ANGELUS: Just don't get it now, do you? Well, you're new... and a little dim. So let me explain to you how things are now. There's no belonging or deserving anymore. You can take what you want, have what you want... but nothing is yours. Not even her.
        Destiny
 

    Spike pretty much ignored Buffy after that, descending into his bottle of whiskey, so she checked the sink. The tap worked, but the water tasted rusty. She drank it anyway, knowing she'd need plenty of fluids if she was going to be playing Spike's snack bar. The fridge had only a box of flowers in it, though it was cold. She decided to make herself useful – more likely to be treated well that way – so she cleaned the dishes that were piled by the sink . It was mostly drinks glasses, some of them tainted with blood. She washed and dried them and then opened a cupboard to put them away.

    A squeaking cage of rats startled her, and she jumped back. Rats didn't bother her inherently, but she wasn't expecting them to be there. Spike laughed at her startled gasp. "Dru's breakfast," he said. "She likes them with her evening paper."

    Buffy opened a different cupboard and put the glasses away in there.

    "Squeamish?" Spike asked.

    "Nah. What's a little hantavirus between friends?"

    "You'll only get that in Korea," Spike said.

    Buffy realized she didn't know the progression of the disease in the 1970's. He was probably right. She turned and looked at him. "So what's with the minions?" she asked.

    Spike raised an eyebrow.

    "You don't always keep minions," Buffy said. "They can be trouble."

    Spike stared at her. "How the hell do you think you know me?"

    "I just do. So what's with the minions?"

    “Why the hell are you asking?”

    “I’m curious.”

    Spike blinked at her. He was curious, too. Eventually he shrugged. "There's a slayer I'm stalking." He stopped and looked at her. "You know what a slayer is?"

    "I know what a slayer is," Buffy said evenly.

    Spike smiled. "I know she's here in New York. She knows I'm here looking for her. One of us will make a mistake one day, start moving chess pieces around. When that happens, I want extra pieces between her and Drusilla."

    Buffy was surprised. So even soulless, Spike could think ahead when something was important to him. Like Drusilla. Come to think of it, he’d kept minions when he was hunting Buffy, too. "The minions are here as Dru's bodyguards?"

    "Mostly for the lair," Spike said. "On the whole, Dru can take care of herself, well enough to run away at least. The boys are really just decoys and distractions. I don't have real hopes for any of them. I send them on errands, always keep a few here. Slayer fodder, to give us time to get ready. I got daytime escape routes, too. And no, you don't get to know where any of them are."

    "I don't care," Buffy said. "How do you control them?"

    "Some come out of the woodwork when there’s a big enough bad around. The clever ones, ‘cause they know I’d dust ‘em if they didn’t come to me, or clear out. Otherwise, you pick dumb punks to turn," he told her, as if it was obvious, "and tell them you're the boss before they're done dying. Works wonders for a few months. If they get independent after that, you stake them and make more." He took another swallow of his drink. "Your turn. What's with the attitude?"

    "What do you mean?"

    "I mean, you know I'm gonna kill you. Why aren't you hiding in the corner like the good mouse you should be?"

    "You don't respect mice," Buffy said. "You like cats. Hunters. If I'm going to be your pet, I'm not going in a cage next to Dru's rats." She threw the card he'd inadvertently given her down on the table. "Mice get poison. Pussy gets petted."

    She let the surprise glimmer on his face for a beat before turning away with a coquettish little tilt to her hip, pretending she was only putting away more glasses. She knew what that kind of sly flirtation would have done to her Spike. She had to hope it would have the same effect.

    She actually stunned him dumb for a long moment. Finally she heard movement. "Did you want to see about that?" he purred.

    Buffy just slightly glanced over her shoulder and saw him standing very close behind her. "Well, we have to start somewhere," she said.

    Spike's hand reached out, and he did pet her, caressing down her arm with his cool hand, his breathing very audible. She was reminded, fleetingly, of their earliest affair, back before he had a soul, and how he'd seduced her on the balcony at The Bronze into a public act she would never before have considered. The caress was still seductive. It was not hard to ignore that he was currently soulless, murderous, bloodthirsty, and evil. He was Spike, and he'd always charged her, one way or another.

    Even, apparently, while she was in a completely foreign body. Buffy arched her head back and let herself lean against him, her heart pounding in her ears. She knew he could hear it, and she feared his lust for her blood. These first days were the most dangerous for her, she knew. When he did not yet care for her, any more than a random victim on the street. He knew her name, knew the taste of her blood, knew her courage, and had listened to her flirtation. She knew she'd need more to hold him, even with his tender heart. His devotion toward Drusilla couldn’t be ignored, either.

