Burnt Offerings

Spike hated this. He hated watching her dress so carefully across the room from him, hated her leaving, hated that they couldn’t stay the day together in the crypt and make love until they were sorer and more aching than they already were. Time had passed too quickly and she had to go to the Magic Box and there was nothing that he could do to stop her. He was powerless, couldn’t stop anything. Not the morning, not her friends’ ignorance, not her Watcher’s imminent defection, although that was something she knew nothing about yet. But he had seen the signs, that was sure, and Giles would be boarding a plane and leaving her behind once again, just like all the other men in her life. Leaving her and thinking it for the best. Like all the others. All the others except him.

She gave him a closed look from across the room, her feelings tamped down deep and her eyes shuttered against them for the moment. She would have to have The Talk with her friends first, he knew that, and then they could get on with their plans. Moving, loving, slaying, patrolling; all the little things that made her life hers and nobody else’s. Maybe she would let him help with the bills; it wasn’t like he didn’t have any means, just never occurred to him to access what he did have. As a vampire, there was no need; want, take, have, the universal code—you didn’t have a house payment or an electric bill when you were a vampire.

Buffy cleared her throat. “I’m, uh, going to the Magic Box to see if they have any idea what’s going on. Will you be here when I get through?”

He wanted to say that he would go with her, but he knew that she didn’t want that. “I think I’ll do a quick round. Never know what other creepies might be about with all the singing and burning going on. Maybe take a run by Willie’s and see if he knows anything.”

Her head bobbed in a brusque nod. “Do that. I never even thought of it myself. He may know something.” She frowned, then added, “But no kitten poker.”

Spike wanted to laugh but settled for a pout. “Aw, Slayer, you take all the fun out of information gathering.”

He was dazzled by her smile as it broke through the cloud that had descended the moment she left his bed. “I know you don’t mean that, so don’t even try it. When was the last time you actually ate the kittens, anyway?”

Spike made a face. “They taste gamy, and the fur gets in your fangs. I usually just let them go.”

Buffy crowed triumphantly. “See? Not even semi-bad anymore. Fur in your fangs—really, Spike.”

He sat up on the side of the bed, yanking his jeans over his feet and up to his knees. “I’ll catch up with you later, yeah?”

“Yeah.” Her voice was soft, barely there in the stillness, but he still heard the yearning tone that hid beneath the word. She wanted him to catch her later. It held a world of promise in a time that just an hour or two before had no promise whatsoever.

Buffy had almost made it to the ladder when he caught up with her. Spike grabbed her arm and yanked her around to press her against the rungs of the ladder, kissing her breathless until she was weak at the knees. “Until later then,” he said, and she nodded. Her legs wobbled as she climbed to the top of the ladder and emerged from the hole, but they strengthened as she put distance between them until she was almost able to walk a straight line again. Almost.

She beelined to the Magic Box, not speaking to her friends in the store but heading directly to the back room. Buffy changed into workout clothes and examined her exposed skin in the mirror to look for hickeys and bruises, but her Slayer healing must have been at full force because there was no sign of her liaison with Spike on her flesh. No sign whatsoever. She sighed, and then turned to exit the little private chamber and face Giles and the training that he thought was so important.

Buffy thought at one point that she heard Giles singing, but it must have been a glimmer of music from outside the shop. When she asked him, he shook his head and denied it. She stepped into the store to go and talk to Willow about what she’d found out about anything at this point and it was only a few minutes later that Spike burst in the front door with what was obviously a minion in tow, demanding him to sing.

An orchestra swelled in the background and then—the minion spoke in a dull monotone. “My master has the Slayer's sister hostage and at midnight he’s taking her to Hell to be his Queen.”

Giles cleaned his glasses, as per the usual. “What does he want, then?”

The minion pointed at Buffy. “Her.” He twisted out of Spike's grasp and ran out the door. Spike rubbed his shoulder absentmindedly, murmuring about when the minion would be a real boy, and Buffy looked around at her closest friends.

“Well, Dawn's in trouble again. It must be Tuesday. So, what do we do now? Bust in there and rescue her?” She looked around at the familiar faces and saw that they were closed against her. She wondered what exactly had happened that they were not jumping to help her defend her sister, but never got the chance to ask.

