~*~

No.

No.

Spike caught her immediately as she fell, feeling his nonbeating heart twist in his chest at the sight of her. She was paler than she’d ever been—so pale that the scar on her lip stood out in stark contrast to the rest of her face. Blood still dripped sluggishly from the wound on her neck.

He could feel the hot, sweet Slayer’s blood coursing through his veins—but it was a bitter feeling, knowing that he’d taken that life, that essence, from the girl in his arms. Even when she was fighting him, she was so full of fire. But now, the fire belonged to him.

He knew she’d wake up, knew that he hadn’t taken enough blood from her to kill her. But still, it hurt. It hurt more than anything was supposed to hurt for a vampire, and he couldn’t figure out why.

“Buffy,” he said, shaking her, “Buffy. Wake up, kitten. C’mon, rise and shine.”

She let out a little sigh, her head rolling back onto his shoulder, mumbling something unintelligible. Dammit. Was she passed out, or sleeping?

Did it even matter? She obviously wasn’t waking up either way. That fact alone was enough to make Spike feel guilty, so he scooped her up in his arms—and froze.

Hang on. Guilty? Since when did he feel guilty about anything?

Oh, bollocks.

Vampire’s didn’t feel guilty. They just fucking well didn’t. He retained enough memory from his human days to remember what it felt like, but not in a hundred plus years had he felt it. And now he was feeling guilt, for what? Sinking his fangs into a Slayer? He oughta feel proud, not want to wake her up so he could apologize!

He growled in irritation and set off for the motel. Guilt or not, he wasn’t going to accomplish anything by just standin’ there in the alley like some kind of overdramatic ponce.

Still, every step he took coincided with waves of half-nausea, half-fear; and every time his foot hit the ground, he prayed to whatever power might be listening to an evil vampire, please, let her wake up soon.

Buffy was still unconscious when they reached the motel. He got some suspicious looks when he carried her back to their room, but given that it was one of the seedier motels in one of the seediest cities in the world, no one bothered to stop him.

He laid her on the bed, gently. Logically he knew she couldn’t break, but the thing controlling him wasn’t logic. He didn’t know what the hell it was, but it definitely wasn’t anything in the realm of sense.

She was so, so pale…how could he have done that? How could he possibly think that taking her blood was a better alternative to killing some random bint? They didn’t matter to him—she did.

And that was the rub, right there, he brooded as he stared at her still form. The humans he killed didn’t matter to him, but they mattered to her. He’d met enough Slayers to know her type—she took every single death, all around the world, and laid it at her own doorstep. She knew she couldn’t save them all, but she felt like she ought to be able to. Having someone around who killed those she was meant to protect—to Buffy, it was a fate worse than death. Pretty damn telling when she let a monster feed off of her just to protect the innocent.

A growl escaped him at that. Funny how, even after all the insults she’d hurled at him, all the hatred she’d directed his way, it was that word that made him so pissed off he could barely see.

Monster. She didn’t even have the respect to call him a demon, and it stung. He knew she looked at him and didn’t see a person—didn’t see a man. She didn’t even see a demon. She saw a thing so twisted, so wrong that the only name for it was the name given to the shapeless fears of children.

The man inside him wept. The demon wanted to rip her throat out. And Spike couldn’t figure it out.

Pain he was used to, but not this gut-wrenching feeling that seemed to be linked to the guilt inside him. Mixed-up feelings, stupid soap-opera shit—that was a human thing. He might be a pretty sorry excuse for a vampire, but he still was one, which mean he shouldn’t be havin’ purely human emotions.

He closed his eyes, growling again in frustration. Too damn stupid to figure it out, and too damn smart to just let it be? Wasn’t that just typical of him? William the Bloody, Spike the vampire, love’s bitch—whatever you wanted to call him, it was fitting that he’d be the one vampire in the world to be cursed with a myriad of emotions that would make the ensouled poofter back in Sunnyhell look downright uncomplicated.

Spike sighed. He was tired—their flight wasn’t till almost dawn. Cutting it close, but he wanted to get the hell out of there. They had a few hours till they needed to get to the airport.

So, gently as he could, he slipped the Slayer’s boots off, covered her up, and lay down next to her on top of the covers. After setting the alarm clock he closed his eyes, determined to fall asleep.

~*~

She woke up screaming.

Not physically; she was too well trained for that. But her mind was screaming at her to run away, to reach safety, before the monster she’d been with killed her.

As soon as her consciousness returned she gasped, opening her eyes. My eyes open. That’s good, right? And she still had to breathe—her racing heart was testament to that fact. So she wasn’t dead, and she wasn’t turned. Why? Not that she wanted to be a vampire, but was it normal for a soulless fiend to let his chosen victim live? Especially when his chosen victim happened to be the Chosen victim—as in, the Slayer?

Even in her half-asleep, disoriented state, Buffy really didn’t think so.

There was fabric under her, soft, and underneath that, a lumpy mattress—the motel bed. There was a chair a few feet away, but it was empty, which meant…

Her hand fisted and she steeled herself as she rolled over.

Spike’s blue gaze locked with her own.

The second it did, all the emotions she’d been swimming in before she fainted—no, passed out; Slayer’s don’t faint, dammit— came rushing back. Fear, confusion, hatred, grief…and overwhelming lust. Her cheeks flushed deep, dark red.

