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Spike: Becoming a vampire is a profound and powerful experience. I could feel this new strength coursing through me. Getting killed made me feel alive for the very first time. I was through living by society's rules. Decided to make a few of my own.
                Fool For Love
 

 

    Buffy was asleep when Spike crept into bed beside her. He slid the blanket down over her shoulder and kissed her neck, her shoulder blade, up along her arm, caressing her skin with his lips.

    Buffy woke gently, and then lay there, letting him touch her. “I thought you were sleeping with Drusilla today,” she said. She’d gathered that, though she’d been half asleep at the time.

    Spike paused for a long moment, his head resting on her shoulder. “I’m still peckish,” he said quietly. She heard the lie. He knew she did, too. He sighed, tormented, and Buffy turned to look down at him. “She’s sleeping. I was... cold.”

    Buffy caressed his cheek, without comment.

    He lay with his head on her breast, looking up at her. A submissive position. He closed his eyes, his face tight with tension. “What am I going to do with you?” he whispered to himself. He sighed. His hand reached up and he caressed her cheek in turn. “Are you sure you don’t want to be turned?” he asked temptingly. “It’s a powerful experience. I could make it beautiful. It wouldn’t have to hurt at all. I could just take you down and down and down, gentle as a cloud. Then just before your heart stops, put the blood to your lips. It only tastes strange at first. Then it’s just everything you’ve ever wanted, pet. Everything. It’s ambrosia, you can’t stop.” He let his fingers fondle her bitten throat.  He was so caught up, Buffy let him have his fantasy for a moment. “I’d hold you to my throat, let you drink and drink, feed you as strong as I could, so you’d wake quickly. You could swallow me down as I’ve been swallowing you. Make myself part of you. I could hold you as you die, kiss your life away. Set you to turn in your little bed, all tucked up and safe. No clawing your way out of the earth for you, my pet. Just open your eyes, and the world is yours. No more rules, no more weakness, no more fear. Just blood and peaches and moonlight dances.”

    Buffy actually smiled down at him. He really meant well. The way he’d put it had sounded attractive, though she knew better. He knew better, too. “No,” she said, petting his head. “That isn’t what I want.”

    He propped himself up on his elbow and moved himself up a little, putting himself in a more equal position. “You don’t have to agree, you know,” he said. He didn’t make it sound like the threat it was. “I can just do it, whether you want it or not. Force the blood against your lips. The moment it touches your tongue, you’re helpless against it. It’s instinctive. The blood demands to be taken in, and you take it. You’re just drinking in power, there’s nothing better. Truly. It would make you a goddess.” He touched her face, lightly biting his lower lip in desire. “You’d be mine, forever. I’d be your sire... and you’d be mine.”

    Even though she knew better, he sounded so wistful, she was touched. A little feather of fondness tickled in her chest. “No, I wouldn’t,” Buffy said. “And you know I wouldn’t. You don’t even mean it.”

    “How do you know I don’t?”

    “If you meant it, you wouldn’t be talking about it, you’d just do it. You don’t really want to turn me.”

    “Oh, don’t I? Enlighten me.”

    “You don’t want a demon wearing my skin,” Buffy said. “You want me. You want the heat, and the sweetness of me. You get off on how fragile and vulnerable I am, and how I don’t seem to care. How I act like I’m stronger than you are.” He looked like he was about to say something, but she placed a finger on his lips. “You like my purity, Spike,” she went on. “You like that I’m not evil. That I accept the evil in you, embrace it, but I’m not of it.”

    “Why do you say that?”

    “Because you’re swallowing my goodness along with my human blood, and you relish it. You hunger for it, more than just for blood. That’s why you keep coming back to me after you hunt, even though you’re heated through, and should be sated. You like the feeling of corruption I give to you – the taste of something pure.” She petted his head and gazed down at him. “You love my soul, William. You don’t want to take that away.”

    He looked at her with his eyes narrowed. “You really should have been a poet, bitch,” he said, but there was no anger in it. It was just that she’d already convinced him, and it was clear he didn’t like the truth of it.

    She caressed his head, fondling his ear, his throat, down his shoulder. “Besides, it wouldn’t work. Do you really think Drusilla would accept me?”

    “Why not?”

    “Someone to take your attention away from her, someone who isn’t a midnight snack?” Buffy shook her head. “You already know she’d kill me.”

    “She might take you on,” Spike said. “If we could persuade her you were our child, she would.”

    Buffy shivered. “I can’t imagine anyone wanting to be Drusilla’s child.”

    It wasn’t until after she’d said it that she realized – she was actually speaking to Drusilla’s child. Which meant that all the terrible things she was shuddering over had probably already been done to him. It was testament to her accuracy when Spike only closed his eyes, and let his head sink back down upon her breast, not arguing her opinion. “It’s all I can think of,” he whispered.

    “Does the thought turn you on that much?”

    “No,” Spike said. “It’s the only thing I can think....The only way to keep you.”

    Buffy closed her eyes at the haunted sorrow in his voice. “You can’t keep me, Spike. You already know you can’t.”

    Spike sighed, and pushed his head deeper against her. “I don’t know how... you fire me like you do,” he confessed. “How you fill me. It makes no sense, how you excite me. You’re just a human. You’re just a pet.” He squeezed her close. “I just don’t want to let go.”

    Buffy lifted his head and slid down a little so she could reach his lips. “Nothing lasts forever, my love,” she whispered. She kissed him tenderly, and he kissed her back, over and over, almost chaste.

    “Sarah,” he breathed.

    Buffy shook her head. “I’d prefer you call me ‘pet,’” she said.