“He wants you Buffy, not the rest of us. You’ll go alone.” Giles' voice was cool and brisk and brooked no argument, but it didn’t keep Xander from trying, or Willow either.

Xander said, “Axes? Stakes? What do we fight this guy with?”

“Maybe a little spell—” Willow started to say, and Tara interrupted her.

“No! No more spells, Willow.” Willow stared at her girlfriend, not even realizing she was in the shop until that moment. Tara ignored her and turned to Buffy. “I’m sorry, Buffy. I only left her alone for a minute.”

“It’s okay Tara—Dawn doesn’t have to be alone for a second when trouble finds her.”

They were all speaking at once; Giles about her need to go alone, Anya about child brides of demons and how it never turned out well, Xander about what to battle the demon with. The only voice that she really heard clearly was Spike's.

“Let’s go, Slayer, I’ve got your back.”

Buffy looked at him and saw that he indeed had her back; had always had it, even though she never bothered to look or even pay attention before. “Let’s go then. I need to save my sister.”

Giles put his hand on Spike's arm, who shrugged it off immediately. “She needs to go alone, Spike.”

Spike watched her walk out of the front door of the shop, then turned back to look at her so-called friends. “What she needs, Watcher, is someone who will see her. She’s in pain. She’s grieving. She—what the hell, you people don’t care. You got her back and that’s all you wanted. You don’t care what it’s done to her.”

Spike turned his back on the resulting confusion and followed his Slayer.

They looked at each other, unable to process the insight the vampire had imparted about their friend. They had dragged her from Hell—hadn’t they?

Tara's stutter was firmly in place when she broke the silence. “W-what if she wasn’t in H-Hell?” She chanced a look up at the shocked faces of the group around her and found the courage to continue. “W-Willow, did you ever…look for her? B-before the spell?”

Willow gave them guilty looks. “I…we…she went through a portal to a hell dimension, I just…we all thought….”

“So you never looked for her. Never tried a locator spell before you set on this irreversible path to save her.” Giles was colder and more British than he’d ever been before. He held himself stiffly, trying not to rant and rail at the children’s ignorance. “You just decided to go ahead in your usual careless fashion and resurrect her.”

Xander looked wounded. His brown puppy-dog eyes accused Willow of the greatest of sins. “Willow, you told us….” he started to say, then trailed off and turned around to flop heavily in a chair by the table.

Anya, however, was more forthcoming. “You didn’t bother to look. You were so wrapped up in yourself and your own feelings that you never even bothered, did you? And look at what we’ve done—and you convinced us all to help! Wouldn’t let us get Spike or Dawn involved because you were afraid they would stop us, weren’t you? You are so selfish, Willow. Even more than I thought before.” She turned and went to comfort Xander, who had begun to cry silent manly tears.

Willow looked around for sympathy from Tara or Giles or anyone and found none. “I didn’t mean—”

“You didn’t mean to, but you did. You didn’t bother to research or think of the risk or even to think about the primal forces that you were harnessing. Again I say, rank amateur.” Giles looked around at the gathered group and cleared his throat. “We need to go help her.”

No question who the her was. “Why, Giles? You just said she needed to do it alone,” Anya asked, her arms still cradling Xander.

“That was before these, er, questions were raised. Now I’m not certain that she’s in top form to handle this demon.” He headed toward the weapons cabinet and grabbed an axe. “And she needs more than Spike as backup, don’t you think?”

The mention of the bleached vampire menace galvanized Xander more than any other argument would have. “Let’s mount up.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Buffy felt a strange sense of satisfaction when she busted in the door to the Bronze. The tingles at the back of her neck and pit of her stomach told her that Spike was close behind her, but she needed to get some of the violence out before she faced this thing, whatever it was. She stalked in like a wild animal, concentrating only on putting one foot in front of the other, not thinking about the thing seated next to her sister on the stage.

There was evil on the air; he exuded evil from his pores. She thought that she had felt that feeling before but it smothered her now, making it a difficult task to even think of drawing breath. Hiding the frisson of fear that shivered up her spine, she leaned against the pool table in a challenging stance. “So, what do they call you?” she asked in her most bored voice.

“Sweetheart, I have thousands of names,” the demon answered, waving a languorous hand.

“Well, pick one. I need to know what I’m supposed to call my new brother-in-law.”

