This lovely was created by the wonderful Mandi. Thank you so much.

Betas: The wonderful Megan and Angelic Amy. Thank you, lovely ladies.

Author Notes: Thank you to all those who have left feedback. It is greatly appreciated. And I am chuffed to say that BB won the Reader's Choice Award at the Fool for Love Awards, plus a nice couple of Runner Ups for Best Angst and Best Whip, er, WIP.

Chapter 12

Taking an unneeded breath, Spike began…

Or would have if his mouth hadn’t snapped shut on the urge to bite it all out in a string of short and bitter sentences. ‘I’m not ready for this. Fuck!’

The ambient noise from the couples nearby and those gathered in the bar faded until there was only a vampire and the Slayer in a small world of their own. Knowing she’d read the manual and his file made it both easier and harder; easier because he wouldn’t need to draw her a word picture, and harder for her knowing about the world he’d existed in until recently. In the time honoured way of victims, Spike felt shame for the acts practised upon his body during his time as a whore. Being a vampire didn’t stop that, though many might think it would. Wasn’t supposed to have feelings, being a monster an’ all. How he wished that particular myth were true; then he wouldn’t feel like some kind of disgusting filth. Some kind of disgusting and scared filth.

It had ever been a flaw of his, this desire for approval, acceptance…even a modicum of respect. He’d suffered from it as a worthless ponce of a human, craved it as a fledgling and still needed it to the day he was captured. After that the need had been subjugated; to start with by his rage and anger, and then by his acute shame and disgust.

Spike didn’t want to want the Slayer’s fond glance so much, but he it remained a fact that he did. Her approval, her acceptance, meant more to him than he could bring himself to admit. And he was so afraid that he was going to lose it almost before he’d had it… if only for moments. He hadn’t connected with anyone – except in the most physical way – for so long, and it didn’t matter that he wasn’t supposed to connect with the Slayer. It was too late, he already had.

His senses were on overdrive whenever he was near her. Just the sight of her entranced him. Whenever he’d let his mind roam to his pre-chip era there was hardly a time she didn’t figure somewhere in his reminiscing, with her eyes narrowed in hate or contempt. Or both. She’d always been cute, fun to taunt and fight. And he hadn’t cared about the hatred then; they both felt it in a way that was right and proper between a vampire and a slayer. The Slayer was still cute. To Spike’s mind she looked even better now her face had lost the last plumpness of youth and caught up with the rest of her body. Hair and wardrobe had changed somewhat, but both seemed to suit this more mature young woman. It was her eyes that had changed the most, and the way she held herself when near him.

And he didn’t want the way she was looking at him now to turn to disgust, didn’t want to see a mirror of what he felt for himself. It had cut him to the core, in more ways than one, when Angel had broken him so thoroughly. By the fourth day…

Her eyes.

Buffy waited for Spike to speak. He was thinking, his brow slightly creased and his head at that angle she was starting to associate with his ‘deliberating’ mode. His face was far too thin, hollows filled by too many shadows and giving a good impression of a skull. The skull it would be if William had died a natural death. But the eyes were so alive, and they were studying her as if only she could provide the answer to some unvoiced question.

The day’s events were beginning to catch up with her. It wasn’t that she was tired exactly, more like feeling almost out of emotional gas. Her tank held a small reserve which she didn’t want to tap into; the last time she’d needed it was on Dawn’s death, and she so didn’t want to go anywhere near such pain for the rest of her existence. She might not want to know why Spike was so thrown by Angel as to pull tonight’s stunt, but as it was possible she’d be faced with her ex-lover tomorrow – tonight? – she might need to know. Just enough, just enough to be prepared.

His eyes.

“Are we going to sit here looking at each other all night?” she asked, gently. “Or are you gonna give me the Cliff’s Notes version of why Angel is after you?”

Spike blinked. Her eyes held so much, and none of it was hatred, none of it was contempt. A man could lose himself for days, weeks, in their depths – and still find more to explore. He wanted time to find out for himself if that were true.

Pulling his courage, what there was of it, around him like an unfamiliar cloak, Spike tried again.

“He was my last client,” he blurted out, without subtlety but not without effort, looking away from her before the words could register. Her gasp he couldn’t block out.

Grimly, he carried on.

“Hadn’t been there long. Can’t say how long exactly, time ain’t important when there’s nothing you want to remember…and more than enough you want to forget.” His fingers picked up his glass, turned it and put it back down again. So many days and nights just merged into one another in the way they were filled with the same old, same old. Didn’t want to think about the pain, hated to recollect the pleasure – what there’d been of it..

Sighing, he continued, not daring to look at her, the still Slayer opposite. “One day was different. Had the hair bleached and given a brand spanking new set of black threads to wear. Was made pretty clear that I was to please this client…or else. Had seven days to do it.”

