A/N: Just a warning... this chapter mildly traumatized my beta. I don't think it's as bad as chapters 2 and 3, but be forewarned - hallucinations are disturbing.

*****

Chapter 13: Hunger

“Buffy!”

Spike dropped his weapon and ran to Buffy, who was doubled over where she stood, her hand pressed against her stomach. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders, cradling her to his chest. “Buffy, love, are you all right?”

She didn’t answer him, didn’t even acknowledge that he was speaking or touching her. Her face was blank, her eyes glassy, staring sightlessly straight ahead. She began to mumble under her breath.

“What is it, love?”

“Daddy, what are you doing here?”

She’d already fallen into the hallucinations. Spike clenched his jaw, unable to hold back the wave of grief that came over him. He didn’t know how to save her. Willow had said something about an antidote… something… but he couldn’t remember. He was alone, helpless to save her, the woman he loved slipping further into insanity with every moment. Letting go of her with a kiss to her forehead, he turned back to face the Glarghk guhl kashma’nik, who greeted him with a blow across his face that knocked him backward into Buffy.

Scrambling to his feet, Spike let out a stream of curses. Not taking the time to look for his sword, he delivered a fast kick to the demon’s midsection, followed up by a series of punches. The demon grabbed Spike by the collar and threw him into a tree, his skull cracking against the trunk.

“Bloody hell,” Spike swore, raising one hand to the back of his head. His fingers came away wet with blood. “All right, that’s it, you waxy piece of shit.”

He ducked his head and charged full speed, slamming into the demon like a linebacker, driving it back up against another tree. With the demon pinned between him and the tree trunk, Spike let loose, throwing punches with unequaled fury.

Suddenly, mid-swing, he felt a piercing pain in his shoulder. He looked down to see the demon’s stinger deeply embedded in his coat, driven all the way through the leather and into his muscle. “Fuck,” he whispered, stumbling backward as the Glarghk guhl kashma’nik withdrew its stinger, the demon suddenly going hazy before him. He turned to see Buffy, still catatonic on the ground, just before the world went black.

*****

“Hey, kiddo. What’s the matter? Aren’t you gonna give your dad a hug?”

Buffy stared at him, his arms spread out to welcome her. “You’re not real,” she insisted, her eyes darkening with distrust.

“Of course I am, sweetie.” Not waiting for her to make a move, Hank came toward her, wrapping her up in his arms. “There, now, that feel real to you?”

“No,” she whimpered, even as she sank into his embrace, soaking up the fatherly affection and feeling like she did as a child, face buried in her daddy’s chest. “No… no, you’re in Spain, or… or somewhere. You’re not here.”

“Of course I’m here,” Hank chided her gently. “I’ve come…”

*****

“…back to you, my Spike.”

Drusilla gave him a reproving look. “Naughty boy, turning me to ashes. Thinks he can save the Slayer.”

“I did save her,” Spike retorted, fumbling around for something to use as a stake. “An’ I’d do it again in a second, so don’t think you can…”

Then, he was naked, chained spread-eagled to a wall, as he’d been in Drusilla’s cave. “Naughty boy must be punished,” she giggled, trailing one hand down his chest.

“God, not again, Dru,” Spike groaned. “Haven’t you hurt me enough?”

“Not you,” she replied, a knowing look on her face. “Her.” Drusilla stepped to the side, revealing Buffy tied up on the ground. She was lying on her side, her wrists bound behind her back, her legs bent at the knee and tied together at the ankles. She was conscious, whimpering softly, but not attempting to get loose of her bonds.

“Buffy!” he cried, struggling against his own restraints to no avail.

Dru left his side and crouched next to Buffy, running her slender fingers through Buffy’s golden hair. She bent over and licked Buffy’s skin, along her shoulder and up the curve of her throat. “She tastes like sunshine, my Spike. Like death.”

*****

“How’s my sunshine?” Hank asked, pulling back from Buffy and holding her by the shoulders, as though to take a good look at her. “Look at how you’ve grown up. I always knew you’d be a hell of a woman.” He smiled at her. “Just like your mother.”

