,” he said.
“You get what you’ve always wanted,” Buffy replied.
“Yeah? What’s that?”
“Me.”
“Want you dead, luv. That’s the name of the game, remember?”
Her lips curved into a deadly smile, and she stretched back into the tub, resting her hands at her waist so that her top half was completely bared to his view. “But don’t you think I’m much more interesting alive?” she taunted. “All bare, and tender, and exposed? All this blood, just…pump-ing away….”
Her calculated attempts to provoke a reaction in him succeeded, driving Spike closer to the side of the tub. When he glanced down and saw where the chains had rubbed the skin raw around her ankles, however, his mood faded, his brows knitting together as he automatically dropped to his knees in order to reach her feet.
“What’ve you done?” he asked, using the key he found on the floor to unlock the shackles. His thumb caressed the reddened patches, soothing the abrasions before continuing up the chain to unfetter those at her wrists. Spike’s eyes sought hers. “Is it that hard to take care of yourself, pet?”
“I’m too busy taking care of everyone else. And it’s not that bad---.”
He caught her hand before she could hide the corresponding marks there. “Let me be the judge of that,” he said. Gently, he turned her palms upward, letting his cool fingers trace over the spidery lines left by the foliage she’d placed above them.
“So…not into the bondage, huh?” Buffy joked, trying desperately---too desperately---to divert him from his scrutiny of her injuries. “And here I thought I had you pegged.”
“Time and place,” he muttered. Slowly, Spike bent his head, lowering his lips to her left hand and brushing them over the array of cuts.
The sound of her accelerating heartbeat filled the room, pounding with a rush in his ears as the faint scent of blood wafted from the scratches. He felt her shudder as his tongue darted out to taste the salt of her skin, and heard her sharp intake of breath when he sucked at the fleshy pad below her thumb.
“What’re you doing?” she whispered.
He knew she wanted to pull back her hand and slug him a good one---after all, turning into a courting swain when she’d obviously been in the mood for the renegade highwayman would not score him many marks in Buffy’s good books---but he held her firm, tugging her forward so that her bare breasts pressed into his chest.
“It’s all about us bein’ equals, isn’t it?” he asked. “That was your word.”
“But…I’m in the tub. And I have chains. That looks pretty equal to me.”
The swell of her bottom lip beckoned, and Spike ducked down to capture it between his teeth. “’Cept…” he said between nibbles, “…maybe that’s…not good enough…”
Somewhere in the background, he heard glass shatter, followed by Giles’ muffled cursing. Buffy broke away from the kiss, and looked over Spike’s shoulder. “What was that?” she asked.
His mouth dropped to the line of her now-exposed neck. “Don’t care,” he muttered against her skin. She tasted sublime, and he could practically feel the blood coursing in her veins through the brief contact of his lips. Hot, and pounding, and succulence personified---.
Another crash, this time louder, and this time there was no denying the pull it had on his limbs as Buffy faded away from beneath him…
*************
…and his eyes opened to stare up at the wooden ceiling, the distinct sound of an annoyed Buffy on the level below. She was sweeping something up, and the musical tint of glass against glass told Spike she must’ve broken something for real.
Probably bleedin’ to death and too daft not to even realize it, he thought in annoyance. Pushing back the blanket, he grabbed his jeans from the foot of the bed and slipped them on, arranging his ebbing erection to be as unnoticeable as possible before he climbed down the ladder.
He’d forgotten all about the kid until he’d dropped to the lower floor and spied Holly sitting at the table, Baby tight in her grip. “G’morning, Spike,” she chirped.
A blonde head perked up from the opposite side of the table at the mention of his name. “Thank god you’re up,” Buffy said, straightening. In her hand was the dustpan filled with shards of one of their drinking glasses, stains of an orange fluid still clinging to its hazardous corners.
His body told him the hour was approaching noon, and he frowned as he glanced at the bowl sitting in front of Holly. “Little late for breakfast, isn’t it?” he quizzed, strolling to the refrigerator.
Buffy lifted her brow at the packet of blood he took out. “If you’d been up with the rest of us, you’d know that’s exactly what we’ve been trying to do all morning.”
“So feed the little nipper. What’s so hard about that?”
“Well, let’s see.” She ticked them off on her fingers as she spoke. “So far, we’ve established that Holly doesn’t eat anything red or orange, nothing that’s hard or crunchy---.”
“It makes noise,” the child offered, as if that would explain it.
Buffy sighed. “And nothing with the letter ‘b’ in it, for some reason known only to Holly and God.”
“She’s three, luv. How does she---?”
“Do I look like a child psychologist, Spike?” She looked frazzled, that’s what she looked like. “All I know is that I offered her the Weetabix---.”
“There’s Weetabix? How’d I miss that?”
“---and she turned it down because of the ‘b’ thing. So, we’re currently letting the Cheerios get soggy so that one of us can get something to eat. Aren’t we, Holly?”
The little girl nodded. “Buffy says Slayers don’t need to eat so much. That’s why she hasn’t eaten yet.”