“Hello, Buffy,” he greeted her quietly.

He was using her name. Why was he using her name? “You—you didn’t—“

He cocked his head. “Kill you?”

She nodded mutely. “Um…yeah. Why?”

Spike cocked an eyebrow at her. “What, you want to die?”

“N-no,” she stuttered, hating herself for how unbalanced that question made her. “I just—you were angry, and…I thought you planned on killing me.”

She watched as some emotion, one she couldn’t read, flitted through his eyes, before he closed them. His jaw tensed—she’d been around him long enough to know he was frustrated with her.

“I’m sorry,” she said hastily, “It’s just…”

“It’s just that ‘m a monster,” he finished for her bitterly. “I shoulda killed you, Slayer. Shoulda snapped that sweet little neck and drained you dry.” He let out a harsh laugh, and his hand brushed up against her neck. Buffy didn’t jump, didn’t run away the way she knew she should…didn’t even move. She was transfixed by the sheer emotion she saw in the vampire’s face.

“But I didn’t,” he continued. His thumb brushed against her bite mark—

And lightning rushed through her body.

“Spike, I don’t—“

“No.” A single word, fierce, betraying more than she thought he wanted to. “Don’t say you don’ want it, Buffy. I know you do. I can smell it, feel it. ‘s all around you. You want me…but you don’t wanna let me know it.” His hand left her neck, came up to touch her lips…

And still Buffy didn’t move.

“So soft,” he whispered. “But you’re scarred, pet, did you know?”

Of course she knew. “I hate that scar,” she whispered. “It makes me...”

“What?”

She looked away from him, finishing her sentence with a falsehood. “Ugly.”

It makes me a failure.

He shook his head. “Couldn’t be ugly if you tried,” he muttered. It should have been a compliment, but it sounded almost accusing.

His finger continued to move over her lip, stroking, stroking, weaving a web around her that she didn’t dare try to break.

“You gonna let me bite you again?”

Startled, she looked into his eyes, and saw the wicked intent there. “I—I don’t know.” Weak. She was weak, for sounding like that—weak for letting him affect her like that. She shifted her lower half restlessly, angry at herself. Her blanket-encased leg brushed up against the bulge in his crotch, and he stiffened. His hand flew away from her face like she was suddenly made of holy water.

Weak. Both of them.

Her breath was coming in short gasps; she hadn’t moved her leg away. On the contrary, she was rubbing him, touching him through layers of fabric, making him gasp as he took in unneeded air.

“Fuck, Buffy,” he gasped. His hands twisted in the covers that enclosed her—and suddenly, something changed.

He had control over her. He’d demonstrated it plenty of times. But she had control over him, too. If she was lost and weak, then so was he.

She yanked the covers off and threw a leg over him, pushing him down on the mattress and straddling him fully. He looked up at her, clearly shocked; she just grinned and ran her hands up his chest, coming to rest on his shoulders.

“Turnabout’s fair play,” she told him, a smile playing around her lips.

Maybe he realized what had occurred to her; maybe his demon was taking over. Whatever the reason, Buffy blinked—

And found herself lying beneath him.

“Hey!” she protested, wriggling frantically; but his weight was too much for her. “You should—oooh.” He was pushing his erection into her, his hips heavy on hers, and somehow, his mouth had found his still-tender bite mark. “Oh, God—Spike—I—“

“Like that, Slayer?” he murmured against her neck. A hand came up to play with her breast; sensation shot through her, rocking her to her core. He chuckled. “Naughty, naughty girl.”

Naughty? Buffy’s ears perked up at that word. Her Watcher had used to call her that, once or twice when she got in trouble…but it never sounded half as sexy as it did coming out of Spike’s mouth. She twisted—not trying to get away, but trying to make him raise his head so that she could gain an opening—

He did exactly as she wanted. The second his head came up, Buffy reared up and caught her lips with his.

No anger this time, no desperation—only lust and the acknowledgement that they were both lost in a place that had never known a map. She dipped her tongue into his mouth, feeling a thrill when he reciprocated, running his cool tongue along the top of hers before delving deeper. His hips were thrusting into hers; she was thrusting back with equal force, desperate to feel him against her. He slipped his hand under her top, never losing contact with her mouth—she grabbed the bottom of his black t-shirt, fully intending to rip if off if only so she could feel his skin against hers—

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

They froze, jerked back to reality by the alarm clock. Pulled back to a reality that contained a world that needed saving, pulled back to the harsh truth: she was a Slayer, he was a vampire, and in the eyes of the world, what they were doing was wrong.

He rolled off of her, muttering what might have been an apology. She nodded, smoothing her hair.

“So, um…guess we’d better get to the airport.” Her voice was hoarse; her mouth was dry. Her legs still trembled from the force of the lust that had been running through her.

Spike cleared his throat, running his fingers through his hair. “Uh, yeah,” he said, his voice just a scratchy as hers. “We’d best be off.” He grabbed their bags.

She snatched hers away from him. “Super-strength,” she reminded him, sticking her nose in the air.
He rolled his eyes. “Bloody irritating bint,” he muttered, stalking ahead of her.

But Buffy noted, with a self-satisfied smile, that he held the door open for her when they left.

~*~