“Where’s Mom?” Buffy asked hopefully, slipping into acceptance of the hallucination, even though some niggling part of her brain kept telling her it wasn’t real. “Is she here, too?”

“She’s here, yeah. Of course she’s here.”

“Why won’t you help us?” She sounded plaintive, childish, but she couldn’t seem to help herself. “Dawn and I… we need you. It’s been so hard without Mom. Do you –” Her voice broke. “Do you not love us enough?”

“Of course I love you, Buffy. I just have other things to do.” He led her over to the living room sofa and sat down.

“But we need you!” Buffy was close to tears now. “There’s bills and – and Dawn’s not doing well in school, and I can’t… handle the responsibility. We might lose the house, Dad.”

“You’re a big girl now. It’s time you learned to handle that kind of responsibility.” His expression hardened. “Maybe if you weren’t so wrapped up with that vampire, you’d be able to act like an adult.” His voice suddenly had a faint note of disapproval.

“That va – wha – what do you mean?”

“He’s evil, Buffy. You can’t trust him.”

Buffy stared at Hank, confusion wrinkling her brow. “You mean Spike?”

“William the Bloody, Buffy,” he corrected her. “Don’t let him get close to you. He will betray you. He can’t be trusted.”

“You don’t even know him,” Buffy shot back, moving away from him on the sofa. “You have no idea what he’s done for me – for Dawn, all of us. You don’t know, because you’re never here.”

Hank reached out a hand, beckoning her closer. “Come on, baby, I’m your father.”

“You left us!”

“Doesn’t mean I don’t love you.” He put a hand on her knee and gave her a squeeze. “Doesn’t mean I don’t want what’s best for you. I’m just trying to help you, Buffy. Spike is going to betray you.”

*****

Spike watched helplessly as Dru slid one hand over Buffy’s sex, causing her to convulse at the invasive touch. “My Spike wants a taste, yes? Wants to taste the Slayer.” She slipped her hand inside Buffy’s pants, dipping one finger into the moist pool between the Slayer’s thighs.

Withdrawing her hand, she rose and approached Spike, her middle finger slick with Buffy’s arousal. Dru pressed her finger to his lips, and Spike hesitated only a moment before sucking it into his mouth, licking up the sweet juices greedily. “Taste her, my Spike. Take her and devour her, and we shall make merry business on her bleeding corpse.”

He groaned, his cock unwillingly going hard with the taste of Buffy on his tongue and the scent of Drusilla all around him, and all the shame and disgust that he’d felt in the cave came flooding back to him. Even after what she’d done to him, even though a part of him knew none of this was real, he still felt the persistent tug toward Drusilla, the inescapable longing for his sire and his lover.

Then, Dru was naked, too, and he didn’t know if she’d undressed or if it was the magic of the hallucination, but he didn’t have time to think before she was touching him and his thoughts shattered.

She mounted him, still chained as he was, wrapping her legs around his waist. He slid easily inside her, a sensation with which he’d been intimately familiar for the better part of a century. She rocked up and down on his erection, murmuring her usual nonsensical ramblings in his ear. Her hands seemed to be everywhere – in his hair, scraping down his chest, clutching his shoulders. Spike felt himself enjoying it; despite his resolution not to, he found himself arching his back to meet her thrusts.

“Oh, my Spike, you remember,” Dru sighed. She bent backward, stretching her arms out past her head until she was hanging upside down, touching the floor, held to him only by her powerful thighs. He reached out and splayed one hand on her belly, noticing only after he’d done it that his arms were no longer secured. His hand slid up her chest, capturing her breast and pinching her dusky nipple.

“My William,” Drusilla moaned, her hips pistoning against him as Spike’s other hand found her clit. Her legs tightened around him as she climaxed, her heels digging into his back until he toppled over, collapsing in a heap on top of her.

Still sheathed inside her, Spike drove her into the ground, fucking her fiercely and forcefully, Dru laughing madly all the while, until his own bittersweet release came.