“Oh, she did, did she?” Setting down the pan he’d retrieved to warm his blood, Spike turned toward Buffy and firmly took the dustpan from her grip. One look at the hair falling across her cheek, the tiredness still clouding her eyes, and he’d made up his mind.
“Go take a shower,” he said in a low voice. “Relax. Not eating and not sleeping’s not exactly the best way to get back up to full strength, now is it, pet?”
Though gratitude made the corner of her mouth lift, Buffy’s gaze slid guiltily to Holly behind them. “I can’t just leave her alone out here,” she said.
“And bein’ with me means bein’ alone?” But his tone was teasing, a glimmer of amusement deep within the blue. Gently, he gave her a little push toward the bathroom. “The munchkin and I will be just fine while you freshen yourself up. All she’s goin’ to do is eat, right?”
“Right.” She smiled, and though it looked like she was going to say something more, Buffy remained silent as she disappeared to the adjoining room.
“So,” Spike said to Holly, folding his arms across his chest as he leaned back against the counter, “what’s this about you not eating Weetabix? Sounds like you and me need to have a little chat about fine English traditions, moptop.”
-----
18. Tis the Season to be Jolly
She fell asleep in the bathtub. It wasn't expected, and it certainly didn't rate high on the smart things to do, but the moment the bath salts hit the hot water, the scent of aloe vera tangling with the steam in silky tendrils that wrapped around her skin as she sank beneath the surface, Buffy's battle against the Sandman was officially lost. With her arms stretched out across the top of the ceramic rim, her toes playing with the chain hooking the plug to the faucet, her eyes fluttered closed almost immediately, blocking out the too-white interior of the bathroom and calling up the last thing she knew she should be dreaming about.
"Slayer has a tub fetish. Got it."
He stood in the doorway---no, make that leaned in the doorway; the vamp had a body that was ordained for epicurean posing---a well-muscled shoulder against the jamb, eyes uncharacteristically black as his tee and jeans. The steam was wreaking havoc with his hair, creating a riot of curls, but otherwise, Spike seemed his usual, unflappable self, waiting for...something. As per the usual, Buffy had no idea what.
"Since when is wanting to be clean considered a fetish?" she snapped back. Defensively, she scooped some of the mountainous bubbles into her arms, drawing them slowly back so that it more effectively curtained her breasts from his view, but then flushed when his eyes drifted to the length of her legs, now visible through the watery patina, rainbowed in the translucent yellows and greens of the soap.
"Since you take a piece of wood into the water with you. And not the sort that makes this fun for the both of us, I might add."
His reply directed her attention to the stake floating between her breasts, its tip pressed lightly against her sternum by some invisible hand. When she reached to grab hold of it, however, Buffy was stopped by a flash of ivory, and looked up to see Spike crouching at the tub's side, the weapon dancing between his fingers.
"Afraid of a vamp gettin' a gander of the goodies?" he taunted.
"Of course not." She held out her hand. "Now, give it back."
A flick of his wrist sent the stake clattering to the tiled floor behind him. "Like you better without it."
"I like you better with it."
His bottom lip jutted in a mock pout. "And here I thought we'd reached an understanding, luv," Spike said. "I'm wounded."
"Not yet, you aren't."
She was tensed to leap over him to retrieve her stake when strong arms slithered around her sides, pulling her from the slippery bubbles to trap her against his chest. "I said," he rumbled, and he tightened his grip when his fingers threatened to slide free of her skin, "I like you better this way."
Instinct was demanding she fight back, rearing its logical head and screaming, "Bad Spike! Bad Vampire!" at the top of its lungs.
Instinct had saved her ass on more than one occasion, especially with this particular demon, so listening to it instead of doing her best wriggly worm impersonation should've been her first priority. She needed to get free of his clutches and stake him before things got worse.
She didn't, though.
Because this time...instinct was wrong.
Only the friction of the cotton kept her from slipping away, her skin an oily sheath refusing Spike the luxury of a firm grip. As her breasts flattened against him, Buffy balled the fabric of his tee in her hands as an anchor, and slid the rest of the way out of the tub to land in his lap.
"Why do I have to be the naked one?" she murmured. Her body felt like it was vibrating from the power of her pulse, and she'd never been so glad that Spike's heart didn't beat at all. Whether he knew it or not, he was anchoring her from flying free of her skin; she just wondered if that was what Spike really wanted.
She shivered when the rough rasp of his jeans brushed against her sex, instinctively parting her legs to wrap them about his waist. Spike's head ducked so that he could run blunt teeth along her neck, and when he lifted his gaze back up to meet hers, golden eyes had replaced the blue.
"'Cause you've already seen me in all my glory," he said in response to her query.
Exploratory fingers released their hold to roam over the landscape of his brow, dipping in the valley of his scar before trailing down to his fangs. "Why didn't you take the deal?" Buffy asked quietly. The fleshy pad of her index finger caught on the incisor's tip, a crimson bead welling to the surface, and she gasped when Spike sucked the digit into his mouth. "You hate my friends, you hate Sunnydale. You shouldn't care what happens when we go back."