    Buffy could feel him hard behind her, his erection against her hip, and she knew she'd passed another hurdle. Spike's other hand slid down her other arm, and she felt his breath on her shoulder, then his lips, then his teeth... she expected him to bite down, but he didn't. He erotically caressed her skin with his teeth, and she felt her body tensing in response....

    Only to have the moment shattered as Drusilla and her blood doll crashed through the door with a stick of cotton candy stuck in Dru's hair.

    Spike released her unhurriedly, and turned to look at Dru. “I see you found your candyfloss.”

    His voice was hard again.

    “It was a delicious outing,” Dru said. “I found the vendor’s daughter asleep.” She went up to Spike and kissed him. “You taste how sweet she was? So much sugar.”

    Buffy realized Dru had known who she was hunting before she left. Oh, god. A child had died tonight. Logic and timelines aside, the knowledge hit her hard. She winced.

    Spike glanced at Dru’s doll, who had a streak of blood down his chest which didn’t seem to have come from his own throat. “I wouldn’t have thought there’d be enough in her for two,” Spike said, as Dru released him. “Though I suppose the blood was just decorative, in his case.” He reached up and pulled the cotton candy stick from her hair. “You’re all sticky, love,” he said softly. “Candy isn’t very good for you.”

    “But it tastes so sweet,” Dru protested gently. She kissed him again, and Spike reached up and caressed her hair.

    His fingers got tangled in her sugar sticky snarls, and he pulled away. “You need a shower, darling. Come.”

    “But I love to taste sweet.”

    “And you do, pet,” Spike said gently. “Always.” He kissed her briefly and pulled Dru with him into the bathroom. He paused at the bathroom door and glared at Dru’s blood doll. “Get yourself cleaned up,” he snarled. “I don’t want to have to do this again.”

    “Yessir,” the doll said.

    “And the new girl’s mine,” he added as the door closed.

    Buffy was extremely glad that Spike had made that clear. Dru’s blood doll disturbed her. She knew why she was there; she couldn’t fathom why he was. Buffy looked him over. He was worn, pale, his throat covered in punctures and bruises. There were bruises on the rest of his body as well, some of them with bite marks, some with scratches, some just ripening purple in painful looking blossoms. And he was just fine with watching, and possibly even participating, in the murder of a child. He stared at her for a long moment before he indicated he wanted the sink.

    Buffy stepped away and let him step to the counter. “So who are you, then?” Buffy asked.

    “I had a name, once,” he said. “It doesn’t matter, now.”

    “I don’t believe that,” Buffy said. “We’re human beings, or we’re supposed to be. We can’t forget it.”

    The doll looked at her with his eyes distant, and his voice dark. “Not for long,” he said. “My angel will set me free of this mortal flesh. Soon. Every day she purges me of more of my human taint. I’ll be immortal, before much longer. A god. And then I can have all that I want.” He reached into a drawer and pulled out a dishcloth. “All that I’ve ever wanted.” He dampened the cloth and set about washing his face and neck, cleaning himself of sugar and blood.

    And what he wanted, Buffy knew, was children. Just like Dru. That was probably how she’d found him. She was disgusted. “How long have you been here?” she asked.

    “Three days of blissful hell,” he said, as if speaking to himself. Then he smiled, remembering something, and seemed about to fall over. Buffy was not going to catch him if he did. He shook the memory – or the flashback – off, and turned to Buffy. “Are you hoping for their immortal kiss as well?”

    “No,” Buffy said. “I’m here to die. Just like you are.”

    The doll gave her a condescending look. “You know nothing,” he said. “I belong to her. Completely. She sinks her teeth in, and I know I am destined to be by her side, forever.” Well, he was a die-cast blood junkie, Buffy realized. That was probably the other half of his problem. “I will be her new consort. He doesn’t even like you.”

    Buffy rolled her eyes. She knew that this man was never likely to become anything more than Dru’s toy. Drusilla needed someone to care for her, as Spike was right now, and this creature – she was loath to call him a person – cared for nothing. But his comment about Spike bothered her. “What makes you say that?”

    “You’re not bleeding.” He indicated the clean white bandage on her neck. “When they love you, you bleed for hours. And it doesn’t hurt at all.”

    Buffy wasn’t going to tell this madman that Spike had been hurt, and needed to hurt another. She wasn’t going to say he’d only been testing her willingness. Or that she really didn’t want to be bleeding, pain aside. “It’s early yet,” she said instead.

    He smiled at her, and she was more disturbed by his human wickedness than she was by Spike’s demon-charged bloodlust. “We’ll have lots of fun together, I’m sure,” he said. “My angel says you’re here as a companion for me.”

    “You touch me, and Dru won’t be the only one slowly killing you.”

    “I doubt he’d care,” the doll muttered.

    “Who said I was talking about him?” Buffy said coldly.