Dawn finally broke. “Buffy, I never…I didn’t….”

Buffy spared her sister a short glance. “I know, and you won’t either.” Turning back to the nameless demon, she said, “Listen, I know that I can’t beat you, so why don’t you and I cut a deal. You let Dawn go and take me to Hellsville in her place.”

“NO!” Spike's resounding shout echoed through the empty club. Buffy turned to give him a glare to make him shut up, but he couldn’t, wouldn’t let her do that—even if it meant…. “Take me,” he said, cringing at the words. “Take me, do whatever you want. I’ll sing, I’ll dance till I burn, just let the Slayer and her sister go.”

He didn’t notice the audience in the open doorway; none of them did.

The demon caressed his pointy chin, thinking the offer through. “You’re a vampire. What do you care about the Slayer, or her sister for that matter?”

Spike shrugged. “Must be something about the Summers women. Can’t help but love the lot of them. Even their mum. Couldn’t help myself then, can’t help myself now. I love them.”

“And you would put yourself in the line of fire for them? It would kill you.” There was a strange look in the demon’s eyes as he said it, and Spike acknowledged the look and the sentiment behind it.

“Yeah, I know that. At least it would mean something if I died for them in their place. My whole unlife would have had a meaning then. As it is now, it’s just been…nothing.”

Buffy laid her hand on Spike's arm. “You can’t do that. I won’t let you. Somebody has to be here to take care of Dawnie.”

Spike smiled down at her wryly. “That would be you, Buffy. I won’t let you do this, not if it’s in my power to stop it. Go on, take the Bit and go home. I’ll head to wherever with this wanker and we’ll do the dance. You know I love to dance.”

Her grip tightened on the sleeve of his coat, almost painfully. Turning to the demon onstage, she said, “What is the price? For my sister’s release?”

“Why Slayer, nothing more than a song. That’s all I ask, just a song.” Waving his hand, music filled the air and she started singing despite her definite desire not to. Minions attacked and she repelled them, caught up in the words that were coming unbidden from her vocal cords to the melody of the music floating through the air.

The tone of the music changed and she finally noticed her friends and Watcher, standing awe-stricken by the doorway. Willow had silvery trails down her face, but Tara refused to look at her, much less comfort her. Anya and Xander clutched each other, looking both guilty and sad. Giles looked resigned. She continued to sing about life and its difficulties, heaven and being ripped out of peace and comfort, then the tone of the song changed again.

Now, for some reason, the song had a note of hope that was missing before. She sang about love and finding it in an unlikely place, how she thought there was no hope where hope lived in an unbeating heart. She sang about fear of rejection, of wanting to make choices that weren’t in line with her friends’ ways of thinking, of wanting to be independent and not worry about losing everything for a love that shouldn’t exist in the first place. She sang about loss and abandonment, of being alone and lonely, and feeling guilty about feeling that way.

She watched the dawning reality of her song on their faces, each one picturesque in turn. Giles' face hardening when he realized she was singing about loving Spike, then softening as the vocals about rejection and loss reached the strings of his heart and plucked at them mercilessly. She saw the dawning understanding on Willow and Tara's faces and intercepted their surreptitious looks at the vampire in question to bring their notice back to her song with a wave of her hand in their direction. She watched the anger chase jealousy across Xander's plump, tearstained cheeks and cast his pain aside to embrace her own; Anya simply stared, horror at their actions in her expressive eyes but no horror at her love, only acceptance. Anya was nothing but pragmatic when it came to orgasms, it seemed.

Finally, she looked at her sister. Dawn looked…pleased. Happy as she darted glances between Buffy and Spike. It was what Dawn had always wanted. A family. A home. Stability and happiness and…basically what she had all summer, with Buffy there this time instead of….

And then the boom dropped and the secret that she’d only shared with Spike seemed to erupt from her mouth like pearls before swine, only the swine were her friends and the pearls—well, the pearl, the gem in question, was her actual location after jumping into the Swirling Portal Of Doom. She sang about heaven, how comforting and secure and safe she felt and watched the tears winding their way down the faces of her friends without shedding any of her own. No, it was the part where she sang about being back, how hard and harsh it was, how unrelenting their pats on each other’s backs seemed, their self-congratulatory poses like nothing more than a slap in her face. How they ignored her pain for their own happiness. How they ignored her grief for what she had lost because of what they had done. How they had ignored Spike's contributions to turn on him once again, which pained her more than she had ever been comfortable saying.

