Warning: violence

SPIKE: You always hurt ... the one you love, pet.
                    Dead Things

    Buffy was shown with due deference back to Spike’s lair. The voluntary prisoner once again. It was more exhausting than anything else. She feared she’d have to work on drawing out Spike’s humanity all over again. It might be easier this time, since he loved her – or seemed to think he did – but he’d be elated and totally high on the evil if he had killed a slayer. He wouldn’t need Buffy to make him feel good, and she was running out of time. She had no more than four or five more days in this form before her spirit would start to lose its grip on it. And then she’d be fading away...

    She could tell him everything. He’d help her, then. Probably. But god, would that muck with their timeline. The First Evil... what else could have defeated it but their five year insane relationship of enemy, ally, adversary, helpmate, antagonist, devotee, friend, confidant, lover, betrayer, rescuer, supporter, and finally soulmate? Nothing. Any idea that eventually Buffy would completely embrace him as her partner would shatter all that sacrifice and forgiveness. This one intense week of sex and acceptance in the midst of murderous abuse wasn’t powerful enough. Not for that level of evil.

    Then she wondered for the first time if what she was doing to Spike now, even without foreknowledge, might be altering Spike in ways she hadn’t anticipated. He’d considered considering stopping killing. It sounded like lame double think, but Buffy knew that was major stuff. There were other vampires who had done it, even without souls, but Spike called them “suckers” for a reason.

    Maybe she should try and find a way of just knocking him out. Or maybe get him to chain himself up for a sexual thrill, and then take what she needed. She felt disgusted with herself even having the thought. It would have been the ultimate betrayal of his fragile trust.... She wondered if he’d recover from it. And what would that do to his redemptive timeline?

    It was moot, anyway. He probably wouldn’t trust her enough for that. He’d trust her with his blood before he trusted her with his body. Wouldn’t he? Ugh, her thoughts were going in circles. She wanted to stake the minion at her side, but he was only a messenger. He didn’t know he had been interrupting a fragile moment where timelines crossed and at least two lives, if not the planet, hung in the balance... and wouldn’t have cared if he did, being a brutal vampire, and wildly unlikely to ever reach Spike’s level of moral maturity, given that it had pretty much never happened before in recorded history.

    Two of the minions were feeding off a homeless man in the corridor. Buffy wanted to feel righteous anger and have to fight off the illogical impulse to save him, but all she felt was hopeless. It was just sad. Maybe this was Sarah. Maybe the junkie’s hopeless despair was staring to seep in around Buffy’s consciousness. She’d already felt more instinctual terror this last week than she was used to feeling in her own slayer’s form.

    The rest of the minions eyed her covetously as she was led through the corridor. Instinctive nervousness... there was no way she could fight off that many, if they all decided to go for her. Even as a slayer, it would have taken some real effort, even if they were all newborns. Spike’s dominance here was the only thing keeping her alive.

    The minion opened the door to Spike’s lair and nodded her in. Buffy felt considerable relief once she had crossed the threshold and the pack of minions was closed away behind her.

    Drusilla was still singing in her room when Buffy took off her bolero jacket and slid it into her closet. She was reaching up for one of the pillows when the singing stopped. She had only just gotten one down when a cool hand gripped her shoulder. Buffy gasped. Drusilla. How the hell Drusilla had gotten from the bedroom to standing right there by the closet in the time since she had stopped singing, Buffy had no idea. Some terrified thought in her head envisioned the vampiress skittering across the floor like a spider. “Naughty... good... little girl...” Drusilla said quietly. “Such a pretty face.”

    Buffy licked dry lips. “Can I help you?”

    “Are you going to help me?” Dru said, turning Buffy to face her. “Saracen all twisted away. Such a pretty pretty.”

    Buffy had no idea what to do. She did not know the best way to handle the mad vampire. Everything Spike had ever told her contradicted with itself, for the most part. With Spike there, Buffy sort of thought that Dru wouldn’t kill her accidentally, or for nothing. By herself, the creature was utterly unpredictable. “Drusilla,” Buffy said, hoping that the sound of her name might soften her a bit. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

    Drusilla cocked her head and looked into Buffy’s eyes. “You can never be born.”

