BUFFY: Bell. Neck. Look into it.
SPIKE: Come with a nice leather collar, does it?
            All The Way
 

    Buffy woke to full sunlight, alone in the bed. She hadn’t expected that. She was tired, and weak – most likely from blood loss – but she felt content, too. The blankets were tucked securely around her, and she felt languid and satisfied in the warm sun.

    She was alone in the bed, but everything felt perfect. The room, bright through her closed eyes, peaceful and separate from the madness of her last week; her body, still aching deliciously from the night before, stretched out on the soft bed; the scent of demonic incense heavy in the air; no fear of what was about to happen next from long dead slayers or unpredictable soulless vampires or...

    Buffy opened her eyes in the bright sun. Demonic incense, slightly sweet. That was the smell of a burning vampire.

    She sat up in a panic, terrified that her experience had just pushed Spike over the edge, and in a fit of guilt he’d opened the curtains to his death. “Spike!”

    “Here, love,” Spike said quietly.

    Buffy looked about the bright room, flooded in sunlight. Spike had gone over the edge a bit, it seemed, but not as direly as the scent and the sunlight seemed to have indicated. He sat cross-legged in the center of the room on the carpet, in a shadow, just out of the reach of the sun. He wore only his jeans. His coat lay beside him, folded neatly. Gentle wisps of smoke graced the air above his head, and as Buffy watched, he moved his hand just barely into the light, his fingertips smoldering. He traced delicate patterns with the smoke and watched as they drifted into the air, before pulling his fingers back again.

    “Spike...?” Buffy said carefully. “Everything okay?”

    “Yeah,” Spike said, sounding kind of distant. “Everything’s great.”

    “You’re scaring me,” she said, without further preamble. “Why are you doing that?”

    “I’m enjoying the view,” Spike said.

    Buffy finally did look out the window at the glittering sea of glass and steel that was New York. Their hotel had a pretty good view during the day. He moved his hand and picked up a cigarette from a cup by his side, adding its distinctive puff of tobacco to the smoke already drifting through the air. He must have disabled the smoke alarm. “You okay, love?” he asked. He hadn’t really looked at her.

    “I felt great until I saw you doing that,” she said. “Will you let me close the curtains?”

    “Let me enjoy the sunshine, slayer,” Spike said, with a strange and distant smile on his face. “I don’t spend much time in any room with a view.”

    Buffy climbed out of bed. She felt shaky, a little weak, but she’d felt that way before. This wasn’t the first time she’d lost a lot of blood. She still wanted to be close to Spike, and she wasn’t sure if she was still under the effect of his bite, or if she was just really, really glad to be back. She dropped her ripped clothes and came up to him. Spike had ordered her a meal. Feeding her again. It sat on the table by the door, a big bottle of fruit juice quite prominent. She ignored it and went to him instead, sliding onto his lap. He blinked at her with a strange little smile on his face, and slid his hands around her hips as she straddled him. “Good morning, slayer,” he whispered.

    “Is it morning?” The sun didn’t look right.

    “Mid afternoon, actually,” Spike said. He sounded odd. Truthfully, he sounded drunk, but happily so.

    “I wish you’d let me draw the curtains,” Buffy said. “You’re kind of creeping me out.”

    His smiled broadened. “How so?”

    “You sound weird,” she said. “And you’re behaving somewhat suicidally.”

    “Just a little impulsive,” he whispered. He leaned forward and breathed in her scent before leaning back to smile at her again.

    Buffy glanced up at the smoke above their heads. “Is that what you call the smoke-off?” She picked up one of his hands and examined the blisters on his fingertips. They were deep, and there were some on his palms and the backs of his hands as well. “You’re hurting yourself.”

    “Don’t even feel it,” he said, gazing at her fondly.

    “What’s going on?”

    Spike chuckled. “How are you feeling, now I’ve taken you down?” he asked, his voice a barely audible whisper.

    “Sleepy, a little shaky, and a bit scared, but that’s only since I smelled the smoke. I thought... you were so horrified last night by everything, I thought you might have....”

    “Indulged in a morning’s immolation?” He shook his head. “No. I’m just enjoying the sunshine.”

    Buffy caressed his face. “It always worries me how vulnerable you are.”

    “Vulnerable?”

    “Yeah.”

    He looked amused. “Vulnerable?”