Spike clenched his eyes shut tight, shaking his head slightly as if trying to dislodge and lose that fragment from his mind. “Was taken to a room I hadn’t been in before. It had more the look of something from the Spanish Inquisition than anythin’ I’d seen for a long time. They had me shackled and spread in the middle of the room; chains hangin’ from the rafters and bolt holes on the floor. Was getting right bored by the time he arrived. Biggest shock of me unlife for years seeing him walk in, seeing the bloody grandsire come through that door.”

Buffy had been caught up in watching the sorrow on his face, feeling like an intruder but unable to tear her eyes away when he had her undivided attention. It took a moment for the import of Spike’s words to sink in and start making sense, the time it took for them to pass through the Buffy-translator and show her the pictures. Click. Click. Click.

Angel.

Spike was scared of Angel and Angel had been there. Spike was scared of Angel and…Angel had been…there. Her imagination was pushing unwelcome images towards her from which she shied in horror. ‘No! I have a filthy mind there’s no way Angel would…’

It only took the sight of Spike, fighting to carry on, for her to pray to the Powers that her worst fears weren’t so.

“Didn’t know what to think at first. Was almost glad to see the old sod. Family an’ all that. Then the old wits started to kick in. That and the fact he spelled out with perfect clarity exactly what he had on his agenda.” Spike couldn’t stop the shudder that took over his animated corpse, making him feel cold as ice inside. His hands had dropped from the table at some point and now kneaded his thighs. It was a mistake to close his eyes.

Angel had been dressed to kill, in black silk and leather. For one ridiculous moment Spike had felt hope, thought that the other vampire was going to take him away from his misery. It died the second Angel tossed three irons into a brazier filled with glowing coals in a corner of the chamber, before turning to regard Spike with a malicious grin

“Seems he was still more than a little pissed off over the whole torturing gig I put him through when I tried to get back the poxy Gem of Amara. Which I could almost respect – if he had been Angelus.” Spike glanced at the Slayer from under his lashes, taking in the frozen mask of her face, wondering how much she needed to know. He desperately wanted to drown the memories away in the tempting bottle of JD sitting so close; the appeal of temporary oblivion crying out to be surrendered to.

“He made it pretty clear that payback was gonna be a bitch…for me. Did a cute re-enactment of our last meeting - but with roles reversed and no pesky third party to spoil his fun. Hurt like a bitch.” Seemed to smell even worse when the flesh smouldering as red hot irons were pushed slowly through - from front to back - was his. He’d screamed his throat raw to the accompaniment of Angel’s gleeful chuckles. “Kept telling me what a worthless piece of shite I was…not that I needed the message. Had been getting it loud and clear often enough.”

Ignorance is bliss. That was a saying, wasn’t it? One of those familiar strings of words with a meaning seldom given any real consideration – until now. Buffy wanted the bliss of ignorance back. It wasn’t as if Spike was being overly giving with the details – which was just as well as she believed in the details she might really find evidence of hell – but her own imagination was doing a more than adequate job of filling in the gaps. That the vampire opposite could hold onto any semblance of calm was a testimony to the strength he didn’t seem to realise he had. She had heard enough from Angel’s mouth when he had been in his Angelus phase to know how cruel and telling his piercing barbs could be; his ability to destroy his victim mentally was more than proven to anyone who had had the misfortune to meet Drusilla.

Oz had told them, sparingly, of what Spike had put Angel through in his determination to recover the ring with the power to make a vampire invincible. It had turned her blood cold to hear of the agony Angel had suffered, and she’d been proud of the way he had held out against his torturers. Her desire for revenge against the perpetrator of harm to her first love had been high, incorporating many satisfyingly imagined scenes which showed her soundly whopping Spike’s ass - before sending him on his way in a fanfare of dust. The thought of going all ‘eye for an eye’ in any finer detail was just… It soured the taste of wine lingering in her mouth.

She didn’t need to hear any more, it was enough. Angel would not be allowed anywhere near Spike if he’d spent their last meeting using him to exorcise old, possibly justified, grudges. It would be simple enough to tell Angel enough was enough, that she had no problems with having Spike around, that he couldn’t have him. She didn’t need to hear any more.

“To cut a long story short…”

Buffy didn’t want to think about what he was not going to tell her. She had gay friends and had read the file; she knew what had gone on, in theory. At that place. What she couldn’t get her head around was the merest hint it had gone on between Angel and Spike. With Spike in no position to…

“…he drained me every time. Always woke up with a tube down my throat,” and how painful it had been, rubbing against the sore, shredded flesh of his throat until the healing had kicked in, “and someone had cleaned me up, done a bit of mending. The next day it was the same. Variations, of course. Couldn’t shave off the hair more than once.” He’d been less bothered by the grandsire’s attempts at barbering than Angel had thought he should be. Spike’s days of vanity were long behind him by then, eroded away when it was made apparent his face was of secondary importance to the rest of his carcass.

