By The Pricking of My Thumbs...Something Wicked This Way Comes
by Megan & Schehrezade

Chapter 15


“No, this isn’t Willow’s doing.”



He seemed taken aback, shocked that it wasn’t the usual suspect and suddenly at a loss of who to blame. So, he didn’t know who had put the whammy on him, but from what Buffy was telling him, the Scoobies at least knew something was wrong. And yet, he seemed to still be under the influence.



“You seem to be in the know, then. What’s bein’ done?” His look was skeptical, annoyed at being whoever’s pawn and not even knowing what it was they had hit him with.



“Tara has been doing some research into it, I think.”



“You think?” he asked, voice rising in irritation. “So what’s the bloody verdict then?”



His ire deflated in one abrupt burst the second her shoulders slumped.



“I don’t know,” she whispered, her eyes downcast and unable to take looking into a face that didn’t shine with his love for her.



“Typical that the sods would leave the vamp what’s been keeping their sorry arses alive for the past months in the dark. Don’t let on about the magic; don’t do anything to take it off me.” The tone had shifted from his earlier irritation to hurt and Buffy could feel more tears flooding her eyes.



Someone was playing with them, depriving them of something she needed. Someone had caused a confusion that allowed her newest rival—Anne—to step in and take her place in more ways than one. She could accept most of the shifts in position, but how was it fair for the vampire she had begun to fall for before her death be taken from her now?



“Pet?” He held his hand out to her as he remained on the step, his heart clenching at the misery she couldn’t hide in her eyes. “I know I don’t remember anything; don’t remember you, but there is something there between us. It’s not so unusual…two people… in the work place…feelings develop.” He offered it with a smile, feeling a little stupid with his hand still outstretched and lonely.



She watched it, the yearning to touch him equally visible and a kick to his gut that he hadn’t been expecting. It had enough impact to draw him to his feet and he suddenly felt frozen to the spot as she took his hand and sparks he couldn’t explain bolted like voltaic currents up his arm. Somewhere far away he could hear her sudden gasp, and it added to the awakening his body was experiencing. Awakening and writhing in some sort of elemental knowledge that this was his girl, whether she knew it or not.



“Buffy?” he squeezed past suddenly hoarse lips and nearly burned up when he felt her warmth within his arms. Sensory overload nearly had him collapsing to his knees as he felt lips capture his in a kiss that seemed to stop time, everything around him a sensual blur that he couldn’t assimilate on such an elevated level of bliss. It felt like something he had spent his whole unlife desperate for, his whole existence in search of this feeling; this woman.


Buffy.


Reality merged with his otherworld experience and the lips on his—though still heavenly—became slightly more of the woman rather than the angel. He couldn’t work out if that made him happy or sad, but it did draw an immediate comparison to him of the earlier kiss with Anne. As he raised his shaking hands to thread his fingers through her hair, he opened his mouth and allowed his tongue to lick her bottom lip, seeking a welcome he hadn’t been interested in receiving with Anne’s kiss.



Buffy was different; Buffy was everything. The realisation was definite—life encompassing. As she took him into her mouth, sucked on his tongue until every part of his body was straining against fabric, he felt his outer shell melt. Then again, feeling her hot little hands snaking under his shirt might have had a touch to do with it. He felt his own skin contract with shock at her touch, then swell into the cup of her hand. He moaned deep in his soul—wherever the poncey thing was—and pulled her body a little bit closer.



Her nails scraped over the series of curves of his abdominals and he felt the bulge in his pants expand to capable in one second flat. While Anne’s kiss had taken him unawares—and on some level actually revolted him—this kiss had him contemplating meeting the sunrise if it meant they wouldn’t ever move from this spot. Not recede back into sensibility until his disintegration to dust was the thing that forced its end.



She made him hot. Made his blood heat to burning in a way that made him think he was human—exploring human feeling and human emotion until he thought he would burst out his skin and be standing before her with a once again beating heart and poetry on his untalented lips.



Her talent sucked away all his resistance, though. Brought him hard around to her way of avoiding a situation. Magic? Magic could wait for another day if it meant nothing would interfere with this moment. For he didn’t know the nature of the spell, and what it could rip from him this time if it were reversed.



He sighed against her lips, her name a whispered prayer as he thanked God for some return of his senses. Thanked a deity that he’d been forcibly removed as one of his flock, grateful for his ability to differentiate between Slayers.



As the two blondes kept a tight rein on rising physical impulses, they brushed lips and cherished the time—held on to it with desperate hands. The threat of magic and its backfire almost tragically close to mind.



From the kitchen window, two sets of eyes took in the scene and parted in collaboration of reaction. Green eyes teared at seeing the truth, but Anne was accepting of what she knew in her heart to be. Spike had never been hers. And despite the hurt welling up inside and her need to find somewhere private to release that dream, she would be a fool to not understand the impact of what she saw. The match seemed cosmic—almost as if the other was brought back, not through the intervention of her witch friend, but because she had left things unfinished.