His tongue curled around her finger as he slid his mouth back up its length. "Don't hate you," Spike murmured.
"You used to."
"And you used to hate me. Figure that makes us even."
"Partners."
"Your word."
"Don't you like it?"
He didn't reply, just bent his head back down to suck at her neck.
She could feel his teeth hovering above her skin, his constraint to not bite making his body tremble against hers. Each powerful pull hooked slick talons deep into her gut, making her clit tingle, and she moaned in spite of her promise to stay resolute.
"Aren't you afraid?" His voice was barely a breath.
Buffy's eyes shot open, but he hadn't pulled back from the hollow in her throat. "You won't bite me," she said, with more confidence than she felt.
"Oh? And why's that?"
It was her turn to whisper. "I don't know."
His lips left her neck, his pointed tongue marking a trail back up to her jaw. Gone was his vampire visage, and he gazed at her with eyes made dark with hidden understanding. "Yes, you do, Slayer..."
-----
"Slayer!"
The sharp cry startled her from her rest, making her sit up in the cooling water with a splash that sent droplets splattering over the tub's rim. Her toe caught on the silver plug chain, yanking it from its mooring, and she scowled as she reached down to try and fit it back into place before too much of her bath emptied out.
"Slayer!" Pounding on the door accompanied Spike's much louder second call, and this time, she could hear the muffled giggles underlying his very vocal peevishness.
"What?" she barked back, irritation sending her good mood scattering. "Kind of wet here, Spike!"
She shrank back into the tub when the door was flung open, arms automatically going to cover her breasts, but her exasperation vanished almost the moment Spike appeared in the entrance.
He looked as he always did---black jeans, form-fitting tee, heavy boots that made his feet look obscenely big---but it was a new accessory that had turned his normal dour expression into a contortion of furious proportions. Clinging to his back, with thin arms wrapped around his neck for security and knees squeezing tight into his sides, was Holly. Her face was buried between his shoulder blades, her body shaking from the giggles that were erupting from her chest. Spike was doing nothing to help keep her in position; in fact, his hands were balled into fists at his sides as he glowered at the wet Slayer in the tub.
"Get. It. Off," he growled, eyes flashing.
Buffy had to bite her lip not to join Holly in her laughter. "It is a little girl, Spike," she said. "And since when can't you get a little girl off your back?"
"Since I've already set this bleedin' chip off once gettin' her off the first time she decided I was some sort of climbing frame. Fuckin' bint clambered back on when I was on my knees from the pain."
A sharp inhalation cut off Holly's giggles, and she pulled her face back to twist around and stare with saucer eyes at Spike. "You said a bad word," she whispered loudly.
He snorted, his head swiveling to glare at the child in spite of the still-tight squeeze she had on his neck. "Yeah, well, I'll be sayin' a whole lotta bloody bad words if you don't start minding what I say, you godda---."
"Spike!"
"What?"
Her sharp tone had two sets of eyes staring at her---one innocent, one definitely not-so-innocent---and Buffy put on her best can't-we-be-grown-ups face as she reached for the towel at the side of the tub.
"Go back to the other room while I get dressed," she instructed. "We'll...figure it out from there."
Her statement seemed to bring the realization home for Holly for the first time since coming into the bathroom. "Buffy doesn't have any clothes on," she commented, her mouth conspiratorially close to Spike's ear.
In spite of his ill-temper, the vampire relaxed. "Yeah," he said. His gaze devoured the tawny shine of the Slayer's shoulders before slipping to the upper swell of her breasts, and she flushed when he deliberately ran the tip of his tongue along the edges of his teeth. "Kind of noticed that."
"Well, you can un-notice it," Buffy said. "Especially from far, far away."
"Sure you don't want a little help, pet?"
"Oh! Oh! I can help! I wanna help!" The prospect of pitching in on something Spike was obviously interested in doing was enough for Holly to slacken her hold on his neck, sliding sure-footedly to the tiled floor and scurrying to fetch the clothes Buffy had set by the sink. Before either adult could stop her, she'd closed the distance to the tub and thrust the clothing over the ceramic rim, standing back with a proud smile as they sank below the water's surface.
Spike's guffaw was enough to short the rest of the Slayer's temper.
"Out!" she shouted, pointing to the door. "Buffy bathes by herself!"
Holly's beaming face crumpled at the unexpected explosion, her eyes dissolving into enormous teary pools. Silently, she backed away from the tub, and when she hit Spike's leg, she whirled to bury her sobs in the black denim.
The vampire rolled his eyes. "Good job, luv," he remarked. With a shake of his head, he bent and scooped the child into his arms, grimacing when she wiped a snuffly nose on his t-shirt before clinging tightly to his neck. Buffy watched in growing horror as he began rubbing Holly's back.
"C'mon, moptop," he crooned, the softness in his tone almost as warm as the steam that filled the room. "Let's get away from the big, bad Slayer. You don't want to be around her anyway. I hear tell that bein' a bitch is catching and we don't want that, do we?"