A warm hand touching his startled him. Spike’s eyes flew open to find the Slayer had moved and was sitting beside him, no contempt in her eyes. Compassion, regret, horror – it was all there in her steady gaze – and tiredness. The girl looked worn out, and he felt the same. This strong supernatural being, the one who owned him both legally and on a more sublime level, gently stroked his hand as it rested on his denim clad leg. Finger tips barely brushed his thigh, finding a previously unknown erogenous zone lying directly beneath them. An involuntary breath filled his unneeded lungs with her heady scent. Reacting, in a way that was becoming habit, his body and demon reminded him of how long it had been since he’d experienced the glorious pleasure of holding a woman in his arms. So close to her…Spike could think of nothing but the Slayer. He was drowning in her.

They were a sort of hazel, green-gold. In the glow from the candle they had no discernable colour; they just shone, and were large. Guileless. She had always been a bit more than ‘what you see is what you get’. Such a bundle of contradictions wrapped up in a powerful body, and artificially blonde dyed hair. Who, because he was defanged – to all intents – kept treating him like a person, not a thing. But his other face had not fazed her in the slightest, just got her all disgruntled and feisty.

Spike fought the urge to turn his hand and grip hers, hold it captive in his own, let her warmth soak into his fingers. Beautiful. Desirable. Unattainable.

***

It was getting beyond a joke. Every time he tried to communicate they turned the lights off. Didn’t they understand that he was merely trying to clear up whatever ghastly mistake this all was… or establish a link with his unknown captors?

Rupert was getting fed up with the whole setup. The only voice he’d heard, in the unknowable amount of time he’d been incarcerated, had been his own. No one, and nothing, had spoken a word to him. Small meals of buttered toast and water were periodically pushed through a small hatch within the door. A collection of trays was starting to build up inside his cell. If they didn’t ask for them, there was no way he was giving them back. Had he the knowledge of how many trays they had in their possession, perhaps his petty defiance might have held more weight. Under the circumstances, it was the best he could do.

At least his head appeared to have resumed normal functioning, a blessed relief. And someone would have raised the alarm by now at the Council; he never missed a day without reason. That didn’t mean he had to wait around if he could get himself out of his current predicament. How foolish he’d been to imagine his life would become less fraught with direct attack since he’d exchanged the uncertainty of the Hellmouth for the civilisation of London.

Now his sight was operating without protest, Giles had located the two hidden cameras and microphones within his white tiled prison. Positioning himself beneath the one above the door he fixed it with a stern look that Buffy would have recognised in an instant.

“I really must insist that you release me immediately. There has been some sort of terrible mistake. If you would just contact-” The lights ceased to blind him as he was, once again, plunged into total darkness.

“Bugger.”

***

Buffy didn’t know what had pushed her to Spike’s side. It didn’t seem of any importance that he was a vampire, a member of the undead she was meant to send to their terminal rest, or unrest.

It didn’t matter that he was, in theory, her property. A piece of paper was still only a piece of paper – whatever it had written upon it. Unless Spike had been a willing and represented party… it was without his consent and therefore against his wishes.

Nothing mattered except the uncomfortable understanding that if he hurt, she hurt. And it should feel wrong, to feel for him so much. It didn’t. Maybe it was because he had made the first move when he’d calmed her in the basement. Maybe it was because the more she learned of his trials and horrific treatment since becoming chipped, the more she felt the need to punish those who had inflicted such cruelties on the vampire. Maybe it had something to do with liking him. Maybe…

Maybe she should stop daydreaming and falling into his eyes.

Angel. That’s who she should be concentrating on. Making Angel leave Spike and her alone, stay in his precious LA and do his thing with hoping for helpless to stumble across his path. She could do that. Later. Now she just had to convince Spike she could, and would.

“Spike,” Buffy gave his still hand a last caress before pulling away. “I can’t change anything that’s happened already. I’m sorry, really, I wish I could. But I can keep Angel away from you. And I will. I promise.”

“Yeah?” Spike dragged his mind reluctantly away from the more pleasant thoughts which had successfully occupied him for a few blissful moments. He hated that he needed her protection from the ponce, hated the fact he needed her protection full stop. Soon he would show the Slayer that her efforts for him, and with him, weren’t wasted. He’d get his strength back and be the best and fiercest defender she could ever hope for. With him at her back they’d be a team to make the nasties tremble in their shoes, or claws, whatever. The Slayer would get rid of Captain Forehead and they could get on with killing whatever demon was dumb enough to wander into the Hellmouth’s sphere of influence. Sounded like a plan.

And his plans always worked so well.

***

A/N: Due to my lateness in producing this chapter, and one beta’s many current commitments, this chapter is subject to possible amendment. I am also finding it difficult to keep to a weekly Monday post, so I can only say I will do my best.

Tasha, have just picked up your BB4 review and please be assured that I am at fault for not making it totally clear that I was agreeing with you. *gulps*

So sorry, hun. Forgive me? *hugs*