Part Seven

She kissed him again, gently and with a warm affection that he could almost taste and Spike fought to clear his heart’s fog from his head. He knew better than to let his emotions overrule his reason when dealing with Buffy, but it was still a challenge not to. He’d always been a passionate man.

He had to deepen the kiss. He could tell that she was trying to keep things soft, but his feelings weren’t a gentle breeze. He was holding a hurricane at bay. His love wanted out as much as his demon ever did. And the demon really wanted out. That they both wanted the same thing wasn’t as rare as one would expect. Buffy had been Spike’s only focus well before he’d been able to admit it, but even before that he’d sought out love almost single-mindedly.

Ignoring the considerable pain that the action drew, he tugged her tightly against his chest and slid his hands down her back. He pulled her easily onto his lap and groaned as her legs curled around his waist. She was warm in his arms and he thought, wistfully, that kissing her was like kissing the sunshine he’d lost. Even his own inner poet cringed and he was glad that he hadn’t said the words out loud. As much as he liked talking, he knew that words were not his best tool for communication. It was particularly true when it came to dealing with Buffy.

He arched his back and pressed his arousal against her. She gasped and he took advantage of the opportunity to pull her bottom lip between his for a quick suck.

Buffy moaned as her head dropped back. They were moving too fast. She knew that she had to stop him. She felt his breath against her throat and realized that she had closed her eyes. She knew that he wouldn’t bite. It wasn’t even a concern. He was hesitating to even kiss her neck. Her hands came up to pull his head closer and rake through his hair encouragingly. This, at least, was familiar. She had always trusted him at her neck more easily than he’d trusted himself. Before she had thought that it was some kind of death wish, now she knew better. She bent her head back in an unmistakable gesture.

It was almost a relief when she finally felt his lips against her. She moaned deeply and continued to hold him there as he kissed and licked at her racing pulse-point. When he trailed down her collarbone, she pulled away slightly. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

Spike dragged his eyes up from the disheveled neckline of her shirt. “I’m fine. Good.” His hands slid under the hem of her shirt to tease the skin at her waist.

“You’re hurt and…”

Frustration brought his words out as an almost whimper. “It’s not too bad.”

“And I’m not ready.” Her voice was quiet but sure.

He fell back against the couch at that and dropped his eyes.

Buffy sighed. “I just—”

“You don’t owe me an explanation, pet.” He looked up and gave her a small smile.

She didn’t know what to say. It wasn’t that she thought she owed him an explanation for not being ready. She knew he hadn’t been trying to push. She just wanted him to know that she felt the pull too. Her knees were still shaking. But telling him seemed hurtful. She knew how the words would affect him. It was almost like teasing to tell him that she wanted him when she wasn’t ready to do anything about it. Besides, she was certain that he already knew. He could read her body in a multitude of ways she generally didn’t want to think about. She reached out to cup his cheek with her hand.

“If we try this again—after you’re healed—if we try this…” She gestured between them. “It needs to be different. Like, in a bed different.”

Spike tried to keep a neutral expression but couldn’t. He smirked and gave her a comically exaggerated look of skepticism.

She giggled. “Ok, maybe not every time. But…sometimes?”

He nodded before leaning forward to give her a quick kiss. Spike was honestly considering the possibility that the situation might kill him. He was trembling still from both desire and pain, but he knew that he would gladly suffer far worse to have her smiling at him the way she was.

“Are we ok?”

Spike watched her bite her lip as she waited for his response. She was clearly concerned about his opinion or feelings or something. It wasn’t something he was used to. Hell, Spike wasn’t really accustomed to anyone concerning themselves much with his thoughts or wellbeing. It was nice. It was more than nice, but it also made him uneasy. He did what he did best. Spike faked the confidence he didn’t feel.

“Better than, love.”

“Are you hungry?” Buffy asked as she stood up.

He shook his head and started to shift into a more comfortable position. When Buffy didn’t rejoin him on the couch he frowned. “Pet?”

She remained standing awkwardly in front of him. She really had to pee. Unfortunately, she still couldn’t actually leave Spike alone. Even more unfortunately, she had just spent several seconds contemplating just how aware Spike was of her body’s functions. She groaned inwardly.

“I-have-to-use-the-bathroom,” she said quickly.

His eyebrows came together. “What’s that?”

She sighed. “I have to use the bathroom…and I can’t leave you down here by yourself.” A blush tinged her cheeks.

Spike’s lips twitched. Embarrassed Buffy was too cute. “So much for takin’ it slow, huh? Joining you in the loo like a couple of old marrieds.”

“Joining? No-no, there will be no joining. You can just…you can just stand outside and—”

He laughed and winced as he stood up. “I don’t know, pet, I’m pretty fast. I could be—”

She cut him off with a glare. “You’ll wait outside the door and make noise so that I know that you’re there.”