    “Why?”

    Buffy thought of the best way to say this. “I don’t like being Sarah MacArthur. I’d rather be your pet.”

    “You are,” he whispered. “My most beloved pet. My little mortal angel.”

    Buffy tilted her head, inviting him to her throat, to the blood he longed for, the small comfort she could bring him. He kissed her, licking at the old wounds seductively, but did not bite. He paused, breathing onto her skin, and then rolled over, pulling her half with him, so that he could look down into her face. He ran his fingers through her hair over and over, his eyes fixed on her. “You’re not hungry?” she asked.

    He was silent for a long moment. “You’re pale,” he said. “I should wait.”

    Buffy felt such sympathy for him. “You can’t keep me, Spike,” she said. “One way or another... this is going to end.”

    He picked her head up by the hair, but it was more gentle than usual. “I choose when I drink,” he hissed at her. Then he let her down, his eyes so soft they were almost in tears. He pulled her close and kissed the top of her head, her forehead, over and over again, cradling her against him. “God damn you, bitch,” he whispered in torment. “Damn you to hell.”

    Buffy held him warmly. “I won’t let go,” she promised. “I got you. I won’t let go.”
    

***

    Buffy slept a long time, at least an hour past sunset. When she woke, Spike had already prepared her a meal, and laid it out. Buffy could hear Drusilla singing to herself in her room, but Spike didn’t seem nervous about it. Buffy climbed out of bed, kissed Spike on the cheek, and retreated to the bathroom to shower the residual blood off. God, she felt tired.

    Buffy came out in Spike’s t-shirt and jeans, and he grabbed her. For a long, long moment, he just held her. She let him. A long, almost perfectly still embrace. Finally he stepped back and sat her down to feed her, the gallant gentleman holding her chair for her. He’d gotten her gyros this time, probably from some street vendor. He joined her at the table and wouldn’t take his eyes off her. She started to feel a bit nervous about it. “What is it?”

    “Nothing,” he said. Then he said, in the same tone, “I want to kill you.”

    Buffy swallowed. “Now?”

    “No. All the time. Every second. I want to hold you to me and take your life away.”

    Buffy’s sudden nervousness faded. “Oh,” she said. “Well, I knew that.”

    He took another breath. “I’m going out. CB’s has a benefit concert.”

    Buffy’s nervousness returned. There could be only one reason for those two thoughts to be in the same conversation. “Can I distract you?”

    “Not safely,” he said.

    “You know I’d rather you didn’t.”

    “And you know I’m going to anyway.”

    Buffy closed her eyes. “You don’t have to.”

    “When I can feel your neck breaking beneath my hands as we speak?” He shook his head. “I can’t even bite you properly. Not right now. I need to feed.” He stood up. “Or at least kill someone.”

    “So it’s feed or kill me?”

    “Yes.”

    Buffy shook her head. “There are other ways.”

    “None I’m gonna sink to.”

    “If you’re asking my opinion, I’d rather you killed me,” she told him.

    Spike regarded her. “I’m not. And I wouldn’t.” He kissed her forehead, like a man heading out to work. “And I get to pick,” he whispered to her. He headed to the door and pulled on his jacket.

    “Don’t.”

    Buffy had stood up, her eyes pleading. He looked at her very seriously for a long moment. “Why not?”

    Buffy hated feeling helpless in that moment. All the millions of reasons why not, and he couldn’t see any of them. “I suppose telling you it’s wrong would mean absolutely nothing.”

    He stared at her, impassive.

    “Because you love me?” she tried.

    He actually smiled, but it was without warmth. “You know, pet... if I thought I could keep you... I’d think about it. You make me feel that... strange. That wonderful. Some part of me would... love to feed from only you. I can’t understand why, but I would. I’d think about the unthinkable. But we both know better, don’t we.”

    Buffy swallowed.

    “Don’t we,” he pressed.

    “Yes.”

    His smile warmed. “We’ve been playing a lovely game this last week,” he said. “A truly beautiful one. And in some ways I thank you for it. But it’s getting real now. In’t it.”

    She looked down.

    “And real will never work, will it. I can’t kill you over and over and over, and bring you back to my arms, only to kill you again, no matter how much I wish it. And there’s not enough blood in you to begin to quench me. But there’s more than that, even. There’s something between us. And I don’t mean how this makes us feel, that fire, whatever it is. There’s some barrier. Like a private home. Even if you’re inviting me in.... And it’s not Drusilla, though I’d love to say that was it. It would be easy if it was. It would make sense if it was. But it’s not her. And it’s not even the killing, not by itself. There’s something... corrosive. It’s already eating me up. Just as certain sure as I’ve been eating you.”

    “I don’t mean to hurt you.”

    “I know that. And I don’t want to hurt you.” He chuckled. “And that’s where we are, pet. I don’t want to hurt you. That’s just...” He trailed off and looked away. “This whole thing is wrong. We both know it is. I can’t keep you either way. So what’s the point?”

    “I...” She didn’t know what to say. She’d been the one imprisoned and bitten and tormented, and in the end, it had messed him up as much as it had her. Why had this happened to them? Fate. Sick sense of humor.

    “So no, love,” Spike went on. “I’m going out. There’s no reason not to. Not even for you.”

    Buffy shook her head. “That’s the barrier,” she said. “It would have to be for you.”

    He laughed. “You’ve a lot more faith in me than I do, pet.”

    Buffy looked up at him, held him with her eyes. “I know I do.”

    He hesitated. “I was right,” he said. He came up and kissed her, very gently. “You are insane.” He stepped away, and out into the hall.
 

 

 
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