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Spike:  I've known you for two minutes, and I can't stand you. I don't  really feature you livin' forever. Can I eat him now, love?
        Lie To Me


    Sleeping together could be a hundred times more intimate than screwing. Buffy already knew this. As did Spike – her own Spike, anyway. He still regarded the first time they’d slept together as the best night of his life. He’d claimed that other nights, involving blood and bodies and beatitude had come really, really close (or actually, he’d written that in one of his more self-indulgent word-exploratory poems, which he had no idea she had read, but she hadn’t let on he’d left it lying around)  but the wonder and the magic and the awe in the closeness of that first time stayed with him. It had been so new to him, to be close to someone in a way that he could feel it, feel it in his soul in a way that made it so much more than just their bodies. He’d always longed for it, and never gotten it, particularly not with Buffy, whom he had loved well beyond reason. Apart from the occasional exhausted post-coital stupor, which never lasted more than an hour, Buffy had never slept with Spike when he didn’t have a soul.

    Which was probably why she forgot where she was.

    She was still asleep when he bit her, and he killed the pain so quickly it only half woke her. The anesthetic pulled her right back down into a dream state, and she hummed and turned to him. It felt so natural that it was only right when he pulled his body over her. His flesh, warmed through with her own body heat, felt familiar to her, and her arms went around him without thought.

    Her breath escaped her in a contented hum. It was not the soulless demon in bed with her. It was Spike. All of him, his heart and his soul, too. He slid inside her, and moved within her, and she lay back against the pillow and held him. They had, of course, done this countless times. There was nothing special or inventive in this. It was very basic, half-asleep, early morning sex – or truly, early afternoon, since Spike stayed up all night. He moved with her, and she moved with him, and held him close, and melted beneath him. She came quietly, the gentle glow of half-wakened pleasure, and she blinked up at him contented. Nothing original. Nothing fantastic. In ordinary circumstances, she and Spike would have continued on with their day half forgetting they’d made love upon awakening.

    Which was why his reaction when he was finished surprised her. He grunted his release, and blinked at her. Then he pulled his head up and stared down at her, his eyes wide. “What did you just do?”

    Buffy blinked her eyes open, still blurry with sleep. “What do you mean?”

    Spike stared down at her, trembling. “What was that? What did you do?”

    It was only then that Buffy remembered when and where she was. She’d been in bed with her lover. That was all she’d done. Now she was in bed with a soulless demon she was trying to manipulate into sharing his blood so that she could finally get the opportunity to leave him behind. But something about where she had been in her mind – the forgetting – somehow, that had shocked him to the core. She shrugged. “I... I don’t know.”

    Spike pushed her shoulders down. “You tell me what that was!”

    Buffy was bewildered. “I just let you make love to me.”

    Spike looked almost in tears. “How did you...?” He swallowed and tried to pull away from her. He was surprised when the handcuff stopped him, and he quickly unlocked it with a key he’d hooked onto the chain around his neck. He climbed out of bed, almost backing away from her, and a moment later he went into Drusilla’s room.

    Buffy felt sick. She lay there, confused, and then started to shake. She wasn’t sure why until she realized she was bleeding again. Damn anti-coagulant. And damn Spike for biting and running; no wonder she felt bereft. She got up and went to the bathroom to wash the wound and put pressure on it. This was the fourth bite mark she’d gotten. Her neck was starting to look frightening. She put on a bandage, and saw bruises on her arms. She took a shaky breath. How long could a normal human body put up with this kind of punishment? And damn Spike for leaving her! It was unkind, that’s what it was.

    She sighed. Just because she’d forgotten in the half-awake dream state of domestic slumber didn’t mean that Spike had suddenly become who she remembered. This Spike had no soul, did not love her, and had very little reason to treat her with compassion. Of course he was unkind. Still... she wished she was in his arms.

    Damn venom.

    She glanced at the clock on the wall of the kitchenette as she came out of the bathroom. It had probably been fifteen minutes since he’d bitten her. The worst of the need to stay near him only lasted about twenty, depending on how much he’d given her, and the last time he’d done it. After that it mostly just made one lethargic. Five or ten more minutes. She could endure that much. She did not have to go opening the door to Drusilla’s room and throw herself at him. That would have been suicide. But the fact that the thought had even occurred to her disturbed her. She was really used to Spike being much more careful with this... drug.

