Spike:  The last Slayer I killed... she begged for her life. You don't strike me as the begging kind.
            School Hard

 

    Buffy stared in dazed shock at what Spike had done. He bent and scooped Buffy up, and carried her out of the bedroom, kicking the door shut with his foot. “What did you do?” Buffy asked, her voice weak.

    Spike ignored her and shouldered open the door to the bathroom.

    “Spike, what did you just do?”

    “Nothing,” he said.

    “She’s... are you two...? I can’t come between you...” She felt delirious. She’d been about to say why, and made herself stop talking.

    “You didn’t, she’s just being Dru,” Spike said, though his face was hard. He set her down and tore the blooded dress off her, leaving it in a pile on the floor. “God, these cuts,” he said. He lifted her chin and gazed into her face, one finger on her pulse, examining her.

    “Nikki...”

    Spike blinked. “What?”

    “You kill her?”

    Spike looked impassive. “Let’s get you cleaned up, pet.” He turned on the water in the shower.

    “Did you...?”

    “Not... yet,” Spike said. He said it very softly.

    Buffy started to shiver. She was finding it hard to catch her breath. He’d set his pet free, he’d turned on Dru, he hadn’t killed the slayer.... What part of this was the evil Spike? “What have I done to you?” she whispered. Her vision went grey with the thought, and Spike caught her as she fell, wet leather from his motorcycle jacket chafing her skin.

    “You’ve lost too much blood,” he told her.

    That thought hadn’t occurred to her in a while... she’d forgotten. “Twenty percent,” Buffy murmured, trying to remember everything she’d learned about blood loss. Approximately twenty percent was how much blood you could lose quickly before organs started to fail. She knew a lot about that kind of trauma, but her head was muddled. That was a symptom, wasn’t it? She was sweating. Was that another one? Spike put her in the shower, and she found she couldn’t stand. Her feet were numb. He let her curl up on the floor of the shower and cupped warm water over her bloody skin, cleaning the remains of the doll off her. He kept trying to pour warm water into her mouth, but she was finding it hard to swallow...

    Buffy felt half asleep, and her ears were ringing. The cuts hurt, stinging, though the warm water soothed her a bit. Spike held pressure on the worst of the wounds. “It hurts,” Buffy said. She felt addled, almost childlike in her confusion. “Can you make it stop?”

    “It would make you bleed more,” Spike said.

    Buffy found herself sobbing. She couldn’t help it. She felt like an idiot. She was the slayer. She had strength and ingenuity and cunning. She had power and agility and supernatural instincts. She was the defender of humanity, the destroyer of monsters, the master of her own self, and the leader of those around her.

    And she was weak and tired and overwhelmed and dizzy, sliced up and bitten and blooded and in pain, and all she could do was cry. Spike ignored his clothes, already wet from the rain outside, and got into the shower with her. Buffy touched his chest, which shone through the spiked black leather like a white brand. “She ripped your coat.”

    “I can get another one,” he said.

    “Oh, god,” Buffy whispered. Fate twisting in on itself. Her sobs redoubled.

    He pulled her close, letting her sob against his chest. “I’ve got you, love. I’m here, I’ve got you.”

    “Spike,” she whispered. “I need to get out of here. I’m not gonna make it much longer.”

    “I tried, you stupid bint, you wouldn’t go,” Spike said into her hair. He sounded close to tears.

    “Please,” Buffy said. She sank against him. “I can’t take much more. Please.”

    “Bloody hell,” Spike said. He checked her wounds and then lifted her from the shower. He set a towel on the floor and let her curl up against the wall as he dried her with another one. He yanked out the drawer with the bandages in it, so roughly that it fell. Cursing, he bent down to collect what he needed to treat her.

    The full length mirror on the door of the bathroom was spotted and stained with fingerprints. The vampires had ignored it, it having come with the apartment. She looked over his back. Spike should have been blocking her view of herself, but as a vampire, his reflection was invisible – even his clothes were missing, his demonic aura shielding them, just as they’d turn to dust along with him if he were staked. So Buffy had nothing to impede her vision of the body she was currently trapped in.