    “I’ll get right on that,” Buffy said. She tried to pull her arm away from Drusilla’s grip, but she was not letting go. Buffy tried another tack. “Spike...” she swallowed. “Spike’s found the slayer. He... he should be back soon.”

    “Spike’s found the slayer,” Drusilla said.

    “Yes. He went... after her. For you.”

    “Spike’s found the slayer,” Dru said again. She stared deep into Buffy, and her body began to sway. “Yes,” she said with a bit of a smile. “So he has....”

    
    ***
 

    Buffy figured she’d gotten off easy. So far, all Dru had done once she’d overpowered her was tie Buffy to a chair, and strip her clothes off. There was nothing sexual in the gesture – she had the air of preparing a canvas. She’d gone into her room and come back out with a folded white garment. She’d wrapped a ribbon blindfold around Buffy’s eyes, just as Spike had, saying something about don’t look, don’t make them see, eyes like needles. She partially untied her, and dressed her in the white gown. “Can I help you instead?” Buffy said, not protesting the dressing too much. She had no desire to stand naked. “Can I–”

    “Wearing my clothes,” Drusilla said, forcing Buffy’s hands back into her bonds. “Dancing my pretty dances. Singing my little songs. All so far away and away and away....” Drusilla put her hand on Buffy’s chest, just over her heart, and whispered in her ear. “I used to be here,” she said slowly. “You took someone’s heart.” She dug her nails into Buffy’s flesh and twisted, carving a circle in Buffy’s breast. “I’ll just take yours.”

    She meant that literally. Buffy cried out, struggling, but the ribbon was too tight around her wrists to fight, and Dru had her pushed against the wall. Then her nails met rib, and she stopped. Buffy moaned and gasped, tears of pain leaking out from under the blindfold. She was pretty sure that Drusilla had an intimation of the truth. And not just one truth – all of them. That Buffy was a slayer from the future, and Spike’s lover then as well as now. “I didn’t – mean...” she gasped.

    “Mean,” Dru said. “Mean. You’re all so very mean. Mean means tiny,” she added. “Tiny ways and means and modes. Step by step by step, until the grave, and the crypt, and the fire, and the ash.” Buffy made another move to escape, but Dru caught her and lifted her. Then she’d carried Buffy, still bound and blindfolded, into her bedroom, and set her on the bed. Buffy tried to roll off several times, but each time Dru caught her. Buffy stopped when she realized that each time Dru caught her, she gouged Buffy’s wrists with her nails. Her hands were wet with blood behind her back.

    So. Dru meant to kill her, Buffy was pretty damn sure. Spike was... god knew where, doing god knew what with a slayer he would probably kill. If he was high enough off the death, he might not even care what happened to Buffy. But, Drusilla had a sense of ritual, Buffy knew that, and for some reason, Dru was fluttering around the bed. It took Buffy a while to realize she was collecting her dolls and setting them artistically around her. “Sit there, sister. Come, sisters,” she muttered. Sometimes she sang snatches of old songs. There was an odd smell. After a bit, Buffy realized that all the songs were hymns. Was she...?

    “Eyes like needles,” Drusilla muttered. “Come, come, coming, coming my Angel. Killing is so merciful in the end, isn’t it? Pain is ended. And to everything there is a season. A time to kill, a time to die, a time to be born.” Buffy was not comforted by Ecclesiastes. For one thing, she thought it went the other way around, birth coming first... unless you were a vampire....

    Drusilla had dressed Buffy in white, most carefully. She couldn’t be reliving the night she was turned, could she? The convent and the torture and Angel murdering everyone. And after what Spike had said the night before, wanting to turn her.... If Dru had some idea in her head that Spike wanted Buffy turned... what would that do, if she was? Sarah’s body would become a vampire, but whose mind would it have? Buffy herself was pretty much just a soul right now. Would Buffy’s soul be lost or stolen or whatever happened to vampire’s souls when they were turned? Or would Sarah’s mind reassert itself? Would Buffy be trapped in a vampire’s body, without any control over it? And if she just became a vampire, the same as if she had been Buffy... Drusilla’s offspring. Not just a vampire, but likely a tortured one. Also, if she were an evil Buffy, wouldn’t she then do everything in her power to see to it that Spike never was redeemed? It wouldn’t be hard. It was her goodness that had helped redeem him. The possibilities where myriad, and Buffy didn’t like any of them. And... she realized she had no idea how to leave this body now she was in it.

