Halloween V

The First Kiss Cuts Deeper….

Every time he saw her, he looked on her with wonder. It gave her the wiggins bad. She knew how he felt—it shined from his eyes, every worshipful glance, every piercing gaze, every secretive silken slide of his blue orbs over her…. Yes, she knew very well how he felt about her. He never hid it from anyone.

She just wished she could feel anything.

She was in a state of continuous stimulus overload. Too bright, too dim, too loud, too soft, the world crushed her in all its myriad noises and sights and smells until the only way to survive it was to shut it all down. Constant tension thrummed through her nervous system, working overtime to protect her from revealing anything. Anything to her friends. Her well-meaning friends. They wanted to help her so badly, but good intentions don’t always have the best outcomes.

She isolated herself too much, she knew that, but the only times she was even remotely normal were when she was slaying. With every other part of her shut down, it was the only time she felt like she was really alive. Patrol was like a job, but the actual kill—the adrenaline rush of the fight, the heft of the stake in her hand, the dust drifting up her nose when it was done—helped her remember. Remember who she was, and what she was doing here. Why they brought her back.

They treated her like a child. She withdrew further. It continued until she could barely tolerate being around them.

The only person who made her feel anything was Spike. He wouldn’t let her be numb. When she was with him, all the tingles and twitches of nerves swaddled in cotton erupted into full power electrical shocks. Shock, he cares about you. Shock, he cared for Dawn when the others practically forgot all about her. Shock, he loves you. Shock, he grieved for you. Shock, shock, shock, endless and constant, and she relished it, basked in it, just to feel normal again.

Normal. Was she ever normal? It plagued her. it woke her up in the middle of the night, the question invading her dreams and making her restless. She was the Slayer, but she had always felt normal. Wanted the normal life, the normal things. Love, marriage, a white picket fence. Even though she knew that they were out of the question, she couldn’t help herself, she still wanted it. Normal.

As soon as Dawn left for school, she put her jacket on, trudging over to his crypt to watch television with him. The first two times, she surprised him. The third time, he was waiting, coffee brewing in a pilfered coffeepot, a novelty mug with vampire fangs painted on the side, waiting. She would sit on one end of the couch, he on the other with his mug of blood, and they watched the talk shows and game shows until it was time for Dawn to come home.

Sometimes she would leave, and come back later. Always with a small token for him, for his time. Berber root, a bottle of whiskey, cigarettes. He catnapped between her visits, waking completely when he felt her near.

The days rolled on and on, their patterns changing and coming together like a kaleidoscope, an ever-changing landscape. She drifted, he adapted, she needed, he gave, and they existed. Separate and together, they existed, if only for each other. The woman he saw was not the woman she revealed to anyone else, and he found himself exposing more and more of the poet to the silent woman who ghosted his crypt and his dreams.

One night they got drunk together, sitting astride a coffin, and he convinced her that she needed to walk in the dark with him. He regretted it later, when he was holding her up and her hair back away from the vomit spewing forcefully from her mouth. After several such stops on the way to her house, he swept her up in his arms, careful with her lolling head, and carried her home.

Giles opened the front door, and caught her as she fell inside. Spike shrugged, cocked an eyebrow, and shifted off into the night. She had people who would take care of her there. She didn’t want him to take care of her.

She was back the next morning, and the next. She felt the pull of the season, drawing her closer to the rim of the unknown. Her body slowly came alive. Her heart began to beat again, but in unfamiliar rhythms. Breathing was easier. She felt the first stirrings in her body, in her heart. She didn’t recognize what the stirrings were—she still cocooned herself. It was second nature now.

She glanced at the calendar, and saw that Halloween was two days away. Funny, time flies when you’re numb.

She got roped into working at the Magic Box, and cringed at the thought. She vowed not to go anywhere near the mummy hand in the basement.

She still had to go into the basement, however, and met Spike, stealing Berber root.

“Want a bit o’ the rough and tumble?”

Her eyes glazed over, remembering the feelings of their rough and tumble. She was numb, but she wasn’t dead. Well, not anymore. She still was shocked by the thought, but why she didn’t understand. It wasn’t their first time. Not their first Halloween.

She carried jars upstairs, and handed them off. Minutes merged, and before she could think twice about anything, the shop was closed and they were breathing hard, finished with the capitalist footrace. Dawn and Anya did their money dance, and all she could think of was how to get away.

“Giles, I’m going to patrol.” She missed the look that shot between the others in the shop. She stuffed three stakes in her jeans, and almost ran out the door.

Her feet carried her to Restfield, mechanically placing themselves one in front of the other. She didn’t feel the burning need like before, but it was the day, and time, and she wanted to feel. Feel his coolness on her, in her, moving over her body and freezing her soul. Soothing her guilty conscience. Bringing her back from the dead.