    “Shut up, I’m a slayer,” Buffy said. “Of course I see you as vulnerable.”

    “You see me as vulnerable.”

    “Mere sunshine could take you from me,” Buffy said. “A fire that would only give me a burn can turn you into ash in seconds. A stray wooden stake and you’re dust.” She ran her finger along his cheek. “All I’d have to do is find a discarded chopstick.”

    Spike chuckled and bent his head to her throat, nuzzling at the scab he’d left the night before. “Mm... your scent,” he breathed. He kissed her throat and caressed her back and shoulders, finally just holding her, his head resting on her shoulder. “I really should have guessed you were a slayer. You fought like one.”

    “Yeah, well, I didn’t taste like one, did I.”

    “No. I still should have known.” He smiled at her. “It’s strange. I’m digging up all these memories of Sarah, and now you’re like... superimposed over a lot of them. I can’t believe I didn’t see it before. Up on that roof... you dance the same. You kiss the same. The way you stroke my hair, touch my cheek.” He smiled. “And a few other things.”

    “We did a lot of... other things.”

    “Well, you were trying to strip me down to my core, right? When’s a man at his most vulnerable? Manipulative little bitch.” He sounded very fond.

    “You left me pretty vulnerable, too,” Buffy said.

    He looked grave. “I know.”

    “I didn’t mean physically. Or... well, sort of. Some of those blood games...”

    He still looked grave. “I was afraid of that.”

    “I’m not addicted. Despite last night, that’s not what I meant. Not jonesing, swear. I meant, just... tissue damage aside, that was hot.”

    “Well, it was a way to have complete power over you, wasn’t it,” he said. He fondled a tendril of her hair. “And that was what I was trying to do.”

    “Shame we can’t do that now.”

    He laughed. “No. And I’m not going to kill you, either!” He sounded giddy.

    Buffy regarded him. “You really are acting oddly.”

    “I’m still a little high, love,” he whispered against her skin. “Or have you forgotten what a slayer’s blood can do?”

    She had, actually. She had gotten so used to being Sarah, whose blood was weak and tainted and ordinary. “Just a little impulsive,” she recalled.

    “Just don’t let me kill anyone, we’ll be fine,” he said. He kissed her neck a few times.

    “Who would you kill?”

    “Well, Crowley, for one. And he doesn’t quite deserve it, though he’s reaching for it.”

    “Anyone else?”

    “Whoever would dare,” Spike said. “That part of me isn’t very picky right now.” He slid his hands down her buttocks and pulled her closer to his hips. “God, I love you, slayer.” He kissed her, and kissed her, and kissed her. Then he pulled away and gazed at her. “Are you all right?” he asked seriously.

    “I’m fine,” she said. “A little thirsty. You knew when to stop.”

    “That wasn’t what I meant, though I’m glad. I meant... this thing you went through... we went through. Are you sure it didn’t damage anything?”

    Buffy took a deep breath and tried to think back. “It was... bits of it were traumatic,” she said. “Mostly I spent the whole time wishing I could fight. Properly. But Sarah’s body was so weak, and I wasn’t allowed to save anyone. That was the worst part – that I wasn’t allowed to stop you.”

    “That night... with the doll....”

    “That was the hardest night,” Buffy said. “That girl.”

    Spike winced. “I’m sorry.”

    “I think I had to see it,” she said. “I think I had to know what you’re fighting every day. The depth of what’s in your head, what it is that weighs so on your soul. I know you say I didn’t see all of it, but I saw enough to know. I mean, Spike... you lived through it too, and worse, and all of that’s in your head like it is in mine. And now when you look at it... I mean... you’re helpless inside it. The same way I was.”

    “I wasn’t the victim, Buffy. I was the perpetrator.”

    “But you were still there. And in a lot of ways, you really didn’t want to be.”

    “I did want to be. I don’t want to have been.” He shook his head. “It’s complicated. It was me, but I’ve changed. That’s all.”

    “But it horrifies you now.”

    “Yes,” he said. “Every second of it.”

    “It haunts you.”

    “What are you driving at?”