    Buffy climbed back into the bed and comforted herself with hugging Spike’s pillow. It smelled of him. She clenched her fists and took deep breaths to control herself. The shaking was the scariest part, but the mad impulses were the worst. She hated herself for it. She’d never thought of herself as a druggie before. The venom hit wasn’t what she really loved about Spike, after all. It was nice, but she stayed with Spike and made love to him and admired his strength and courage and sacrifice because of who he was, not because he was her... supplier. God, that made it sound so sordid. No wonder he had such contempt for those suckers and blood junkies who exchanged this stuff for money. He treated it as sacred. Or he had.

    This Spike... she wasn’t sure how he was using it. He wasn’t selling it, that was for sure, but it sure wasn’t sanctified, either. It seemed to be just another tool in his bag of tricks.

    The hit – she’d never really thought of it as a hit before – wore off after a little while, leaving her nothing but fatigued. The fatigue would last about two hours, she knew. She wondered how long she could do this before she was actually addicted, and started jonesing for his bite in between sessions. Sarah’s body, if her history was any indication, was prone to addiction. Buffy, if she was honest with herself, was prone to addiction to Spike himself. It was the dopamine and adrenaline he’d given her, not his venom that she’d become hooked on before, but the feelings were not dissimilar. Either addiction was dangerous in this time, in this form, with Spike as he was. She needed to keep her wits about her, and she couldn’t if she was addled in any way. Even last night she’d made a few missteps. She shouldn’t have told him she loved him. It was going to make him suspicious. She wasn’t even sure it was true at the moment, anyway. She loved future him, that was sure enough. This Spike... well. He was a killer. He was... wrong. Loving him would be, too.

    Not that that had stayed her addiction before....

    Once the need for him faded, she found herself feeling violated again. She felt like she’d been breakfast in bed. And to her near disgust she’d unthinkingly made love to him this morning as if he were her beloved Spike, self-sacrificing and devoted and, dear God, she missed him. And what was his reaction about? What did he even mean, what had she done to him? What they’d done was so normal.

    Maybe that was it. Maybe the simple, ordinary naturalness of it was what had made it so strange for him. The fact that it could be taken as granted – not dismissed or treated without respect, but that it was part of the natural shape of normality – maybe that was what made it so foreign.

    That look in his eyes.... She’d seen it before, but she couldn’t put her finger on when. It wasn’t lust or hunger. It wasn’t love, either. But she knew it...

    It didn’t matter. He’d left her, accusing her of... something, she had no idea what. She didn’t know what state he’d be in when he got back. She missed her own Spike. She’d just felt like she was home again, and now it was gone. Her tears annoyed her, and she buried them in Spike’s pillow. Just get through it, slayer, she told herself. You can. I know you can.

    She realized she’d told herself that in Spike’s soft voice.

    She went back to sleep.
 

***

    Spike was frightened.

    He didn’t want to admit to himself that he was frightened, but he was shaken and bewildered and he needed Dru.

    He curled up to Drusilla, wilfully ignoring the passed out blood doll chained to her bed. Dru. His mother, his child-lover, she was everything to him. She was the first woman he’d kissed, the first person he’d shagged, the first blood he’d tasted. She had created him and cared about him, comforted him when his plans went awry. She laughed and danced and laid her head on his lap, and begged him to admire her dresses and her dolls and the paintings she’d made out of the blood of her victims. She bowed for him and screamed for him and opened for him and teased him. She’d chained him up and drained him and tortured him. She’d submitted to him and cried for him and begged him to stop tormenting her. They’d shared victims and shared lovers and shared their dark and murderous unlives. Drusilla was the whole world. They’d done everything.

    And Drusilla had never done that.