She slipped in the door quietly, but not nearly quietly enough to avoid alerting a very aware vampire. She looked closely and saw the casual slouch belying the tension in his muscles. Saw his offhand glance that held so many secrets.

“Oi, so you decided we needed to patrol, Slayer?” She didn’t answer him, just stared at him with empty eyes, her hands at her sides.

“Buffy.” He looked at her, and she refused to let his eyes slide over her this time. She caught him, trapped him, and made him see her. See how miserable she really was. See how desperately she needed him. See how much she missed herself.

She came to stand in front of him, and climbed on his lap, never breaking their gaze. He told her, /was it already last year? /, that he drowned in her. She gave herself over to the sensation, wanting to know what he felt, wanting the same strange feeling to overtake her and force her to reckon with what was left inside her. Wanting the peace to cushion her soul after the long days of fighting to live. Wanting to accept all he was finally willing to give, and absorb it with the dry sponge that was her emotional core, to fill it and fill herself. To remember.

He touched her gently, cautiously, brushing the loose strands of hair out of her eyes, and reached out to her, emotionally. “Buffy? Are you okay, pet?”

She stared at him, her eyes bright. “I am now. I’m here.” She fell silent, the words too much to drag from her throat. She pressed her mouth to the spot beneath his chin, just below his Adams apple, and rested her forehead there. She sighed. Comfort, here. Peace, here. Love, here.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Spike looked down at the tiny body in his arms. He didn’t remember her being this small. He always thought of her as larger than life and ready for damage. Not this—not this petite sack of skin and bones surrounding a frozen heart, an empty soul, and an overwrought mind.

Her hands fluttered against his chest, and he moved painstakingly slow, trying not to startle her. She pressed even closer, her mouth of fire and brimstone on his cool skin, and he reeled himself even tighter than he’d had to since she’d been back. He knew that to touch her again would be his complete undoing. He loved her and lost her; he had discovered the transient nature of life to be his eternal curse. Grieving, mourning, missing had become the mantra of his life until a few short weeks ago.

He still felt the complete sense of wonder at her even being here. Couldn’t look at her without tears jumping to the fore, hastily swallowed down until he could allow her to hold him with her eyes. No slipping up. She was skittish enough already, without the knowledge that he still was hopelessly in love with her. He sensed she knew anyway, and that was why she came to him. For love that she couldn’t accept from her friends. For comfort she couldn’t stand from them. For peace.

Bloody wankers had brought her back, but they broke her spirit when they did it, and they didn’t even know how. They only knew that she wasn’t bouncy Buffy, and they didn’t care. They chattered and gossiped and spun her in circles, vying for her attention, waiting for gratitude that would never be forthcoming.

She told him things. She told him of the fight between Giles and Willow, and confessed her fear of the redheaded witch to him. She told him about Xander and Anya, their engagement, wondering aloud why Anya got a pass from everyone, never mentioning his name out loud. But the question still rose in both their minds…Anya gets a pass, and he doesn’t?

He clung to her, and his memory of her, and prayed to the Powers that he could make her whole. She clung to him, and prayed that she could be whole again, either here or in Heaven.

Now, here she was in his lap, and he didn’t know what to do with her. What she expected of him. What she wanted.

He found out when she wrapped her legs around his waist and rocked herself against him, her heat searing him through his jeans.

Hiding his surprise, he touched her biceps, and she stopped moving. “Buffy. Buffy, love, what is it?”

“I need to feel, Spike. I want to feel. Make me feel again.”

Her mouth warm on his skin. Her breath fiery with each spoken word. Her heart’s desire, and his own, inches from him, and he felt paralyzed. Terror paralyzed him from touching her, and he cursed himself six ways to Sunday for not having the strength to push her away.

Instead, he pulled her closer to him, absorbing her warmth. Her spark still existed, he knew; he only hoped that he could fan it into the roaring fire it used to be.

Cradling her in his arms, he stood and walked over to the hole in the floor. Jumping down, he watched her carefully to see how she took the jar. She didn’t move. She pressed her face against his chest, breathing slowly, and nary a muscle twitched in her as he carried her to his bed.

She made a noise of protest when he sat her down. Her eyes opened at the loss of contact, and she watched him undress in the candlelight. It flickered across the curves and hollows of his body, and memories flooded her. Memories of tasting and touching those same places the flames treated as their playground. Memories of whispered words and unspoken treaties, words of love tossed around carelessly. She turned her face to the pillow and sobbed.

He was by her side in the pause between heartbeats. “Buffy, love, please don’t cry.” His touch soothed her, but she didn’t want soothing, she wanted…God, what did she want, anyway?

She turned her face to him, a waterfall of tears on her cheeks. “Why do you keep coming back to me, Spike? Why did you stick around here, and let them treat you the way they did?”