    Either way, she was sure Dru meant to kill her. This was too ceremonial to not be something important to the mad vampire. She had to get out of this. Buffy worked on her binds, cursing basic human strength over and over and over again. She had no idea how long she had been there – long enough. More than long enough. The wetness of the blood appeared to work to her advantage. Her hands went painfully numb, as she cut the circulation off. Finally, after working on the ribbon so hard both hands felt about to be pinched off, she slid one hand up until the ribbon grew taut, and then slipped over the blooded flesh. Buffy took off her blindfold in preparation to attack or defend.

    And instantly wished she hadn’t. Buffy knew what the smell was, now. It was hanging from the ceiling. Dru’s doll might have been evil, and wretched, and horrible, and enjoyed watching children murdered.

    He still didn’t deserve that.

    Buffy’s only consolation was, most of it seemed to have happened to him after he was already dead. Buffy wondered how long things had been like this in this room. All evening while Drusilla sang? She hated to think that Spike could have brought Drusilla her evening rat with that hanging in the corner and made no comment at all. Blood and murder was one thing, and evil enough. This... was sick.

    As was Drusilla. Buffy had to get out of there. She caught up several of Dru’s porcelain dolls and flung one at her head. Drusilla hissed, her arms arching up very much like an attacking spider, and began to circle the bed, Buffy on one side, Dru on the other. “Put down the children.”

    “Or what?” Buffy snapped. “What if I drop another one?”

    “Leave my dollies alone!”

    “If you treat them like you treated that one, they’d rather stay and have tea with me,” Buffy said. She wondered if entering into the fantasy would help at all.

    It didn’t. Dru launched herself over the bed with full vampire strength and attacked. Buffy lost her grip on the dolls and landed several feet away, in a puddle of mixed substances she would rather not consider, with a fresh cut on her breast. She had the wind knocked out of her. Things were going grey. Drusilla grabbed her by the hair and pulled at her, dragging her back to the bed. Buffy kicked out at her, but Dru grabbed her foot and cut new gouges into her ankle. Buffy yanked at the back of her skirt, trying to throw her off balance. It worked, but not well enough to topple her. Dru staggered, and turned, stomping down on the back of Buffy’s neck with her pretty, blood sticky, black satin slippers. “We’re not going to have tea,” Drusilla said, “or bread, or crumpets. Or angels or demons or spirits or slayers. We have happy, happy times ahead. So much blood. So, so happy!” She genuinely sounded delighted.

    Buffy could hear her own heartbeat, heavy in her ears, a sort of ringing white-noise with a pulse in it. Dru’s voice was fading beneath it. The exertion had not been good for her stressed system, and her hands... good god. How much blood had she lost from her wrists? She hadn’t looked...

    She could feel the foot on her neck, pushing her down into the viscera soaking the carpet. Her thoughts were starting to come scattered, murky. She couldn’t think of the next fighting move...

    “God dammit, Dru!” Buffy could barely hear the voice, and half wondered if she’d just imagined it, until she heard the next words. She wouldn’t have imagined those. “Couldn’t you have turned him before you ripped him apart? Dust is so much easier to clean up.”

    “The blood makes pretty colors,” Dru said dreamily.

    Buffy gagged as Dru’s foot ground her head deeper into the gory carpeting.

    “Did Danny bri – What the... Bloody hell!” Spike darted forward and pushed Dru off, so hard she hit the wall. “What in the hell are you doing?”

    “She didn’t want to play,” Dru said.

    “Too right she didn’t!” Spike said. He knelt down on the floor and lifted Buffy’s head. “You all right, love?” he whispered. She couldn’t make herself answer.

    Drusilla turned and glared at him. “She broke my dollies.”

    “This one was mine, bitch! I thought Danny was a git and she’d run– What the hell were you after?”

    “Pretty sisters dancing all in a row. Your puppy bit me,” Drusilla said. “You told me she was trained.”