The mystery that was Spike’s non-memory of Buffy was almost meaningless in the face of that kiss. Everything Anne had tried to achieve with her naïve approach fell into laughable failure. She didn’t hold that fire, didn’t exude that fierce love that the other Slayer was broadcasting to the world outside in her backyard.



No, the mystery was solved. Anne had never had a chance.



For Dawn, the view was bittersweet. Her sister was shining with love; she had been crippled with hurt and pain when she had entered the house tonight. Finding Spike beside her sister on the porch had unleashed the restraint that fear had made and Dawn was now witnessing something she had secretly prayed for her vampire friend for the months leading up to the night Buffy sacrificed herself for love.



Just because guilt was kicking her ass was neither here nor there. She’d done a bad thing—but who could deny that her spell had saved Spike’s life? She was pretty sure Buffy would want to slap her when she found out, but the fact remained that had Dawn left things as they were, Buffy might have returned to a Spikeless Sunnydale. A Spikeless world. From the intensity of that liplock, Dawn would stake her life on Buffy not wanting to come back into that kind of place.



So, despite thoughts of worry, thoughts of sadness, both girls stood and looked on and watched something special take hold of the blond couple outside. In silent agreement, they gloried in the obvious love before turning away and finding their own thing to do for the night.



For the night suddenly seemed to be all right.


~@~@~


There was a prayer for hush. Against the clang of metal and the harsh roars and grunts of fury—of evil consummating of the underworld—moments of quiet were a dream. But solidly wished for.



Her figure looked on—watched in awe as the one with borrowed sword and blood slashed his way through centuries of pain and evil. Cleared away in desperate awe the mounting army of first. There she was, cold and as real as a dream. Bitter flashes of long dark hair, a smile of dementia that promised more than beauty. More than life.



But it wasn’t real. She wasn’t real. As whispy as the fog and as corporeal as a memory.



What she watched was, but it blurred the lines of understanding till even her smile faltered with confusion. The reach of pale hand. Filthy rat carcasses, plentiful to drink even here in the depths of humanity’s castoffs. Fighting sparks as metal took on ownership and shirked the arm of her soldier. Each neck broken a shock to the body, leaving a whimper to break painfully from the throat.



He thought she saw it all. Went mad with the knowledge she saw it all—yet didn’t. Wasn’t her. Dusted her. Killed her dead. Yet her image mocked and frowned over the actions of the interloper.



Not meant to be there. A trick. A spell.



Magic.


~@~@~


The gagging reflex of someone with their fingers down their throat was the reception in the Master’s lair.



“That is just obscene,” he told those surrounding him as he watched without interference the disgusting display of one of his own engaging in something other than a fight to the death with a Slayer. It made his eyeballs bleed, yet strangely he couldn’t tear his gaze away from it. The sight stirred his blood, turned his stomach, and banked up his rage that he couldn’t wait to take out on his favourite childe.



“It is obvious this Slayer has infected him in some way. He will have to be made to seek penance for being such an insipid member of my blood.”



He didn’t see, but felt the smile of his redheaded favourite beside him. They both sat staring—transfixed as the peroxided vampire that should have been vicious and cold in his complete decimation of the Slayer house, was instead embroiled in an embrace that put all of their kind to shame.



“And so he shall, Master,” she cooed as she made her way to straddle his lap. As her bodice was torn from her breasts, minions scuttled from the room in a hurry to prove their respect. Fangs sunk through unresisting flesh and her breast and her blood was in his purple mouth. Writhing on his hard on, the vampire Willow flung her head back and moaned, pictures of a shackled Spike—her wayward great nephew—added to the pleasure that was turning her eyes feral.



“Get him for me, my Childe. He will bleed in this mouth of hell. He will scream until mercy is granted. He must repent, my one. Can you make him do it?”



His voice hypnotised her, the traces of her blood on his lips captivated her, and being the one who saved her life, she could do nothing but believe and agree.



“He shall be brought to you in chains and bruises, Sire,” she told him huskily before she bucked against his hard cock, exquisite pain shooting through her belly to her pussy as his cruel fingers twisted a nipple.



Before the blood game became everything, before all she knew was his careless clawing and fucking, she nodded her head—promise made, and soon to be delivered.


~ @~@ ~


Despite what he had expected, he felt the difference all the way to his toes. There was no one moment that had pointed out the inevitable to him, but seeing the reaction of his friend to Spike’s indifference had actually hurt and he’d held only a miniscule hope that something would eventually develop between the two.



It wasn’t the first time he’d seen them in a liplock of major passion. As then he wanted to burn his eyes so he could ignore it. But as much as he hadn’t grown up in Buffy’s absence, the pain of being without her was one he wouldn’t risk while she walked the earth.