    Buffy didn’t say it. She knew he’d dismiss it if she called him as much a victim of his crimes as his prey was. He couldn’t see it that way – just as she couldn’t see herself as his victim when she was locked in that closet. If he saw it that way, it would break him, just as being the victim would have broken her. Still. She’d seen him. She knew it. She’d seen him staring at her in confused supplication and curling up just after his crimes, as if he was the one who’d been assaulted. She’d seen him all but weeping as she washed away the blood and slime, and for once gave him something pure. And all of that without a soul. She knew. That was all that mattered.

    “You were what you were,” was all she said. “You are what you are.”

    “And Drusilla?”

    “What?”

    “I gave you... to her.”

    “You shared me with her,” Buffy said. “Like you shared everything. When she tried to take me outright, you took me back.” She caressed the side of his neck. “It was strange at first, but... she’s part of you, you know. I’ve always known that. And she... there really is a bit of the holy sister left in her, isn’t there?”

    “A little,” he said. “If there wasn’t, I don’t know if she’d have been as crazy as she was.”

    “I knew, when I came to you... that if I came to you at that time I’d have to share you with her. You couldn’t just rid yourself of her. Just as you knew she couldn’t rid herself of Angel.” She swallowed then. “Why didn’t you ever tell me, before? About Angel?”

    Spike looked up. “What about him?”

    “About what he did to you.”

    Spike rolled his eyes. “Oh, god. I’d forgot I told Sarah about that. I’m sorry, kitten. You shouldn’t have had to hear that.”

    “Hear what? That a man had –? Spike, I know you’ve had male victims, I’m not a teenage kid. You wouldn’t have to be ashamed–”

    “No, it wasn’t that,” Spike said. “Honestly, Buffy, out of my history, you think that would be the thing to make me curl up with shame? Victorian ideals aside, Oscar Wilde didn’t come out of nothing.”

    “So why? Spike, we share everything. We don’t always go into details, for obvious reasons, but that’s... kind of a big thing.”

    “Yeah. But it’s kind of a big thing about Angel.”

    “And?”

    “And I didn’t tell you, ‘cause it wouldn’t be fair to you.”

    “What do you mean? I can take the dark stories, Spike.”

    “It’s not that it was dark,” Spike said. “It’s that it was Angel.”

    “And?”

    Spike looked at her, teasing. “And you love him.”

    Buffy was annoyed. “I do not.”

    “Yes, you do.”

    “I love you.”

    “Yes, you do. But you love him, too. Just as I still love Dru. He’s not right for you, as she’s not right for me anymore, but it doesn’t just go away. Some part of you will always love him.”

    Buffy looked down. He wasn’t entirely wrong, but there were things she could never really forgive Angel for, either. “He’s hurt me a lot. I...”

    “It’s okay, pet. I get it. He’s in you. He’s in me, too, you know. I would never have hated him so much if he wasn’t. I was utterly devoted to him for decades. You and I love each other, so I tell you the horrible things I’ve done. It’s not my place to tell you his.”

    “But that happened to you,” Buffy said.

    “It still wouldn’t have been fair to you,” Spike said. “We were vampires. We were cruel to each other. He was better at it than I was, that doesn’t make me any more moral.”

    “But you were his victim.”

    Spike shrugged. “In a way. But I’m not ashamed of it. Not of having been Angel’s victim, or his lover – and technically, I’ve been both, at one time or another.”

    “I’m sorry.”

    “He’s been my victim too,” Spike said. “At various times. I mean, we both know what happened. We’re both... I’m not gonna say different people, but we’re older now. We kinda joke about it. I mean some of our banter is... why do you think I call him a poof all the time? I don’t think either of us are actually ashamed of it, not about each other. But I don’t want to say or do anything that would make you feel like you would have be ashamed.” He kissed her. “Besides, I’ve much more terrible things to be ashamed of.”

    “And hurt by?”

    Spike shrugged. “I have hurt, and been hurt by everyone I’ve ever loved,” he said. “I kind of expect it.”

    “I know,” Buffy whispered. “And I’m sorry.”

    “You’re not–”

    “For all of it,” Buffy interrupted. “Not just for me. For all of what you’ve endured.”

    “I’ve committed a lot of crimes, Buffy. As far as you’re concerned, I just committed a lot of them on you.”

    “That doesn’t mean you deserved abuse,” Buffy said. “Drusilla’s doll was an evil, evil creature. He didn’t deserve what she did to him, either.”

    “It’s all right, love,” Spike said. “I don’t feel abused. Not now.” He touched her face. “In fact, I feel amazing.”