Holly pulled away long enough to gaze at him in wet solemnity. "That's a bad word, too."
"Yeah." The look he shot Buffy made her shrink further into the water. "That, it is."
-----
By the time she emerged with a towel wrapped snugly around her, Buffy felt like the Wicked Witch of the West. She's just a kid, she scolded herself as she stepped from humid air of the bath into the cooler air of the living room. She was just trying to help. Now she thinks Spike is the good guy, and how warped is that?
Her gaze fell on the child sitting at the dining table, hands cradling a steaming mug in front of her as she solemnly watched Spike pour a blood bag into a waiting pan.
"Does it taste good?" Holly was asking.
"Like bloody heaven," Spike replied.
The little girl giggled. "You made a funny."
"He made something, all right," Buffy said wryly, approaching the duo. Inwardly, she cringed when the good humor disappeared from Holly's face and the child ducked her eyes to stare into her cup, but continued to force the smile when she bent over to see what she was drinking.
"Hot chocolate?" Buffy said in amazement. There were even tiny marshmallows floating in it, reminiscent of her mother's recipe.
"Spike made it," Holly said in a tiny voice.
"Meet with your approval, Slayer?"
She ignored the mocking disdain in his tone, and instead sat down next to the girl. "Look," she said, as gently as she could manage, "about what happened in the bathroom. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be so...loud."
Spike's snort made Buffy stiffen, but the smallest of nods from Holly encouraged her to continue.
"Now, I appreciate that you wanted to help. I really do. But, I had the door closed for a reason. See, when grown-ups have doors closed, that means we want some alone time, and it's not polite to just walk in on someone. So that's why I was a little crabby, OK? Because I just wanted to finish my bath on my own."
Another nod was followed by a sideways glance at the vampire, still busy at the stove. "But Spike's the one who opened the door."
"I know, but Spike made a mistake. And Spike knows that. Doesn't Spike?"
Both females turned in expectation towards the black-clad back. After a long moment where the only sound in the room was the spoon brushing against the side of the pan, Buffy repeated, this time a little more firmly, "Doesn't Spike?"
"Yeah, yeah," he muttered, though the force with which he poured the blood into his waiting mug belied his acceptance. "Spike knows that, and a helluva lot more."
There were volumes unspoken by his words, and though the urge to demand what exactly he was talking about swelled inside Buffy, she let it go, sighing in resignation as she rose to her feet. "I'm going to go get dressed now, and when I come back out, we'll play a game or something, OK?"
"OK."
Convincing, it was not, but considering the mood she'd created with her little outburst, Buffy realized that this was as good as it was going to get for now. And I thought hanging around with Spike for two weeks was going to be bad. How am I not going to break this kid before New Year's comes around?
-----
Holly watched Buffy as she disappeared into the bedroom, carefully closing the door behind her. Doyle had warned her about behaving herself while she was at the cabin, and she was sad that she'd already made things bad in the small house by getting the Slayer mad at her. Spike wasn't happy any more, too, though he hadn't been happy when they'd been playing piggyback either. He'd seemed to cheer up a bit in the bathroom, but now he was back to grumping around the kitchen, slamming the pan into the sink while muttering under his breath.
"Sorry, Spike," Holly said quietly.
"Sorry 'bout what, moptop?" he asked distractedly.
"I got you in trouble, too."
His brows were dark and tight when he looked at her. It was his thinking face. She was starting to recognize that one. He used it a lot.
"Not your fault," he replied. "Slayer's just...wound a little tight."
"Because you're a vampire?"
"Yeah. Reckon that's part of it." Sipping at his drink, Spike contemplated her with a steadiness that would have unnerved another child. For Holly, though, being watched was so ingrained that it was just par for the course.
"What do you know about vampires, pidge?" he finally asked. "Why is it you're not scared of me?"
"You drink blood."
"And?"
"And sometimes you kill people."
"No sometimes 'bout that. It's how most of us demons get off."
"Do you like it?"
"Do I like what?"
"Killing people."
"Did. These days, my killing's a bit limited to the more demonic of the population."
"But you won't kill me."
"Can't. You're human. Got the headache to prove it."
"Would you kill me if I wasn't?"
He went silent at that. Holly was quickly learning that Spike wasn't quiet very often. It had to be important when he was.
"Drink up," he finally said, gesturing toward her still-full cup. "Got that recipe special from the Slayer's mum. It's got my personal guarantee to perk you right up."
She was disappointed he wasn't going to answer her question, but didn't press the issue. She'd spent all her life around adults who didn't always want to tell her what was going on; she'd long ago understood that it wasn't always a good idea to push them on what they were thinking.
Sometimes...they got violent.
-----
The glass on the mantle shattered, but rather than the hundreds of splinter-sized shards scattering to the floor, they danced and shimmered in the dim illumination, casting an opulence of rainbows on the shadow-coated walls, before coalescing back into a smooth cylinder. It was completely devoid of cracks, its shape flawless. It was impossible to tell that it had just been broken.
And it just wasn't good enough.