“You see?” she whispered, running her hand along his brow as he heaved to a stop, dropping bonelessly beside her. “You see, my pet? You can’t resist your nature.”

“No!” he cried, disentangling himself from her and scrambling to his feet.

Drusilla rose gracefully next to him. “You will betray her,” she insisted.

“No… no, I won’t. I love her.”

She looked at him with sadness and regret. “Love isn’t enough.” She held his face gently in her hands, caressing and comforting him, pulling his head down to rest on her shoulder as her fingers made small circles around his temple. “I’ve seen it, my Spike.”

He pulled away from her violently. “I’d be dust before I’d hurt her.”

“You already have.”

Spike spun around, looking back at where Buffy lay. Her clothes were torn and bloody, and her throat had been ripped open, her blood drained so that her face was as pale as his. Her vacant, sightless eyes stared back at him.

*****

“Buffy, honey, what’s the matter?” Joyce came from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dishtowel. “Buffy, are you all right?”

Buffy whirled around from where she’d been arguing with her father, and took in the sight of her mother. “Mom!” She ran to her, throwing her arms around Joyce’s neck. “Oh, Mom, I’ve missed you so much.”

“I know, sweetie.”

“Mom, you have to explain – Dad doesn’t know Spike. He doesn’t understand, and he thinks –”

“Thinks what, honey?” she asked, running a gentle hand through Buffy’s hair. “That you’re a vampire’s whore?”

Buffy pulled away from her mother, her eyes wide with hurt and disbelief. “Is that – is that what you think of me?” she said, her voice hushed.

“Oh, come now. What am I supposed to think? As if it weren’t enough you screwed the soul out of Angel, now you want to give it up for Spike, too?”

Buffy’s lower lip trembled. Although Joyce’s voice was the same sweet, even tone she always used, the words that were coming out were so unlike her mother. “Mommy…”

“Is this what I raised my baby girl to be?” Joyce asked, her disappointment cutting Buffy to the core.

“Now do you see, Buffy?” her father said, and she spun around to face him. “Do you see why I don’t want you for a daughter?”

Attacked from both sides, by the two people whose love and approval meant the most to her, Buffy backed away, reeling from the emotional blows. She tripped, stumbled, and when she regained her balance, she was in Spike’s crypt.

He stood in front of her, his black button-down hanging open to reveal his smooth porcelain chest. He slid his tongue between his teeth, looking her thoroughly up and down with hungry eyes.

Spike smirked. “Slayer who gets off on being bitten?” He reached out with one hand and brushed the hair off her neck, sending a shiver down her spine. “Don’t try to hide it, pet. I’ve tasted you.” He stepped closer, pressing himself against her as he shifted into game face. As he grazed her throat with his fangs, she was embarrassed by the flood of heat that rushed through her.

“God, you’re just gagging for it, aren’t you?” Spike kept coming closer, backing her up until she hit the wall of the crypt behind her. She felt his cock erect against the apex of her thighs, but her squirming to get away only made him laugh as he pressed harder.

Abruptly, he changed into the Master, sharp fangs grinning out of his deformed face. Buffy screamed and shoved him backward, but she only managed to put a few inches between herself and the vampire.

Then, it was Angel, wearing that same look of betrayal he’d had when she sent him to hell. He reached out to cup her face with his hand. “Buffy,” he said sadly.

Then Dracula, with his dark, seductive eyes, drawing her into his thrall. He ran his hand over the scars on her neck. “I can feel your hunger.”

The body shifted, one to another, faster and faster. The Master, Angel, Dracula. Master Angel Dracula, whizzing past her eyes until they were just a blur.

Master Angel Drac. Masterangeldracmasterangeldrac…

Then, it was Spike, and he lunged at her, holding her in an iron grip with his fingers digging into her shoulders. He was biting her, tearing into her skin, laying open her throat as her blood spilled out, and it wasn’t like before, when she had willingly offered him her blood. There was no pleasure this time, no sense of union or intimacy.

There was only pain and icy cold fear, and the sensation of her life slipping away.