    “High on a slayer. What every vampire longs for.”

    Spike chuckled. “Sort of.” He frowned at her. “You know... I didn’t feed on Nikki.”

    Buffy frowned back. “You didn’t?” She’d read that Nikki Wood had had her neck broken, but she’d just assumed the tissue damage hadn’t been written down. The records of slayer deaths were not, in her opinion, adequately recorded.

    Spike shook his head. “I’d killed Sarah just a few days before. Her blood was weak, full of toxins, really nothing fabulous about it at all. Still, I didn’t feed for two weeks.”

    Buffy stared at him. He’d have been suffering heavy withdrawal by that point. “Why not?”

    Spike shrugged. “Not morals or anything,” he said. “I just didn’t want her taste washed away.” He fondled Buffy’s hair. “I mourned you. Do you know strange that is, for a vampire? To mourn his own victim?” He shook his head. “Nikki... that fight with Nikki. I’d always been trying to prove something, but... with that fight... I was trying to prove it to myself. I was the big bad. I had remind myself. I had to either kill her, or die. There was no middle ground. I was a vampire, hard, a murderer, made from sin itself, nothing soft or kind or generous about me. Or I was dead.” He shook his head. “A couple times she nearly got me, and it felt so good, to have all that pain beaten into my flesh. Nikki nearly took my head off, pushed me out the window of that subway car, and I screamed with joy at how close to death I was. Right before I killed her, there was a moment when she had me down, and I nearly let her get me....” He trailed off, and Buffy could see Sarah’s memory heavy in his eyes.

    He shook his head. “Well, the demon won against the slayer in the end.”

    “Then what?”

    “Hm? Oh. Well, I took Dru to London. She knew it, she liked London. We found an old Edwardian flat for a lair. Joined up with the punk scene ‘cross the pond. We didn’t even clean up the flat in New York. I just dusted most of the minions, and we took off. Set the place on fire.” His eyes were distant. “Sarah’s body was still on the kitchen floor.”

    “You...?”

    “I couldn’t bear to touch it,” Spike said quietly. “I loved you so hard.” He kissed her cheek softly. “You were so much more than just a pet, pet.”

    Buffy looked up at him. “So, all this time you’ve been calling me pet, was that because you used to...?”

    Spike shook his head. “Other way around,” he said. “I called everyone I might like in my bed pet. I called Dru pet too, if you didn’t notice. She even called me her dolly sometimes.” He shrugged. “They were bound victims undergoing psychological and sexual torture as well as being eaten. It didn’t matter what we called them.”

    “You didn’t torture me, Spike.”

    Spike regarded her. “Only because you don’t think of it that way,” he said. “If you did, it would be. And after sharing you with Drusilla...” He shook his head. “I tortured you.”

    “Dru attacked me, at the end,” Buffy said. “But before that...” She felt uncomfortable, but she had to tell someone, someday. Spike was as good a person as any. “The Drusilla thing was complicated. I mean, you loved her, and that... did a lot of it, I think. But... it was actually kinda hot. Up on the roof, I was...” She swallowed. “Yeah. I wasn’t faking that.”

    “Ooh. I’d almost forgotten that.” He paused. “How, I have no idea,” he added, as Buffy felt his cock twitch beneath her. He’d found it hot, too.

    “Well, it was a long time ago, and you were trying not to think about it.”

    He smirked. “Point.”

    “Anyway. I realized something this last week, with the two of you. Do you remember what it was like, when I first started sleeping with you?”

    Several expressions passed across Spike’s face, from incredulity, to amusement, to bewilderment, to distress, and finally back to amusement again. “Well, yes,” he finally said.

    Buffy chuckled. “I mean what I was like. And I don’t mean the depression thing. But like I’d just... let go of something that I’d been clamping down on?”

    “Yeah.”

    “Well, I finally figured it out. I have this thing for vampires.”

    Spike looked at her blankly. “You figure this out just now, did you?”

    “Well, yeah. Because I don’t like evil. I really don’t, not in the sense of wanting to bask in it or anything. I want to get rid of it. And those two things have always kind of mixed me up about it all, the evil, and the vampireness. But you... and Angel... and even Dru. You kind of turn me on. Even her.” She wasn’t being very coherent, she knew. She was still trying to work it out in her head. “And I love you now, I mean you Spike, for who you are. But all this time I’ve been telling myself that it wasn’t that you were vampires. That it was Angel and his hopeless search for redemption, or my depression and how I really needed you – and I did – or how I’m a slayer and plain human men are breakable, but... none of that’s it. I just really like vampires.”