Disgusted, Maria blew out the candles at her side, leaving her in pitch black as she took the few sure steps to the light switch on the wall. Ever since the attack in Canada, her powers had been weakened, the demons the PTB had set upon her wreaking their damage before she could escape. Then, snatching Rupert Giles had proven a second setback, when the freak snowstorm came from nowhere and forced her to take him at a greater distance than she could comfortably afford. It was a good thing she had Silas and Paul to tap into. Without them, she would have no hope in ever getting her hands on Holly.
Now she had the third Watcher, though. And his unchecked resources made the other two look like mere babes in the woods.
Deluding him had been remarkably simple, though his reluctance to participate had been unfortunate. The worst of that seemed to be past, though, as her staff informed her that he'd been hard at work for most of the night. Even Silas and Paul were of the opinion that Rupert had finally come around to their way of thinking.
The only aspect that gave her pause was his concern over his Slayer. There should have been no one with him, and the fact that he'd so casually included her in his weekend raised more questions than made Maria comfortable. Was he intending to use the time as a training exercise? Most of the evidence seemed to point to that conclusion, especially since he was so eager to assure the Slayer's mother of her safety. That meant the mother knew of her daughter's whereabouts, and Maria highly doubted a grown woman would condone her teenaged progeny to travel hundreds of miles with a man old enough to be her father.
So what exactly had happened to Buffy Summers?
It was not a question she could afford to spend too much time dwelling on. New Year's was quickly approaching, and with it, her deadline to usurp the power she'd longed for, for the last forty years. It was possible that there might be other children with the same capabilities of satisfying the ritual's sacrifice, but by the time she found them, Maria was certain it would prove too late for her to truly benefit. She was already in her early fifties; of what value was immortality if she had to live it out as an old woman?
Gathering together the last vestiges of her tools, she quickly returned them to their hiding place in the stone surround of the fireplace. She had nine days left to get her powers back to a strong enough capacity to handle the sacrifice; it would likely take constant iteration in order to reach the proper balance. In the meantime, she had every plan to celebrate the holiday in a manner befitting the gracious hostess she was mimicking.
After all, Christmas was the most wonderful time of the year.
Promise of Frost
by Eurydice
DISCLAIMER: The characters are Joss', of course.
PREVIOUSLY ON BUFFY: Buffy's first encounter with Holly is less than stellar,
when the child and Spike interrupt her bath, but she is determined to make the
most of it...
-----
19. I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus
She tried.
Honest. Swear on a stack of dead demons---because a stack of dead vampires would just be a big ol' pile of dust if she used that analogy, and how effective would that be?---and cross her heart, Buffy gave it her Chosen best.
It just didn't...turn out like she'd hoped.
Freshly dressed and ready to be the best darn babysitter Holly had ever had, Buffy had reached her first stumbling block when a recon of the tiny cabin had uncovered exactly zero games as she had promised, leaving her scrambling to come up with another idea that would both amuse the child and get Buffy back into her good graces all at the same time. So, when the idea of jewelry making had popped into her brain, Buffy'd thought it was an excellent idea. After all, what little girl didn't like to play dress-up? She had the macaroni and thread left over from making the Christmas ornaments, and it wasn't like making necklaces was really all that difficult. No more difficult than anything else had been since she'd arrived at the cabin, at least.
She just forgot to mention that the uncooked macaroni was for playing, not for eating. An easy mistake, though not necessarily a safe one. But, to make it even worse, when Buffy had moved to use the Heimlich to dislodge the dried pasta from a choking Holly's throat, Spike had yanked her away with a growl, saying, "She's just a babe, Slayer. Do that, and you'll break her ribs."
Afterward, a wide-eyed Holly sat perched on the vampire's lap sipping at a glass of water, leaving Buffy to watch in growing dismay when her every attempt to approach the little girl was met with a flinch, distrust gleaming in her gaze. Spike didn't look that happy, either, but Buffy didn't know if it was disapproval at not knowing how to take care of a kid or anger at being saddled with the bulk of the responsibility that aroused his surly attitude. Either way, she still ended up being the odd Slayer out.
Reading seemed perfectly innocuous after the macaroni incident. There was even that book of fairy tales that Spike had thrown at her the other day; it looked to be the perfect entertainment for a three-soon-to-be-four year old.
In hindsight, she just should've picked a different story than "Goldilocks and the Three Bears." How could Buffy have predicted that Holly would draw upon the parallels to their own situation and start asking questions about when the bears were going to come back to the snowbound cabin, and would they be angry to find Buffy and Spike sleeping in their beds when they did, and didn't bears like to eat little girls?
It took them ten minutes to talk her out of the bathroom she'd gone running to when Buffy tried explaining that the bears wouldn't be able to open the doors of the cabin anyway because of their clawed paws, and were much more likely to smash through the windows instead, and besides, Spike was way scarier than any ol' bear.
Mary Poppins, she wasn't.