    The doll looked her over again. “You won’t last long,” he said simply. “So I’ll say goodbye now.”

    “Let me,” Buffy said. “Goodbye now.” She turned away and went to the sofa, feeling ill.

    He finished cleaning his upper body, and Buffy hoped to god he was going to stop there, because she didn’t want to see any more of it.

    A little while later, Spike led Drusilla out of the bathroom. She was swathed in a gorgeous black satin robe with feather accents, and her wet hair was making the feathers stick together. “Sit down, love,” Spike said softly. He perched her on a chair and set about brushing the tangles from her thick dark hair. “You should let me do this more often,” he chided her gently. “You know you hate it when it pulls.”

    “I’m afraid all my hair will fall out, and leave me bald as a stone,” Dru said languidly.

    “Never gonna happen,” Spike said, kissing her temple. The words were fond, but Buffy had the feeling this was a conversation that happened a lot between them.

    “Come here, my dolly,” Dru said then, and the man at the sink quickly fell to his knees by Dru’s side. She set about petting him, as if he were a cat, and he set his head on her lap to complete the illusion. “Well, where are my spiders?” she asked.

    Her blood doll let his hand walk up her bare leg, and Buffy swallowed in revulsion as he reached up under Dru’s robe. Dru hummed and shifted beneath Spike’s careful brushing. Spike rolled his eyes, but all he said was, “Keep your head still, love.” He sounded resigned. “I need to finish.”

    Buffy actually turned her head away as the blood doll opened Dru’s robe and began using his mouth on her. Buffy made herself look up at Spike, who was carefully not looking down at what the willing human victim was doing to the love of his life, right in front of him.

    He looked so pained, her heart ached.

    Finally Spike declared he was done, and Dru slapped her legs together so quickly they were audible. Dru’s blood doll was knocked onto his back, and Buffy was relieved that the obscene moment was over. She was an adult – she knew if this was the act of fully consenting humans, it would just have been a thing; a bit kinky, but nothing appalling. But she knew that Dru was insane, the doll was perverted, and Spike was basically being emotionally tortured as he waited on her like a servant. It was painful to see.

    Some part of Buffy wanted to slap Drusilla. Can’t you see what you’re doing to him? But the truth was, she was pretty sure Drusilla could, and that that was why she was doing it in the first place. Evil bitch. The question was, why was Spike putting up with it?

    Spike – her own Spike – was fiercely loyal and inherently monogamous. Remnants of his Victorian upbringing, and the depth of his devotion. There was also something mixed up with Drusilla and Angel, but Buffy had never gotten much detail there. He was known to get fiercely jealous, sometimes even when there was no real need. Usually it took the form of passive-aggressive jokes and veiled threats in her own time, but now he had no reason – soul, chip, or even common courtesy – to hold back on the violence. Buffy was known to get jealous herself – shades of Riley’s lies and abandonment issues she knew she still had – so she understood his position. But that was her own Spike’s position. The whole situation felt very strange to her. She wondered if it felt as strange to Spike, even though he seemed to be resigned to it.

    Drusilla stood up and caressed Spike’s head. “Thank you, darling Spike,” she said. She kissed him, slow and sensual, her hands sliding up his torso, and Spike began to breathe hard. He really did not hold back on the sexy with Drusilla. He let her completely take him over at every single touch. But something seemed off about it to Buffy, who knew his every expression, particularly the erotic ones. Yes, he was turned on, but it was almost as if... he wasn’t... really there. He just vanished into the sensation, his self completely subsumed. She’d been a little afraid that the deep and meaningful hundred year relationship Spike had had with Drusilla would be hard for her to watch. It was, but not for the reasons she’d thought it would be. It made Buffy feel more disturbed than jealous.

     Dru reached down and picked up her doll by the hair, and he shuffled to her side on his knees. “Are you ready to come to bed with me, love?” Drusilla asked Spike.

    Spike looked down at the blood doll clenched in her hand. “And your dolls?” Spike asked. “All of them?”

    “You know they like to watch.”

    Spike closed his eyes. “If you’d brought home someone to eat, I’d share it with you,” Spike said. “But I’m not really interested in your leftovers.” His glare flickered onto Dru’s mad willing victim. “Or in being them.”

    “You’re my silly darling Spike,” Dru said in her rich cockney. She let go her doll and caressed Spike’s head, watching him melt under her hands. She gripped the skin on his neck, gouging shallow wounds under his hair line. He hissed, and opened his eyes in excitement. She leaned forward as if to kiss him, and his mouth opened for her. “I’m still peckish,” she said coldly. Then she walked away from him, leaving him wounded... in more than one way. She collected her blood doll and swung him joyously into her bedroom, the door closing with a final click.