    Spike nodded for a moment. “You figure this out just now, did you,” he said again.

    “I’m serious!”

    “I know, but... I knew this all along, slayer.”

    “Well... I didn’t. I wasn’t seeing the group as whole, I kept seeing the individuals. Which is what you should do in the end, and what I had to do, because the group as a whole usually has this whole evil killing innocents thing, and that’s not something anyone with a conscience can easily get around. But it really bugged me that I still wanted you, even back then, even in that really breakable human body. ‘Cause most of the things I love about you were like totally gone, and I still really wanted you. I mean, that... that was not an act.”

    “I could tell,” Spike said.

    “Well, I realized that it was something about me, and who I am. I mean, you were talking to me back then – don’t know if you remember – about whether or not you have choice about loving someone. And we don’t, not really. We can choose what we do about it, but not how we feel. I was thinking a lot about choice and consent and who gets to choose what. And – well, Willow’s probably not the best example, ‘cause she’s kinda bi, what with Oz and everything, but – if you’d gone to, say, Tara, and told her, ‘You can’t be interested in girls anymore’ I mean, no matter how many times you say it, she’d still want girls. And... I think that’s what I am. I think I’m like Tara.”

    “Lesbian?”

    “Very funny.”

    “Well, you said the Dru thing.”

    “That wasn’t what I meant!” She knew he was teasing her. “Not girls. But... vampires. I’ve been trying to tell myself that vampires are like, take ‘em or leave ‘em, and it’s all individual. And in the end, it is, just like with Tara and Willow. I mean, Tara wasn’t jumping every girl on the street. But, I... have this preference. I mean, I can like men. I have. But for me... really... vampires.”

    “Are you telling me you’re a vamprsexual?’

    Buffy hit him playfully. “I’m being serious.”

    “So am I,” Spike said. “It doesn’t really have a name, does it?”

    “Shut up, this was a really big revelation for me!”

    Spike sat back and smirked. “So it’s a thing, then.”

    “Yeah. I think Tara really did have the right of it, back then. When I told her I wasn’t ready to tell anyone about you, she said I wasn’t ready to ‘come out.’”

    Spike nodded. He was still smirking. “So. This is what you’re doing now, is it? You’re coming out to your vampire lover about being a vampire-lover.”

    “Stop teasing me,” Buffy pleaded. “This is a really big deal.”

    “And it’s really cute,” Spike said. “Go on.”

    Buffy sighed. “I’ve lost my train of thought.”

    “Sorry. Didn’t mean to derail you.”

    Buffy shook her head. “The thing is, I spent a lot of time just... well, sitting in that closet, thinking about why I’d still want you when you were being absolutely evil. And had locked me in a closet. I mean, I gotta tell you, Spike, this shoulda killed it. Honest, knowing what you were and seeing what you were were just wildly different.”

    Spike gazed at her. “I’ve been trying to tell you that for years.”

    “I know,” Buffy said. “But, even if I’d been able to put all that aside and just think of you as you are now; as you were then you shouldn’t have affected me the way you did. And you did. And it really wasn’t the evil, because that disgusted me. And it wasn’t the danger, because that’s just kind of there.  And it wasn’t even because it was you, Spike, although I knew you so well, because it was really only half of you, and I love all of you. And I love you for the person you are – I’d still love you now even if you... well, ended up dropped in another body.” He chuckled. “But a vampire is just... who I really want to be with.”

    Spike’s smile came back, softened from its knowing smirk. “I’m more than happy to oblige, slayer.”

    “It’s weird,” Buffy said. “It used to bug me. I thought something was wrong with me. I thought I was only attracted to wicked energy, and that meant that I was... kind of wicked. And that made me really sick. But now I’ve seen it close up, and... no. It really, really isn’t the wicked evil stuff. And then I thought it was all tied up with being the slayer and the violence and the superpowers thing. I thought that was what did it. But without those, I still wanted my vampire. As a vampire. Is that weird?”

    Spike shrugged. “It’s not real common, but I’ve seen it before.”