When Holly's head tipped forward into the half-eaten plate of mashed potatoes, Spike was the one who scooped her up to carry her into the bedroom, tiny white clumps of food clinging to the ends of her hair. Buffy couldn't even bring herself to step forward and say anything about cleaning the little girl up before putting her to bed; with the way her day had been going, she'd probably end up getting soap in the kid's eye or drowning her with a washcloth.
Twenty minutes later when Spike finally emerged from the bedroom, he found the Slayer sitting cross-legged in front of the fire, throwing ragged bits of twig into the flames and watching the fire sporadically jump from the fresh fodder. "I suck," Buffy muttered without turning around.
"You're just tryin' too hard," he said. The couch squeaked as he collapsed into its corner, and she heard the slide of his boots across the floor as he began to take them off. "Though if you want to make the sucking a tad more literal, I wouldn't be one to argue with you."
She didn't have the energy to rise to his bait. "You know all my worries that we're going to kill each other before we get out of this place?" she asked. "I was wrong. I'm going to kill Holly. I'm the worst babysitter in the world."
"Not the worst, I'd wager. Think Dru could give you a race for that particular title. As much as she loved to dress 'em up, she just didn't have the attention span to see it through. Most of the time, it was up to me to finish 'em off before someone cottoned on to what Dru was doin'."
The obvious affection in his tone drove Buffy to flash him a dirty look over her shoulder. "Feeling so much better now, Spike," she said dryly. "Thanks for the pep talk."
He shrugged. "I'm just sayin'---."
"I heard what you were saying. And you can stop saying it, any minute now." Turning back to the fire, she inched further, her knees nearing the swelter until her cheeks began to tingle from the exposure. It wasn't often she felt like such a complete failure, but finding anything good that had occurred with her interactions with Holly was impossible. She was a menace to children everywhere. I am Buffy. See me slay the helpless little girl with my own stupidity.
She jerked when strong hands settled on her shoulders.
"Relax," Spike said, forcing her to still with merely a firm application against her arms.
He'd moved from the couch and now crouched directly behind Buffy, his scent merging with the sulphur from the fire to tickle her nose with anticipation. Though her body was tense, she didn't flee from his touch, and they posed there before the flames for a long moment before one of them finally spoke.
"What're you doing?" Buffy asked softly. There had been no opportunities during the day to address the topic of the previous night, a fact she wasn't sure left her relieved or disappointed. The way things had been left...it was anyone's guess what the next move was going to be.
"Makin' sure you don't explode," he replied.
Supple fingers began to slowly knead the knots of her shoulders, smoothing the tension they found with an infinite pressure that transformed her muscles to molasses. Buffy's head fell forward of its own accord, the groan that escaped her throat a testament to both the pain and pleasure his massage was soliciting, and she felt his hands pause before he pressed lightly into her back.
"Tell me to stop," Spike murmured in her ear.
Was it a dare? A request? Buffy didn't know. All she knew was that it felt magnificent, better than any of Giles' or Xander's attempts at a post-battle rubdown, strong and firm in ways they couldn't emulate.
And she wanted more.
Easing back away from the flame, Buffy pushed at Spike's bent knees, prodding them apart so that she could slide between them, and nestled herself in the vee they created. When she stretched her legs out in front of her, it took only a moment for Spike to mimic the motion, his thighs ghosting along hers, his chest just a breath from her back. She could feel the hesitation that caged his hands, but rather than coax him with words she knew would fail her, Buffy simply reached up to pull her hair over one shoulder, exposing the slim line of her neck before it disappeared beneath her top.
He needed no further encouragement. Resuming his massage, Spike worked over each muscle until its supplication was inevitable, yielding to his firm grip with an ache that left Buffy quivering for more. Sighs of pleasure dragged her from the malaise that had held her hostage before his touch, and with each release, she felt herself sinking into a velvety cocoon where the only things that mattered were Spike's hands.
"Holly likes you," she murmured in the midst of his manipulation. "Why is that?"
"Dunno," came his equally hushed reply. "Not like I encouraged her or anything."
"And you're so good with her." This was probably the worst of what ate at Buffy. It wasn't so much that she sucked at looking after the little girl; it was that Spike was so much better. "You always seem to know what's going to shut her up, or what's going to make her feel better. How weird is that?"
"Not that weird. Did you forget I looked after Dru for a hundred years? It's not that different, if you think about it."
She tensed beneath his hands. "Can we not bring up any of our exes tonight?" Buffy asked.
"There something else you'd rather be bringin' up?"
It was impossible not to smile at the not-so-subtle predictability of his response, and Buffy was glad she faced away from him so that he couldn't see her do it. "I mean it," she said. "Every time you start talking about Vampirella Interrupted, it makes me want to..."
Finishing that sentence was going to lead to badness, though Buffy wasn't even sure why she'd started it in the first place. But Spike didn't call her on it, instead offering, "Yeah. Hearing 'bout you and Angel makes me want to, too."