    Though the blood and viscera of Dru’s doll had been washed away, the girl in the mirror looked like a corpse already. Her eyes were hollow and haunted, shadowed in a deathly pale face. Her lips and her fingernails were blue with blood loss. Sarah’s lovely brown hair was wet and lank, trailing in rats tails down around her pale shoulders. Her neck was dark amid the sallow flesh, a mass of scabs and bruises. Her arms were thin as reeds, and she was bruised all over, from sparring, from straining, from Spike’s strong hands. There were marks on her hands from the binds, slices on her wrists and chest from Dru’s cuts. Her whole body was studded with bite marks she hadn’t felt in days, on her arms, her breasts, trailing on her inner thighs. Spike had taken the pain away so often, and she’d been so tired, she’d forgotten to look. Sarah was not seductive, now. Not even a lost little girl. She looked like a victim. A completely tortured victim.

    In all her life, no matter what had happened to her, no matter how she’d been bound or beaten or attacked, Buffy had never really felt like a victim before.

    Spike finally got the bandages together and went for the fresh cuts on Buffy’s wrists and ankles. His hands shook as he tried to wrap her wrist. “It’s all right, love,” he said. “We’ll patch you up. It’s all right.”

    “Look at me, Spike,” she whispered, staring past and through him to her image in the mirror. “Look at me properly.”

    Spike sat back and stared at her. “It’ll be all right. You look beautiful.”

    Buffy actually smiled, her bloodless lips cracking in a near laugh. “Liar.”

    Spike swallowed, and then shook his head, sagging in defeat. “I haven’t seen you for days, now,” he said. “You just... turned into you, it didn’t matter what you looked like.”

    “Spike....” Her head sank, woozy with blood loss.

    “God. I should... a hospital could....”

    “Don’t... don’t take me there,” Buffy said. “I don’t wanna die there.”

    “You’re not going to die!”

    She looked up at him. “You’ve changed your tune,” she said quietly. She started to laugh, and the world went grey with it.

    She was only dimly aware of him finishing the bandages on her new cuts, but she woke when he scooped her up. He’d taken off his own torn and sodden clothes, leaving them in a puddle on the floor, and he carried her to the bed.

    Drusilla’s muffled screams had faded, and with the door firmly closed, Buffy could almost forget the horror in the other room. Spike pulled her against him and kissed her damp hair, caressing her bruised arms, holding her so close. She was so tired. So very, very tired.

    She gave up.

    “Just kill me,” she whispered.

    “What?”

    “Just let it end. I can’t take anymore,” she said.

    “Oh, pet.”

    “Please. I’m done. You gave me a choice... at the beginning,” she said, and as she said it, she realized he had. In his own twisted way, even soulless, he’d asked for her consent. And she was probably the first one who’d actually given it freely. “I’m making it. Please. Kill me now.”

    “I can’t,” he whispered.

    “We both know that’s a lie.”

    Spike drew in a breath and held her tightly, bruising her again. She didn’t protest. Perhaps he meant to kill her like that, break her to pieces. She didn’t care anymore. There wasn’t enough blood or mind or will in her to care anymore. “Bloody hell,” he murmured into her throat. Then the rage cut through him. “God dammit!” He lifted his hand off her, his fist clenched, and she knew he’d just prevented himself from breaking her arm in frustration.

    “It’s okay, Spike,” she said. “I want it. Just take it away.” She sighed and snuggled against him. “Please. Just take it all away.”

    There was no bite in her system, no demonic drug addling her senses. She wasn’t enraged, there was no punishment or denial in her request. She just wanted to be close to him, wanted him to take this life away from her. He made a sound that was almost a sob, longing and torment and the pain of bitter irony. It was what he always wanted, the completely willing victim, to be seen as the angel with the coming gift of death... and he didn’t want it at all.

    There was a long, long moment when all he did was hold her. Then he took a deep breath. She half expected him to bend for her throat again, make one final bite, take her away. His soul would never know what he had done to her. Never know that he himself had taken her away from him. That would be for the best. Still, she’d get to die beside him – or part of him. A part, she realized now, she could love, after all.

    Maybe she always had.

    You stupid cow. Quit feeling sorry for yourself. It was her own mind, using Spike’s voice. You never did before, slayer. I’m not gonna let you start, now.

    “How much did you need?”

    It took her a moment to realize that the last voice had been real.

    “What?”

    “The blood. How much.”

    Buffy swallowed, afraid to hope. “Enough to make a circle around me.”

    He paused. “And you still can’t tell me why.”

    Buffy found herself crying again.

    “It’s all right, love. It’s a small thing to ask for, really.”

    “I thought you said you’d never give it away. Not for what you couldn’t understand,” she said. “You said blood was life.”

    “Like I said. Small thing to ask... for what you’ve given me.”

    “All I’ve given you is me.”

    “And pain. And heartache. And some serious work taming Dru down.”

    “But it was only ever just me,” she said. “You take people all the time.”