    He had no idea what that pet outside had even done. He’d woken up with a warm little victim in his arms, sipped from her as if she were breakfast tea, and then decided to bleed off his awakening arousal. He hadn’t even really registered who the hell was beside him. He’d all but forgotten her name, she was just a warm body he could crawl over and pour himself into. Then she’d opened her eyes, and blinked up at him half asleep, and it felt as if he’d been staked. It went right to his heart, tore him asunder, and the moment he’d come he’d felt empty. Not satisfied, not fulfilled. Empty. Like something was missing. But at the same time, it felt wonderful, because she’d eased the pain even as she’d awakened it. He’d wanted to clutch her to him, in the hopes that she could fill him up. He felt she could, as if she held something that he lacked, and it wasn’t her blood and it wasn’t her heat and it wasn’t her life, and he was terrified. He had felt, for a brief moment, as if he was alive, as if she were life itself. He didn’t want to kill her. He wanted her. Not to feed from, and not to screw, but just... to be near.

    And what the hell was her name, again? He buried his head in Drusilla’s hair and tried to tell himself it didn’t matter. A dumb human pet, what did it matter what her name was? Usually he didn’t bother – Sarah. That was it. What the hell had she done?

    “Dru.” He whispered in Drusilla’s ear. Drusilla rolled over, away from him. “Dru. Love... please.” He hated himself for saying it. Drusilla was his. He shouldn’t have to beg her.

    She was in one of her more distant cycles at the moment, of course. Dru often went through cycles, where different parts of her personality rose to the surface. When she was getting a lot of visions she tended to become quite helpless and childlike. She needed him then, to play the caretaker, and he enjoyed being needed. When things were calm she was often very womanly, the perfect princess, dancing and throwing parties, Guenevere, taking the hand of her Lancelot. (That had left Angelus as the king Arthur of the scenario, of course, but Spike tended not to think about that.) Then she was seductive, and delightful, and hungry for him. He was her partner then, her equal, her paramour. Those were his favorite times.

    Right now, of course, she was in a different state. At the moment, she had gone cold. She was catty and selfish, and she enjoyed hurting Spike in every way possible. There were three ways to handle this mood, and he’d been going with the first: ignore it. It took longer, but it tended to change her back to one of her other states with the least repercussions. Another way was to submit and turn himself completely into her thrall, but that could take a while, and sometimes had unpleasant results – Angelus had taught her torture far too well. Eventually she’d relent, feel terribly sorry, release him and break down, crumbling into his arms like a grieving little girl. It was a pleasant enough ending, but getting there wasn’t easy. And with the slayer in town, Spike had to stay strong. He might not be able to afford the recovery time.

    There was another method of dealing with it, but it was his least favorite. He could turn her into a victim. He hated it because it made him into Angelus, and he hated being that for Drusilla. Sometimes she needed it, and there was no way to break her out of her hard shell except by being the mallet. Except he loved her, and every time he hurt her, it hurt him. He’d do what she needed him to do, but he’d never been a big fanatic for torture himself. It took so long, and it was so hard to see if you were getting anywhere. It wasn’t like killing or feeding or fighting. Those all fed him. Torture just drained him. He preferred to get his screams from fucking. Then, at least, he was getting something out of it. The torture, by itself, had never been that big a turn on for him. He’d done it, experimented with it while he was young, but really, it was Angelus’s kink, while Spike preferred the rush of battle.

    He didn’t want to have to go with either of the latter methods of cracking Dru out of her current humor. Being tortured, or being the torturer, both exhausted him. But that pet’s eyes had shaken him, and dammit, he needed Dru. He needed her to pet his head and kiss him whole again, remind him who and what he was. He was a vampire. He was a god. He had everything he needed. There was nothing missing. “Dru.” He kissed her throat, turned her body, arched himself over her.

    The blood doll opened his eyes and stared at him, resentful. Spike threw a pillow over thing’s head and went back to Drusilla. “Drusilla,” he whispered to her. “My love.” He gently bit at her throat.

    Dru opened her eyes. “I’m tired, Spike.”

    “I need you,” he whispered to her. “My love. I want you so.” Let me... please...! He couldn’t quite bring himself to beg. Not with the doll listening six inches away.

    “Pretty Spike,” Dru said. She rolled away, pushing him down atop her doll. “I need to die now.” She turned away from him.

    Spike lifted himself off the victim and went back to her. “I can do that,” he whispered. “La petite mort, all for you.” He kissed her throat, moved her hair aside and kissed down her back until he reached the edge of her nightdress. He reached his arm down and caressed her backside.

    “Not now, love.” She pushed his arm away.