He ducked his head, embarrassed as only he could be. “Uh—made a promise to a lady. Had to see it through. ‘S a matter of pride, love.”

Pride. How could he be proud, when they had all but defanged him and made him their pet? A master vampire, the youngest ever, and he chased the Slayer and played lapdog to her?

He knew that she wasn’t satisfied with his answer, and he touched her gently. “You trusted me to keep the promise, Buffy, and even if I couldn’t keep it that night, I did. Every day. Every minute. Every time I got Dawn off to school, helped her with homework, held her when she cried, dealt with the teenage tantrums, I was keeping my promise to you. I promised I’d protect her. And I tried. I did.”

She reached for him, and drew his head to her breast. “You did, Spike. You did, and for that you have my eternal gratitude.”

He rested, her heartbeat echoing in his ears, and his tears wet her blouse. Her hands moved in lazy circles on his back, and he relaxed against her. Her fingers tangled in his slicked hair, freeing the restrained curls. “You always do this to your hair.”

“S’my hair,” he mumbled against her shirt.

“I like it curly,” she mused.

“I like it straight.” His voice was firm, unbending.

“And I like it curly.” She snickered. “Gah, why do we always get into it over the silly little things?”

“’Cause we are who we are, pet. Can’t change who we are.”

She looked down on the head of the one who was becoming dearer to her by the day. She realized where her thoughts were leading, and started to steer them away from the mention of the L word, but felt too lax to do so. There was no way in Heaven or hell that her friends would accept a relationship with Spike. They’d probably think it was a bad effect of the resurrection spell, and try to do another one on her.

God knows, she had to keep them satisfied. Happy. Off her back. Spike was right. They couldn’t change who they were.

The only thing they’d ever had was the now. Never any future. No tomorrows. The immediacy of the moment, and nothing more.

She was tired of not having a future. She was sick at the thought that tomorrow may not come, and she passed up the chance at today hoping for something, or someone, that might never be. She wanted to feel, and be happy, and be loved.

She wanted to love. She wanted to love him. But she could never tell him that, not now. He would believe it was the fire talking, the blood burning, and wouldn’t think twice about holding it against her when the fire was quenched and the pact satisfied for another year. Wouldn’t hesitate to use it to his advantage, and she knew it.

So she didn’t speak.

She pulled him up by the hair, and he started to yowl in protest, then saw the look on her face. Sheer determination, fierce pride, and unfettered lust warred for dominance on her face, and even his poet’s vocabulary could not have described the resulting look. He could almost believe that it was love, if he tried hard enough.

She fisted her hands in his hair, and yanked his face to hers. Her kisses were violent and rough, and what she worried would be a turn-off stoked the flames of need in his belly. He gave as good as he got, his tongue raking the inside of her mouth roughly, his teeth gripping her pouting bottom lip between them. His hands raced over her clothes, helping her shed them as they shredded them, then she was glorious beneath him, warmth and sunshine and life embodied.

She reached for his jeans, ripping them open and busting rivets. She grabbed the base of his cock, and fisted it from base to tip and back, watching his eyes roll in his head. Her mouth traveled to his neck when he threw his head back, and she bit her way to the side of his corded muscles where they joined with his shoulder.

Seeing his reaction, she was ready, wet and silken and waiting, and she positioned him at her entrance and pulled him inside. So full, so…complete, she thought, and locked her ankles around his hips to keep him from moving. I just want to stay this way forever.

He pressed his forehead to hers, eyes screwed tightly closed, and edged out of her, then back in. He tried to move, and she tightened her grip on his hips. “Buffy, please. Let me move.”

She never opened her eyes. “I just want to stay like this for a minute. Promise you won’t lose it. I just feel so full when you’re inside me like this.”

He looked closely at her face, at that secret smile, and relaxed, knowing she would be demanding in a short while. Indeed, after what seemed like a millisecond, she arched her pelvis against him, and allowed him some movement. Slow, shallow thrusts, with her internal muscles rippling around him and her heat warming him to his toes. Liquid fire inside her, lapping at him, demanding him to please. Demanding pleasure.

To throw her off, he added a slight upsurge to his downward thrusts, hitting the tightly wound nerves inside her quim and the tip of her cervix at the same time. The pleasure of pain struck her, and she moaned and writhed, wanting more. Her legs relaxed and fell limply to the mattress, and he began thrusting longer and deeper, slamming their hipbones together as he crashed his pubic bone against hers, trapping her clit.

He built a rhythm on her heartbeat, speeding up slowly as her pulse rate rose. He grabbed her wrists off his shoulders and stretched her arms wide, lowering his head to capture her nipple in his mouth and pull it between his lips. She arched against him, close to peaking, and he reached between them to touch her clit gently, then harder as she gasped with every thrust.