His hands slid down to her biceps, continuing his massage along her arms. Each stroke brushed his fingertips along the sides of her breasts, and Buffy felt her body responding to the erotic feathering with a tight tingle that began nowhere near her torso. Could it be deliberate on his part? she wondered. She had no idea because not once did his hands stray from their task, rubbing and kneading with a deliberate leisure just as if she'd asked him for this. Better to just enjoy the massage for what it was, she decided.
Buffy's breath caught when she felt the faintest pressure at her nape, accompanied by a tiny nip where her shoulder curved into her neck. "Been wanting to do this all day," she heard Spike murmur into her skin. His hands slid down the length of her arms, molding around her limbs as his fingers laced through hers, guiding them down until her palms rested atop his denim-clad thighs.
"What...what're you doing?" It was probably the stupidest question ever asked, but anything more coherent escaped Buffy's means as she felt his muscles trembling through the fabric.
"Thought we could discuss that little compromise you suggested," Spike said. The tip of his tongue was tracing the outer curve of her ear, and Buffy's eyes fluttered closed as goosebumps erupted along her arms.
"This doesn't...feel like...talking," she managed.
"You want me to stop?" Their entwined left hands were dragged backward, her arm bowing as he slid it between their bodies, down...down...down, to settle between their pelvises. She jumped as the length of his erection straining through his jeans pressed into her palm, but instinctively curled her fingers as best she could around it, forcing a groan from Spike's chest that rumbled through her torso when his forehead dropped to her shoulder. "Don't make me stop," he whispered, and the entreaty that coated his words wrapped around Buffy like a desperate hug, drawing her back, and twisting around in his embrace until they were facing each other.
His eyes were black, his skin appearing almost alive as the fire reflected from it, but it was the naked confusion in his gaze that reached into her chest and squeezed, forcing her forward so that her legs were wrapped around his waist, his cock pressing into her barely protected heat. "What do you want?" she asked quietly. It was taking all her control not to throw her arms around him and kiss him until there was no tomorrow, but Buffy held back, knowing with her head if not her heart that if they didn't get the rules out there first, the least of their worries would be going to bed frustrated.
Spike's head tilted as he regarded her, first her face, and then dropping to see the quickening rise and fall of her chest. A single tremulous finger lifted to draw the line between her breasts, but she dismissed the shaking she witnessed as a trick of the fire.
"You drive me crazy, you know that?" Spike said when he finally spoke. "I get so bloody furious with you, and I think that...nothin' would be better than to tear you apart with my bare hands and be rid of you, once and for all. And then...I watch you, the way you keep tryin' even when you're so barefaced about not wanting to...the way you don't even know how bewitching you are, all power and polish in this tight little Slayer package...and I start to think that maybe it wouldn't be so bad havin' you 'round after all."
The tip of his tongue darted out to moisten his dry lips, and Buffy found herself riveted by the shiny pink point as it slid slowly across his flesh. "That still doesn't tell me what you want," she said.
"Maybe 'cause I don't rightly know."
"You knew enough to turn me down last night."
His mouth pursed at that, his finger withdrew, and the distance between them lengthened as Spike leaned back onto his hands to gaze at her more directly. "You wanted me to be your dirty little secret," he accused. "You think you would've given it a go if I'd demanded the same from you?"
"But what does it matter? I've never heard you say one nice thing about any of us---."
"It's not about you lot. It's about me. Sooner you get that, the sooner we can get past this and on to what really matters."
"So, you're saying you want me to hold a press conference when we get back to Sunnydale? Is that it?"
"I'm sayin', give me a soddin' choice. You talk partners, but you're so bloody set in bein' the lone gun, you don't know what that means. You barely listen to your Watcher, you boss your friends about---."
"What? I do not!"
"---and I just don't want to get buried in the rubble again, is all." When she began to scramble off his lap, Spike's hands shot out and grabbed her arms, pulling her to topple onto his chest as he laid back on the floor. "Stop runnin'," he growled. "I'm not letting you go until we get this hashed."
It was harder being stretched along his length, the erection that had abated slightly with his arguments returning to poke into her hips. "There's nowhere for me to run to, remember?" Buffy said irritably, though she did nothing to remove herself from his grasp.
"You'll still find a way. You always do."
"So?"
"So maybe I don't want you to go anywhere."
The admission stunned both of them, and Buffy could only stare at him, her mind a tug-of-war on what she should or shouldn't do. "You have to tell me what it's going to take to...you know," she finally said. "I can't say yes or no if I don't know what it is."
His hands loosened, his thumbs stroking the soft skin of her inner arm, as he contemplated her question. "Don't think it's so much," Spike said quietly. "Just...maybe...I'd like you not to treat me like...I'm beneath you." The last three words came out in a rush, as if he found it just as impossible to believe he was uttering them, too, while a flicker of what looked like disappointed anguish appeared and vanished just as quickly in his aspect. His lowered lashes blinked once...twice, and then closed, as he added, "Think we could be bloody marvelous together if you'd just give us half a shot, Buffy."
Even without being able to see his eyes, she knew she'd never seen him look more vulnerable than he did at that exact moment. It was tearing him up admitting to such a need---the twitching muscles in his cheeks were testimony to that, as was his inability to meet her gaze when he never had a problem facing her---and the fact that he'd crossed that line when she'd been so reluctant deepened the guilt that Buffy had been cultivating ever since he'd saved her.