He couldn’t help chuckling as he followed her up the stairs.

Buffy stopped outside the bathroom door. “Just…stand here and…and-unh!”

She went quickly into the bathroom and shut the door firmly behind her. She dropped her pants and sat on the toilet. She listened. She could hear Spike walking loudly outside the door. She sighed heavily. She couldn’t do it. Buffy just wasn’t the kind of girl who could pee with a hot guy listening. Oh she knew it was ridiculous, the rational part of her brain understood that Spike had undoubtedly heard her pee before. She knew that he might even be able to hear her from downstairs. It didn’t matter. It wasn’t the same as actually going while he stood outside the door and listened. She stood up and turned the sink faucet on full blast. Better. Only now she couldn’t hear him.

“Spike?”

She heard him laugh and then call back. “Still here.”

“I need you to sing or something. Loud.”

“Not gonna sing.” His tone was firm.

“Ok, well hum then.”

She heard his noise of irritation and then the sound of him humming a vaguely familiar punk song. She quickly relieved her bladder.

She was washing her hands when the song changed. Instead of the Ramones, and yes she was now fairly certain the previous song had been a Ramones number, she now heard a much softer tune. At first she only noted the abrupt switch from the peppy punk riffs to the melancholy folk melody and wondered what had caused Spike to have such an odd mood change. Then she recognized it. She froze. It was the trigger. Spike, or The First haunting Spike, was humming the trigger song. Shit! She had only a second to wonder at her own stupidity before she walked into the hall. She couldn’t believe she had left him alone.

“Spike?”

He looked up at her, the picture of innocence. “Yeah?”

She was sure. She knew him too well to be fooled. The energy around him was totally different. He wasn’t even standing the same way. The man in front of her showed no sign of his injuries. “This isn’t you?” She took a cautious step towards him with her hands up in front of her.

“No?” He made a show of looking skeptical. “Who am I, then?”

“I heard the song. You’ve been— ”

He lunged at her.

She knocked him away instinctually. “You don’t want to do this. Spike!”

“Don’t I? Isn’t this what I do?” He came at her again.

She faked to his right and slid easily by his left side before sweeping his legs out from under him and knocking him to the ground.

He was up in an instant. “Come on, pet. Give me another shot at that pretty little neck of yours.” His eyes narrowed and his cocky smirk shouted predator.

Buffy spun and kicked him again. More than anything, she was pissed to be causing more damage to his ribs. She really hated The First.

His hand curled around her knee and pulled. She lost her balance momentarily and fell to the floor. Spike dropped down on top of her with a focused leer.

Buffy Summers was The Slayer. Years ago the instincts of the girl and the Slayer weren’t always in agreement. But that had changed with time, so it was especially unnerving for her to experience it again. The Slayer was a no-nonsense type. Her plan was to knock Spike out and carry him downstairs where she could chain him up and wait for him to awaken. Hopefully when he did he would be his normal and generally less homicidal self.

But Buffy was also a woman falling in love with the man on top of her, and though she knew he would recover from another kick to the head, she really wanted to heal that man. It was a long shot, but she felt like she had a chance.
“Spike, Look at me. You don’t want to hurt me.” He had stopped himself before in the basement. Buffy was sure that he could do it again. Of course, that didn’t stop her from forming a fist when she felt his fangs graze her throat. “You can’t do this. You won’t.” She pulled back her hand before giving it one last try. “You love me, Spike. You love me.”

He responded almost instantly. It was as though he was a balloon that had been popped. He collapsed, boneless, on top of her. The threat of hurting the woman he loved was simply a more powerful influence on him than the trigger.

Her fist fell limply to the floor. She was tempted to hug him at that moment, but she couldn’t be sure that it wasn’t a trick. She gave him a hard shove and scrambled out from underneath him. “Spike?”

He propped himself up slowly. “You have to chain me up, Buffy. That was too close. I can’t…”

“No. We are going to get to the bottom of this trigger thing. It’s definitely the song, the old Britishy one. I’ve been thinking, if we can figure out how that works—like why that song is the trigger—then I think we can un-trigger you.”

He looked at her incredulously.

“I’m serious, Spike. It’s definitely that song. We just have to figure out why it works.”

He knew the song she was talking about. Somehow her breaking into his First-controlled actions eliminated the memory loss that had previously accompanied his episodes. It had been the same in the basement. Spike knew why the song was important, but he didn’t know how to tell her. And he was less than sure that it would do any good. Still, when he looked at her, he saw trust in her eyes. He didn’t think he deserved it, but he wanted it. For that trust, for her, he knew that he’d do anything, give anything. He’d even tell her his worst truth. For her trust, Spike would tell her exactly why he could never deserve her love.

“You won’t like it.”