He allowed her nipple to slide from his mouth, and reared up, grabbing her legs and bringing her ankles to his shoulders. He directed his angle of descent, and what was just fullness to her was now something else entirely. She could feel all of him now; the crisp curls pressing against tender flesh, the enormity of his cock, pressing deep inside her, forcing her womb to move with him, his balls slapping and stinging the pucker of her ass, and she opened to him, exposing her heart in her eyes.

It was, in a word, a crumb.

They stared into each other’s eyes, in wonder, at the sensations and the feelings flooding through them. Drowning, drowning in pools of blue, breathless and floating and cushioned from everyone by his strong arms wrapping around her. She closed her eyes, overwhelmed, and he sighed. Reaching down, he brought her legs back to his waist, pressing his forehead to hers.

She resisted his silent plea to look at him, and instead concentrated on the incandescent passion building in her. Soon, so soon. Somewhere along the way he had released her hands, and she blindly explored his body with her eyes closed, mouth, tongue and hands mapping the planes and tracing the muscles. Rumbles sounded from deep in his chest as her teeth found a flat nipple, gripping it lightly and releasing it in time with his movements. Her hands reached for his clenching buttocks, and she pulled him deeper each time, gyrating against him with muscles flexing and pulling and sucking.

He leaned forward to flick his tongue against his mark, and she bucked against him. Flick, buck, he made her dance and arch and burn for more. He raked her skin with his teeth, and she forced his mark between his lips when she gripped his head. She held him in place with her hand, panting heavily, her mouth pressed to his neck. “Fuck, Spike, missed this…missed you…needed this…Halloween tradition…bite me, love…taste me…I…need….”

He penetrated her neck, and her last word came out a scream. “YOU!”

His mark and her nerves were closely connected. Every pull on her neck urged her closer and closer, and God, she didn’t want to fall, never again, but she was. Falling and falling, over the edge of the abyss, his body pushing again and again as spasms rocked her repeatedly. This was the real Heaven--to feel like you’re falling and still held safe; this electricity between two people that set off sparks and jolts of passion.

She came, and she fell, and she came again.

She writhed and bucked, and his demon had a hard time holding on to her, she was so wild. She furrowed his arms and back with her nails and bit him with blunt teeth and enough force to break skin. He let it drive him over the edge, and joined her in the blinding, skin-slipping bonelessness of orgasm. He growled, and nipped her neck, a wordless cry slipping from her lips as she tumbled over with him again.

He slowed, then stopped, and rested his head between her breasts. He listened to her heartbeat as she throbbed and trembled around him, and wondered what made it race? Was it him or the sex? He dare not ask. Her breath stirred his curls, and he tried to sink into her warmth, absorbing as much of her heat as he could.

She rested there with him buried inside her, buoyant in the oceans of afterglow. She strummed her fingers along the muscles in his back, caressing their corded strength. She purred underneath him, her soft sighs soothing his heart.

He raised his head, and looked at her, long and searching. She smiled, a modern Mona Lisa, her secrets safe within her. “Thank you,” she said, on a sigh.

“For what?”

“For sticking with tradition.”

“Buffy—” He hesitated, unsure of how his news would be received. “The pact. It’s been completed. We…it didn’t make us do this tonight.”

That smile, curving so very cozily on her lips, sent shivers down his spine. “The scar. It’s gone. The pact was fulfilled when…when you died.”

She stretched under him, arching against him, clenching around him, and still said nothing. “Buffy, we didn’t have to do this.”

“Yes we did. It’s tradition.”

He stared, unable to process the words. She pushed him off her, and rolled off the bed, gathering her clothes. “You know. Every Halloween, we fight, then we fuck, and we go on for the year, itch satisfied. Tradition.”

“But the pact….”

“Do you really think that I wouldn’t know? I’m resurrected, not stupid. I knew the minute I came back.” She held out her hand. “No scar.”

He watched her dress, then watched her walk to the ladder, the wonder back in his eyes. She looked at him, and smiled, bittersweet. “Don’t you know, yet? You’re in my life. It doesn’t take a scar to remind me of you.” She punched her chest with her fist. “You’re here, and even dying couldn’t change that. But it also can’t change anything else.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, worried and trying not to show it.

“What I mean is, we still can’t. Too much has happened, and I don’t have the energy for this right now.” She started up the ladder, then paused. “I still like the tradition, though. Let’s not stop that.”

She disappeared above, and he heard her footsteps cross the floor. Her voice drifted down to him, the barest whisper in the cavernous crypt. “Good night, sweet Spike. Happy Halloween.”


*A/N: I can't thank you all enough for the reviews. They feed my soul. Dede, aka Spike_spetslayer