Sunnydale, and her friends, and uncomfortable explanations were days away; her life was proof that anything could happen in that time period. Was she worrying too much about how everyone would react if they found out she'd let Spike get closer than fist contact to her? He was a vampire, after all; odds were he'd pull a Parker and treat her like less than nobody again once he got what he wanted.
Except she knew that wasn't really true, or Spike would've just taken her deal in the first place. And he had a point about wanting to be treated with a little bit of respect. He'd earned at least that much with how far he'd gone and how much he'd done in the past few days.
"Would that mean," Buffy asked, "that I wouldn't ever get to be on top?"
She was rewarded by his eyes shooting open, her tease taking him by surprise, but before he could speak, Buffy bent her head and pressed her lips to his, drinking down the cool tang of his mouth in a swift kiss. Immediately, Spike's arms wrapped around her waist, rolling both of them to their sides so that they would each have room to explore, and she tangled her fingers into the hair that curled at the nape of his neck in order to pull him closer.
It lasted not nearly long enough, and left her panting when she finally broke away from the caress. "This doesn't mean I love you or anything," Buffy said, already moving back in to resume the kiss.
"'Course not." He met her halfway, tugging at her bottom lip with his teeth so that she squeaked in protest. "Don't love you, either."
And then their mouths were fused again, a hot tangle of tongues as the last barrier they'd been hiding behind came crashing down. Each slide of his hands over her body, the way he couldn't seem to stay still or find roost in any curve, as if he'd go up in flames if he didn't touch her everywhere all at the same time, capsized the last ounce of control Buffy had, leaving her sinking and floundering for an iota of mastery in the whirlwind of her flesh. Everywhere his hands rested, for that infinitesimal second before disappearing to another inch of her skin, scorched in a throbbing heat that made her yearn to shed the clothes that separated them, the desire to rid him of everything that kept his hard sinew separated from hers rising faster than his erection had.
Without realizing she'd done so, Buffy threw her leg over his hip, drawing him closer so that the hard bulge of his cock pressed into her soaking sex. Spike slid away from her mouth, his tongue tasting the sheen of sweat that had risen to her outermost layer, and she arched away as he traveled down the taut line of her throat.
"Spike..." she hissed. His t-shirt knotted in her hands as they clawed to hold onto him, and she realized she was gulping at the air in a desperate bid to breathe properly. When had her lungs stopped working? Oh, yeah, right about the time he'd done---.
"Yesssss." The sibilance of her pleasure merged with the sizzle of the hearth, and Buffy fell back onto the floor, Spike's mouth where it had latched onto her nipple through her top never breaking from its hold as he followed after her. In spite of the multiple layers of cotton separating her breast from his tongue, she could still feel his teeth as he bit into the hardened bud, crying out from the explosion of bliss that flooded throughout her body.
"Spike?"
They both froze at the muffled sound, necks twisting to stare at the closed bedroom door. Buffy was the first to move when she heard the footsteps scraping over the floorboards, and by the time the door creaked open to reveal a foggy-eyed Holly outlined in the darkness, she had pushed herself up to a sitting position between Spike's legs.
"What's up, pidge?" Buffy hated that his voice was so even when she didn't think she could speak if there were a twelve-foot serpent demon in front of her threatening her life if she didn't. But the tremulous caress of his fingertips at the small of her back betrayed enough of his still-raging desire to counter that indignation.
"I thought I heard something scary." Holly's eyes were wide, her doll clutched tightly in her arms, and she was rocking back and forth on her heels in an effort to calm herself.
"Only scary thing out here is me," Spike teased.
"Hey!" Buffy protested with a smile. "I can be scary, too. Look." Curling her hands into claws, she did the worst impression of a monster that she could muster, so bad that it even drew a reluctant giggle from Holly. Buffy relaxed, pleased with her small measure of success with the child. It was the first right thing that had happened all day.
Spike's finger slipped beneath the waistband of her pants, stroking her skin with a velvet touch that made Buffy shiver.
OK. Second right thing.
"Toddle off back to bed," Spike was saying. At Holly's stricken look, he quickly added, "I'll be there to tuck you in, in two licks."
"Promise?"
"I promise, moptop."
"Cross your heart and hope to die?"
Buffy expected a snarky comment about how he was already dead, and was surprised when he simply said, "Cross my heart. Now shoo."
After a long moment, Holly nodded her head and backed back into the darkness of the bedroom. Before Buffy could turn to face Spike, however, his mouth was at her ear, whispering dark promises that sent a frisson of anticipation searing down her spine.
"Don't be thinkin' this is over, pet. You and me are just gettin' started here." His tongue darted out for the quickest of licks. "I might suggest you use this little timeout wisely, though. Maybe start practicing how not to scream. Trust me. You're goin' to want to."
And before she could reply, he had disappeared from the room.
To be continued in Chapter 20: Silver and Gold...