Note: Thanks to my betas MadRog and t_geyer for their unending patience, perseverance and support.
SECTION 5 - WELCOME TO MY NIGHTMARE

Welcome to my nightmare
I think you're gonna like it
I think you're gonna feel that you belong
We sweat laugh and scream here
'cuz life is just a dream here
You know inside you feel right at home here
Welcome to my nightmare
Welcome to my breakdown
Yeah

(Alice Cooper, Album - Welcome to my Nightmare)


Chapter 5.03
Wednesday, May 15th, 2002

"For he to whom a watcher's doom
     Is given as his task,
Must set a lock upon his lips
     And make his face a mask."

Spike spoke the words in that soft educated tone that she had heard so rarely.

"I don't recall anyone setting a lock on Giles' or Wes's lips. or Travers'. Plenty questions from those watcher's lips," Buffy interrupted. Her own lips pressed against the plane of Spike's shoulder blade as she curled around his back, legs intertwined beneath the silken covers.

Laying aside his copy of the 'Complete Works of Oscar Wilde', Spike smiled and rolled to face her. "I don't think the Council of Wankers were in charge of the prison, pet." He propped up his head with one hand while the fingertips of the other traced back and forth across her forearm where it rested above the covers, raising goosebumps on her flesh.

"That's what they are though, or what they train them to be. An individual prison guard for every slayer, walling them round with duty and obligation till they can barely see the sky."

"You didn't do so bad with Rupes."

"Ah, but you only saw him after I broke him in a bit, not in his 'The World is Doomed' phase. But, no, he came out alright in the end."

"So? Does this mean you've had enough of making me read your homework for one night?" An asymmetrical smile settled on his features, and Buffy felt her stomach tighten at the warmth within his eyes.

"But they sound right when you read them," Buffy mock pouted even as she shifted closer. "All these dead, English guys don't sound right in an American accent. And it's kinda sexy. You know what they say about making learning fun."

"Anglo-Irish." Spike's thigh pressed between hers as their hips shifted ever closer.

"Picky. Deceased poets of transatlantic origin, then. Satisfied?" Buffy deepened the pout, knowing that Spike would find it all but irresistible.

A wicked grin lit up his face, and the butterflies in Buffy's stomach started doing the lambada. "Not nearly," the vampire responded. He leaned in to take her lower lip between his, nibbling gently until her smile prevented her from maintaining the mock pout.

"You're so beautiful when you smile,"

"Thanks," Buffy answered in a slightly sarcastic but teasing tone. "And I guess the rest of the time I look like hell."

"Nah, least ways not since you ditched the cow hat and the stripey polyester. Just, when you smile, it's like the whole world is brighter."

Buffy looked perplexed. "I don't know whether to hit you for the first bit or kiss you for the second."

In a heartbeat, Spike had rolled them both so that he looked down from above her. The warmth in his eyes turned suddenly sultry, dark and dangerous. "What's wrong with both? You know I like it rough sometimes."

Buffy's eyes clouded over with sadness. "Rough is fine, but if I hit you anywhere outside of a sparring ring again, then that's abuse. You deserve better than that. I won't willingly hurt you again."

"A little slap isn't exactly goin' to hurt." Buffy raised an eyebrow. "Okay, yes, it will. That's the point, but it doesn't do any harm."

"Listen to me, Spike. How I treated you before was wrong. I don't want." Buffy paused, unsure how to express herself and in that moment, fear ran through her body as if her arteries had turned to ice. If Buffy had retained her knowledge of the waking world she might have realised that Wesley had just moved her body. As it happened, coherent thought had nothing to do with it.

She sucked in a deep breath, hissing as the borrowed emotion sent adrenaline coursing through her veins. After that, her reaction was instinctive. Her arms and legs reached around the man above her, pulling him down until his cheek rested against hers. Her body wrapped itself tight around him, and her hand stroked patiently through his hair as she whispered what she hoped were soothing words into his ear. She unconsciously avoided any declarations of affection, knowing that only when she knew and accepted the worst about him, would he accept the validity of her claims.

"Shhh, baby. You're mine, and I won't let you go. You saw our future. You saw where we're going. There's some bad stuff we've got to go through; some stuff we need to deal with. I don't have guarantees, but I want to try. I think we can make this work." Gradually the fear she sensed eased from excruciating to merely paralysing. Buffy's fear began to rise to meet the semblance of Spike's that she could feel within her. The thought that he might slip from her grasp was too much for her to bear.

"Will, I need you with me. I need you so much. For better or worse, we are joined. We are one, and if you don't come back to me, I will never in the rest of my life feel like a complete person again." The fear didn't leave, or even lessen any further but it was joined by a dawning hope.

Buffy shifted her head just enough to give her the angle she required to sink her teeth once more into his flesh at the join of shoulder and neck. "Mine," she reminded him forcefully.

Spike seemed to respond more positively to the primal gesture than to any of her other overtures so far. Yet, he hesitated before he made his response, and Buffy held her breath as she waited.

"Always, my love."

Tears slowly pooled in Buffy's eyes as she used the hand that was enmeshed with his blond curls to pull him back until she could look in his eyes.

"I'm going to hold you to that, you know?" she half-asked and half-told him.

"I hope so, pet. I hope so."

"Never leave me." Buffy pleaded before she claimed his lips in a desperate kiss. Somewhere in his subconscious the words triggered thoughts of his mother, that particular scar to his psyche being so recently reopened. He stiffened in Buffy's arms, half expecting the arms and legs that enfolded him to, somehow in the way of dreams, metamorphose into those of his parent. He pulled back away in anguish and saw only Buffy gazing back at him with love and concern. Now that his senses were no longer awash with his own fears, he could feel her emotions radiating into every pore in his body through their connection.

"Spike, would you just hold me?" Buffy asked, hoping for the best, and yet still worried by the nagging sensation that when she awoke he might be gone.

"As you wish, love. As you wish."

Buffy sighed her contentment. Perhaps the hardest part still lay ahead, but for now he was home again.

---

"Is done."

"What? You're sure?" Wesley asked, laying aside the cup of Earl Grey that Lily had brewed after carefully rinsing out the teapot. "It's only been seconds since we put Buffy next to him."

"He is less." The demon shrugged in lieu of the word, which temporarily eluded her. "She is at peace. She knows he come back."