    Buffy blinked. “Really?”

    “Oh, yeah, loads of times. Those who get turned on by vampires? All over the place. Hell, Dru’s doll was one. It’s just you’re really righteous, Buffy, and they’re usually more... grey about the evil thing. A lot want to be turned. And most become blood junkies really damn fast. Hence why I’ve been worried about you, pet. They tend to die young. For obvious reasons.”

    “You mean most die?”

    “It’s a dangerous predilection. But it’s not unheard of. Hell, given what Dru did to me when I first saw her, I probably was one. Though I dunno, maybe I just get off on things that’ll kill me, ‘cause...” he caressed her bottom, “I like slayers, now.”

    “So... this is a real thing?”

    He looked very amused. “Buffy... I’ve actually brought this up before. I knew this about you, love.”

    He had. The first time they’d ever slept together, he’d brought it up. “Well,” she said, chagrined. “I guess I didn’t. But I realized it was actually real. And I don’t really have a choice about it. But I guess it doesn’t make me evil, and I don’t have to like the evil. So long as I make good choices about who I’m with after accepting this.... preference. And... well, I think I have. With you. But like Tara, that’s just who I am. It doesn’t mean I’m wrong, just that I’m different.” She shrugged. “And I guess that’s okay.”

    “And you finally figured this out.”

    “Well, I didn’t have it sorted before. I don’t... really think a lot about the way I feel about things.”

    Spike shook his head. “No. No, I guess you don’t.”

     “It got painful. But I didn’t have much else to do this last week. And I really couldn’t understand why I wanted you so badly, when I really, really didn’t want to love you. Not just as Sarah, but even when we first got together.”

    He brushed her hair back. “So, when you first came to me in that abandoned house... you were all released because you’d stopped repressing your vamprisexual urges.”

    “You are really gonna get hung up on that word, aren’t you.”

    Spike shook his head. “No, it makes sense: Buffy, releasing a repressed alternative sexuality. Since you couldn’t love me.”

    “But I could,” Buffy said. “I couldn’t then, in Sunnydale – I was broken. But I could.” She snuggled up to him, nuzzling his neck. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I loved you back then, too, when I was Sarah. I hated the evil you did. I couldn’t have stood it for long. But even without the soul... I wasn’t loving just future you. I loved you.”

    “I thought you just said it was only half of me, and you love all of me.”

    “I do love all of you,” Buffy said. “Every half of you. All three of them.”

    “Three halves?”

    “The man, the demon, and what you made out of the two,” Buffy said. “So, okay, third, whatever. I’m still a little woozy.”

    “I’m not sure I really follow you down this yellow brick road, slayer, but I absolutely adore you.”

    Buffy sat up and gazed at him. “I adore you too,” Buffy said. “Because if I’m right, and I really couldn’t love anyone but a vampire properly... my god I lucked out with you.”

    Spike smiled. “Boy, you are really driving this home, aren’t you.”

    “Driving what home?”

    “Oh, I just realized something last night,” he said casually. “This thing, that happened between us. This one week... it’s changed a lot. I mean it’s... it shouldn’t have, we shouldn’t have needed it. Everything was great before. But now... last night,” he said with a smile. “As I held you, I realized something. Well, two somethings.”

    “What?”

    “I don’t want to kill you.”

    Buffy frowned. “I knew that.”

    “No.” Spike shook his head. “I don’t want to kill you at all. There’s no desire. None. Nothing I’m suppressing, or ignoring, or quietly logicing myself out of. There’s just no impulse. It’s...” he shook his head. “It’s bloody human, is what it is. It’s actually weird.”

    “Weird? Weird to not want to kill me?”

    “To not want to kill you, yeah. I have never been with anyone when I could hear their heartbeat, and not want to stop it. Dru, Harmony, other vampires, they’re already dead, and my psyche knows that. But that heartbeat... that beautiful heartbeat, that draws me and catches me and makes me want to dance with it, that sound that makes me salivate, I always want to stop. Until last night.” He reached out and placed two fingers on her throat, feeling her pulse. “It’s like I’ve been wrestling with a fishing line. I remember, when we were first together and everything was so violent, that was digging into me all the time, trying to drag me into killing you. I had to fight it really hard, then. And then, once I got the soul, it was like I had more strength to fight it, and it didn’t drag on me so hard. But it was still there. It was always there. Buffy... it’s not there. It’s gone.”