It was obvious by the way she clung to the vampire’s neck that she wasn’t sharing her saliva for any other reason than she wanted to. Was dying to. 'Okay, poor choice of words,' Xander thought as he cringed in pain, not entirely reconciled to the past.



It was beyond weird, though. He’d only ever seen her kiss three guys: Angel, Riley and funnily enough, Spike. The first made him want to commit suicide, the second not so much. He’s held such hope for Riley, but could admit now it had more to do with having a male friend within the circle of women.



And Spike. Seeing the result of a spell making them a couple had blown his preconceptions of Buffy completely out of the water. The fire between the two even back then had been undeniable, and maybe he was the only one who thought about that time now and again, but Xander couldn’t help but feel a little guilty for coming on so strong about the wrongness of it all. How did he know that if there’d been Scooby approval of the pairing long ago, Buffy might have been spared her life? Spike had more than proven the depth of his feelings for the Buffster. Xander was still catching up on his sleep from the nightly suicide runs.



So, to see them like this might just make him cringe the slightest bit, but he was ready. Ready to see the act, ready to accept Spike as one of them. And beyond ready to let Buffy be happy.



“And what do we have here, Ahn? I think I spy with my little eye, something beginning with 'S'.” He stood rocking on his heels, smiling innocently but heartily as the couple sprang away from the embrace and watched their audience in embarrassment.



Anya looked from the blondes to her boyfriend, a curl of perplexity scrunching up her eyebrows.



“What? I don’t spy sex. They wouldn’t be having sex in the backyard, Xander Harris. As satisfying as intercourse is in the open and at the risk of being caught with your pants down by your neighbours.” She eyed the tightness of Spike’s jeans and grinned in spite of herself. “Not that I think any female neighbours would mind.”



Three sets of eyes fell on the ex-demon aghast. Xander’s squeaky voice recovered first and he took no time to settle his intention.



“'S' is for smoochies, Ahn.”



“I think your bird is a little repressed, Harris.”



Embarrassed snickers found their way around the predicament, yet Xander couldn’t help be warmed by the little flush on Buffy’s cheeks. She was happy and the vamp loved her. For once he’d not try to interfere. His girlfriend on the other hand needed some lessons on how to understand the knack of the artful use of tact. As well as having his own mind bleached of the image of Buffy and Spike having sex in the backyard with elderly Mrs. Wilson hanging over the hedge while she called her encouragement of Spike’s ass.



More bleaching, more bleaching, and they walked past the pair and into the house. Not interfering meant passing them by to reinitiate the kiss that kept the smile on both their lips.



Alone again, Buffy looked bashful as she ran her finger down the smooth leather of his coat and stroked the inside of his palm. Her heart raced and her blood pumped hard as it zinged around her veins.



“Spike,” she began, her arms bereft of his body, her lips lonely for his. “Can…I mean…would you hold me tonight while I sleep?”



Her hesitance to look at him hurt. She craved him to be in her sight, to feast on the calming water of his eyes, feel the tingle the imagination of his lips on hers caused. But she felt so afraid to take the risk. Afraid to see rejection again in the curl of his lip. That he had kissed her, alluded to his own emotions being deeper than he had expected, none of it meant that he would willingly spend the night in her room. Spend the night curled around her and offer her comfort against the dark horror of her sleep.



A finger under her chin tipped her face up and she couldn’t hide from him anymore, though the tears that had gathered blurred his features a little.



“If that’s what you need, pet. Be there with bells on.” His smile was sweet, filled with awe that she wanted to spend the night with him when they had only just shared a realisation of wanting to be together. Although it happened so fast, it felt like he’d been waiting forever for this kind of permission to be with her. For this extent of wanting to be with him.



Her body shuddered in relief and she sank into his arms, desperately trying to control her body’s reaction now she didn’t have to let him go. Her hand sought the cool flesh of his throat and she pulled his neck to her mouth, sucking in and marking his skin with a subtle darkening of pink.



“Thank you,” she whispered against the dampened flesh, sending tiny goosebumps on a rampage over his body.



She took his hand and led him through the house, bypassing anyone who might try and prevent their progress. Through stealth rather than luck, Buffy brought him to her door, pausing for a nervous second and only pushing the barrier forward when he squeezed her hand reassuringly.



Her hands full of her favourite yet non-sexy pyjamas, she seemed to hold her breath for the entire time it took to change and brush her teeth. Repress her need to breathe until she could confirm that she still had a vampire sprawled on her bed. That he hadn’t moved in her very short absence brought the pit of emotion screaming to the fore, and she sunk in amongst the bed coverings and allowed her head to rest against his shoulder.



The groan of leather was a sign of flight before she had even closed her eyes.



“Can…can you take off your coat? And shoes?”



Spike blinked at the request in surprise but quickly discarded the extra and made himself even more comfortable in her bed. Her arms were immediately around him and it felt so right.



It felt like home, and he wasn’t ever giving it up.



Buffy.

To be continued