    Spike growled. He could force her, but... that would start the cycle of one of the other methods, and he didn’t want to be tortured or torturer. He just wanted to be loved. Of course, that was the point of keeping a pet. So that when Dru got like this he wouldn’t have to feel it. If nothing else, a good pet was a nice distraction. This one....

    A low chuckle behind him made him turn, to see the pillow had fallen off the face of Dru’s blood doll. “And what are you laughing at?” he asked the bastard.

    “Nothing,” the doll said. “She just doesn’t want you.” He laughed again.

    “And you really think that’s gonna last, do you?” Spike said.

    The doll shrugged. Spike knew what his ambition was. This toy really thought that Dru was going to turn him, throw Spike over, and make him her new consort. He honestly thought that Dru’s mercurial humor had to do with a genuine loss of affection. He had no idea how often Drusilla had done this. Of course, Spike wasn’t allowed to tell Dru’s dolls anything different – it tended to alter their behavior, and she liked them subservient. The dangling carrot of eternity as her new dark knight was alluring to many of them. He wasn’t to snatch that away, or she got really pissed. Still, there were all kinds of things he was allowed to do to them. Spike reached up and broke three of her doll’s fingers before he climbed back out of the bed.

    The blood doll screamed quietly, and then settled down to a distinct moaning. Drusilla laughed gently, and rolled over, snuggling up to the bastard – her own hot water bottle. Spike clenched his jaw. He could slowly break the doll’s ribs one by one, but he was already bored with hurting him. Killing him would have been a nice rush, but that was off the table for now. He couldn’t wait for Dru to be sick of this one. He thought about trying again for her affections, but each rebuff hurt too much, and he felt too strange and raw after what that pet had done. That was why he’d come to Dru. Pity he couldn’t make her understand... but how, when he didn’t understand himself? And it was personal – he couldn’t bring it up in front of that creature she was playing with. He considered grabbing the thing, dumping him in the closet, and turning back to Dru, but he knew how that would play out. Screaming, tantrums, possibly torture on one side or another. It wouldn’t let him unburden himself, and it wouldn’t be sweet.

    He stalked back out of the room, ire boiling in his chest.

    And there was that pretty little pet, curled up in his bed. She was asleep, clutching his pillow. Spike could smell dried tears on her face. Oh, god, she’d cried, and he’d missed it...! Disappointment sparked in him. He could make her cry again, of course. Hurt her. He was good at that. But that would change the dynamic between them, and he was enjoying her playing... what? What was she playing, anyway? She talked back to him and insulted him to his face and teased him and had staked his bloody minion. What was she playing at?

    And what had she done to him this morning? Was it some spell, like the one she wanted to cast with his blood? A hypnotic thrall, like Dru was so good at? All he knew was it had felt amazing, wonderful, powerful, and it hurt at the same time. It wasn’t like that second night, when she’d played that trick on him that frankly no one had dared play since... well, that didn’t matter. That was wildly erotic, but it was pure genitalia. The sex this afternoon had been very basic. Under ordinary circumstances, he’d have called it boring, even. But it had done this... thing....

    She’d told him she loved him. This morning, as she lay beneath him, surrounding him, molding to him, those words.... Even if it was the bite talking, the words always.... Spike knew the power of words.

    He wanted to hold her again. It scared him. No, dammit, no more of this. She was far too much of a liability. She was some kind of witch or something. Too risky. Best to end this now. He climbed onto the bed and put his hand on her bite-marred throat, ready to end it quick, just a snap of her neck.

    She hummed in her sleep, and he found himself caressing her collarbone, instead. His hand slid back up and over her shoulder, down her arm, lifted up her hand to examine her tiny fingers... Bad skin, bony, didn’t look like she’d ever been fed properly. Mousy brown hair, straight as an arrow, mussed with sleep. She wasn’t even that pretty, damn it.

    And she was beautiful.

    Bloody hell. There was no way he was going back to sleep, now. He got up and turned on the telly, then curled up under the sheets and pulled the girl half into his lap. “Mm... Spike,” she whispered. The sound of his name made him gulp.

    Dammit. He knew he should kill her. Now. Before things got complicated....

    But she felt awfully warm.... Hey, daytime television. Entertainment for the undead, and the unemployed.

 
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