    His eyes were very soft as he looked on her. “Last night, I held you, and I had drained you... quite a bit more than usual. I was all charged with slayers blood, I’m still – keep an eye on me – still ready to kill just about anything that steps a toe wrong. And I have no desire to kill you whatsoever.”

    Buffy frowned at him. “Because you already have?”

    “I think so?” Spike said, as questioning as she was. “I think that might be it.” Then he shook his head. “There’s another possibility, which... less likely, but the thought’s there.”

    “What?”

    “There was something else I realized as I held you.” He leaned back on the edge of the bed and gazed down at her. “You love me.”

    “Well... yes. I thought you figured that out a while ago.”

    “Oh, I did. Well. Most of me did.” He held her jaw and caressed her lips with his thumb. “But there’s always been some part of me that doubts... some heartbroken and crying young man who honestly believes I am beneath you. It was one of the reasons I ultimately didn’t seek you out after the Hellmouth. And even yesterday, if anyone had asked me... and I’d really answered honestly... there would have been a lot of... stipulation. Don’t interrupt,” he said.

    “I’ve have said we were happy enough together,” he went on. “That we work well together, we fight well together. I’d have said you enjoyed my company, and we had the same goals. I’d have said we trusted each other, completely. I’d have said you wanted me. My body and my bite. I might even have said you wanted to love me. And in truth, all of that is as near to love as makes no odds, and as much as I ever needed. Because I love you, Buffy... completely. Without reservation, without rhyme or reason, without need for reciprocation. I will always love you... even, it turns out, when you have a completely different face and I’m totally evil and have no idea who the hell you are.”

    She chuckled.

    “But there was a thought,” he went on, “that occurred to me, just before I bit Sarah. You... she told me she loved me... and I believed she did, at some level. But I’d always known she was looking for something in me, that I didn’t have. I thought, just at the end there, it was because I’d killed her lover, and that she was trying to find him in me. It’s not an outrageous thing for a witch to do – and I assumed she was a witch, or had some gift like Drusilla. You remember, I told you a skilled witch could mojo up anyone I’d ever fed from if they had my blood.” He shook his head. “And I remember thinking... as I watched her crying, knowing she couldn’t leave, that she couldn’t get to that man, watching her... agony in that moment... I remember thinking, no one’s ever going to love me like that.”

    Buffy regarded him. Spike reached up and caressed her chin with his thumb. “Tell me you love me,” he asked.

    “I love you,” Buffy whispered.

    “Yeah,” he whispered back through a fond grin. “You do.” He kissed her tenderly, still unable to stop smiling.

    Buffy shook her head when they parted. “You’d think it wouldn’t have had to take all that for you to finally believe me.”

    Spike shrugged. “What can I say, love, I’m insecure.” He cocked his head. “Would you like to secure me?”

    “Huh?” Buffy was confused.

    He chuckled. “I got you a gift,” he said. He reached under his coat and pulled it out. “It’s not an exact copy, I had to settle for what the concierge could find at the pet store. But I think it’ll do.”

    A large black leather spiked collar. Buffy pursed her lips and glared at him. “This had better be some kind of joke.”

    “Nope,” Spike said. “Deadly serious.” He placed the collar in her hands, and then lifted them to put it around his throat. He tilted his chin. “How does it look?”

    She buckled it gleefully. Actually, it looked really hot on him. Really, really hot. No wonder he’d said she looked lovely in hers. Buffy laughed. “Well?” he asked.

    Buffy grinned at him. “It looks... like you’re all mine, pet.”
 

 

Chapter End Notes:

Thank you everyone for your enthusiasm and excitement for this story! Special thanks again to Spuffy Luvr for her excellent beta work -- if this story didn't totally squick you out, that's thanks to Spuffy Luvr. Thanks to solstice and pfeifferpack and Gaia all my other adoring fans, far too many to mention at this point, for reviewing and giving me happy dopamine surges every time I see that they've read and enjoyed my first foray into novel-length fanfic, and thus my first paranormal romance. One more nod to everyone online who kept such meticulous records of the CBGB club so that my silly smutty vampire fic had the whiff of verisimilitude. And my acknowledgements (and apologies?) to Joss, James, and everyone else involved in Buffy for letting me play in their sandbox.