    “I take them,” he said. “They aren’t given to me freely.” He kissed her. “Just give me till the dawn.”

    “I’m all yours,” Buffy said. “You already know that.”

    “Not if I force you into it,” he said. “You taught me that.”

    Buffy looked up at him. “Till dawn is yours,” she said. “Then please. Help me, or kill me. I almost don’t care which you choose.” She looked down. “Though you might.”

    “I love you,” he whispered.

    Buffy smiled. “Well,” she said. “I care about that.” She lifted her head and kissed him. “I love you,” she said in return. “Maybe one day, you’ll even understand how much.”

    “I think I understand now,” he said.

    She chuckled, tired, weak, happy even in the hope that he’d given her. “You can’t even begin to, my love,” she said into his mouth. “Not yet.” She kissed him, and then groaned. “Oh. I wish I could wrestle you across this room, hold you down, and make you scream for me. I wish I could hit you hard enough your blood would sing with it. I wish I could make you happy. And I can barely move.” She started to cry again. “I’m sorry.”

    Spike kissed her tears. “Don’t, love,” he breathed. “Just let me enjoy you.” He leaned up on his elbow and began to run his hand down her damp skin, dancing gently over the places where there were wounds or bruises. It was so very gentle, so very sensuous, and Buffy sank under it. She tilted her head back, sighing with pleasure, still humming with residual pain. He very lightly touched her throat, just one finger, tenderly caressing her.

    The dawn came slowly. It wasn’t far away – an hour or two – but it felt like ages. Buffy slept... or passed out. She faded in and out of the greyness, opening her eyes to Spike’s clear blue ones, sinking back under again, over and over. He never bit her once. He did not try to make love to her. True to form, Spike felt holding her, gazing into her being, watching her sleep was more intimate, more important for these last hours. God, Buffy realized, what a soul must have done for him. To take this purely physical and mental closeness that he ached for even by itself, and make it spiritual....

    Though of course, this night was filled with pain.

    She did not feel better when she opened her eyes to find the windows had lightened. Spike was warm beside her, but Buffy could feel that her heart rate was too high. She very much feared she was dying. “Spike... I don’t have much time.”

    Spike touched her face. “I know it,” he said. “Not unless.... Are you sure you don’t want me to take you to a hospital?”

    “Sun’s up. You can’t.”

    “I could call them in.”

    “Here?” Buffy laughed. “Bring the cops in to look at the corpses in the corridor, the blood on the floor, the vampiress chained to the bed? You want to explain how I look to the EMTs?”

    Spike gazed at her. “There is another option. You’re nearly there already.” He swallowed. “You’d only have to take it in.”

    Buffy looked up at him. “And if there was still anything left of me inside that demon... I’d walk into the sun the moment I opened my eyes.”

    Spike sighed. “You and Dru.”

    “What?”

    Spike shrugged. “She has visions. She was pure. She could have been a saint. And Angelus... he pretty much told me if he hadn’t driven her mad, she’d never have survived as a vampire. She’d have killed herself before she took her first victim. There are those who do. Only a few, but it’s happened. Drusilla... she was too good. ”

    “And you weren’t?” Buffy asked.

    Spike shook his head. “No. I’ve always been bad.” He touched her face. “I always will be.”

    “So why isn’t Nikki dead?”

    Spike looked away.

    “Spike?”

    “She nearly got me,” he said quietly. “She’s good. She’s better than the last slayer I fought.”

    “And?”

    He stared at the ceiling, and then rolled his eyes. “Dru can take care of herself. For the most part. She might live like an animal at times, but she’d survive without me.”

    “So?”

    He hesitated. “If I had died last night... if I’d lost to the slayer... then you would have been left....” He stopped. “Are you sure you don’t want me to call an ambulance? We’d be fine, I’ve escape routes, we can bolt. You–”

    “You wanted me to live,” Buffy said.

    “And if that isn’t the stupidest damned thing I’ve ever heard,” Spike said with contempt. “I want someone to live. Sad bloody sucker, aren’t I.”

    “No,” Buffy said, and she kissed his cheek. “You’re a rebel.”
 

***

    When he finally cut his wrist, and let the blood pour into a wavery circle on the floor, the whole ceremony was just awkward. There were no words, no incantations, no magical mumbo-jumbo to mojo up the spell. Buffy kissed his cheek, stepped into the circle, and stared at him, waiting to go home.

    A minute later she had to sit down, still suffering from the blood loss. She felt like an idiot.

    Nothing was happening at all.