    “God damn it, Dru, what did you expect? I told you this one had teeth! As if you’d heard a damned word I’ve said in the last bleeding century, woman!” He picked Buffy up and tried to wipe some of the gore from her face.

    “I hear everything you ever say,” Dru said. “Ever.”

    “Well, you weren’t bloody listening. I’ve worked hard on this one, and now you just want to break her for one of your bloody games? I let you keep your dolls, you can bloody well do the same for me!”

    “I didn’t think it could matter,” Dru said. “She’s almost spent, this one, anyway.”

    “What matters is, I don’t go around breaking your toys,” Spike snapped. He glared at the dripping thing hanging from the ceiling. “You seem perfectly capable of doing that yourself.”

    “She’s not your toy, that one,” Dru said. “She’s your poison. She’s already staked your heart, and you can’t even see it.”

    “I see her just fine!” Spike snapped.

    “She’ll see you burned,” Drusilla said. “She’ll see you bled. She’ll see you broken. She’ll see you, and you, and you.”

    Spike ignored her, and looked Buffy over. “Bloody hell, you’ve cut her.”

    “It won’t matter for long,” Drusilla said.

    “Not with what you’ve done to her!” Spike roared. He left Buffy and turned on her. “I was saving this one! She’s a treasure, not one of your sodding monsters.”

    “Jealous, Spike?” she asked.

    “You know damn straight I am!” Spike yelled at her. “You don’t want to be here, and you’re doing everything you bloody can to punish me!”

    “I don’t punish you, Spike,” Drusilla said. “You punish you.” She turned and stood against him. “You know what we are. You like to play, just as I do. You like to pretend different, like we’re poor players on the stage, nothing but darkness in the wings. Why do you play that we’re living together? We’re dead together.”

    “So you try to kill my pet, because she makes me feel alive?”

    “It isn’t what we are!” Drusilla wailed.

    “Who cares! You already have all I am, and all I ever was, why the hell do you want more?” Spike demanded. “You treat me like one of your sodding dolls. Can’t I even pretend I’m my own man for a week without losing in one of your games?”

    Buffy felt very ill. “Spike...” she tried to get his attention, but Dru stole it violently. She began to squeal, her arms and legs shaking.

    “Dru, love... don’t....” He tried to go to her.

    Dru’s squeal crescendoed, and she howled at him. “You were supposed to kill her!”

    “I...”

    “You walked away to the fire from the rain, to catch up Joan of Arc. While Guenevere languishes in the tower, burning her hair!” She tried to yank her own hair out by the roots.

    Spike reached for her, but she lunged at him her nails raised. He took a step back, hands up, half defensive, half beseeching. “Hey, Dru, take it easy.”

    “I see you!” Dru cried. “Breaking hearts for bleeding hearts. Trade a slayer for a slayer, till we do what we must, and we slay her–” She launched herself at Buffy.

    Spike shifted and caught her mid leap, staggering under her momentum. Dru fought him, crying out, her sharp talons raised in anger. Buffy heard a terrible rending sound as she tried to rip Spike open from throat to crotch. He pulled away, shoving Dru's arms down until she couldn’t attack. Spike pushed Drusilla down on the bed and grabbed the chains from the bedposts. Buffy had seen the doll chained up with them before. She hadn’t realized they were strong enough to hold a vampire. “God damn it, I didn’t want to have to do this. You’ve been a very... bad... girl,” Spike said through his teeth, as he struggled to snap a chain on her wrist. “And you’re going... to have... to be... punished.”

    “You’re not my daddy!” Dru screamed at him.

    “I don’t – want – to hurt you – love!” he growled, struggling with her. She kept fighting, and he hit her, back handed. He used the moment of her shock to chain her other hand. “Now be good,” he snarled at her. “You stay here and think about what you’ve done.”

    “I hate you!” she screamed back.

    “And tomorrow you’ll love me again,” Spike said. He grabbed one of her silk ribbons and forced it down over her mouth, tying the gag tightly. “I haven’t been strong enough for you, lately, have I. Sorry, love. Most apologetic and all that. I’ll fix it from tonight. Now stay there until you’re ready to be a good girl, or Daddy will show you what it really means to be punished.” He tossed himself off the bed, leaving Drusilla squealing and straining against her bonds.