Now she was singing and dancing, spinning faster and faster in circles that were more concentric with each spin and smoke billowing and building with each revolution.

Spike stopped her cold, with a hand on each shoulder and a glare at the nameless demon watching coolly from the stage. She stood in front of him panting from her exertions and wondering what would come out of her mouth next. He touched her face tenderly and turned to the personification of evil sitting comfortably there next to his Bit. “Wanker. I told you, take me, not her.”

A waved hand. “It was her choice, not yours. So what’s for the encore.”

Buffy's voice was strong, despite her weak knees. She didn’t let on that Spike was keeping her from falling, only leaned on him in a parody of relationship. She couldn’t afford to let him, that demon, see that weakness in her. “There won’t be an encore. We’re done, and you’re done. Get out of here.”

The demon stood and waved a hand at Dawn, who jerked to her feet like a puppet on strings. “Come then, sweetness, let’s be off on the honeymoon. I’ve got the perfect little cave with an excellent view of the damned.”

“I told you before, she’s not leaving here with you.” Buffy's voice held a tinge of desperation that she couldn’t hide. She shook off Spike's hold and stepped forward shakily. “Let her go.”

“Oh, but I don’t think that you have the steel to back up that little show, do you now?” The demon moved his hand and Dawn danced on the movement in a herky-jerky, fear on her face and desperation in her dance.

“I think the Slayer is giving you a bye. I would take it if I were you.” Spike added his two cents, stepping up behind Buffy and letting her lean on him, her back resting against his chest and the smoke still wisping around her.

“I think I agree with Spike for once. You need to leave.” Willow's voice, although shaky, had the steel to back up her threat; if that wasn’t enough, she added a glimmer of power to it. Tara felt the shimmer in the air, as did the demon by the look of respect that crossed his face.

“I sense power and lots of it. So, would you rather in her place? She wears my talisman, I assumed that she must have called me.” He waved his hand at the necklace around Dawn's throat.

“Buffy I swear! I…found it…while I was sweeping at the store….” Dawn's hurried lie struck home as they all looked at one another.

“If it was in the shop, then any one of us could have….” Giles left his sentence hanging in the air, looking at each of them in turn and finally landing on Xander. Xander, with his hand raised sheepishly in the air, defensive at the dismayed looks being thrown his way.

“What? There wasn’t anything about people burning up. I thought singing, dancing, how bad can that be? I wanted us all to have a happy ending.” He glared at Spike, then pointed. “He must have done something to make it go wrong.”

Buffy scowled at him. “Get over it, Xander. Spike didn’t do anything. You did.” She turned to the demon. “So since my sister didn’t summon you, does that mean you’re taking Xander to Hell instead?”

A thoughtful look crossed the demon’s face. “Well, it’s tempting, but…seeing how he’s not the right…form, it might prove a little daunting. No, I think that I’ll let him stay here. You’re going to make his life a greater hell than I ever could ever dream.”

The demon looked around at the sad and despondent faces of the warriors around him. “Oh, do cheer up. You beat the bad guy, and not even a drop of blood shed. You should be happy. But hey, I guess that’s not possible now, is it?”

He sang as he left, sparkles trailing in his wake. Buffy waved her hand above her head to dispel any traces of him that he left behind, whipping around at the sound of Dawn's voice beginning yet another song.

“No. Stop now. No more singing. I’m done with singing.” Buffy stomped over to Xander and slapped his face. “Don’t touch another thing in that store, do you hear? Not another thing. And I might have more to say to you later, so stick around.”

She looked at Willow's teary face and the sorrow in her eyes. “Not. Another. Apology. I want you and all your magical crap out of my house as soon as you can get it out without using magic. You didn’t even bother locating me, did you? I wondered, but I never bothered to ask. Now I don’t have to. Tara, you’re welcome to stay, but my house is officially a magic-free zone now.”

Her look encompassed them all now, even Giles and Dawn. “In case you didn’t get the drift, Spike is my boyfriend. You did your part bringing me back to this hell—he’s the only thing that’s kept me from letting some demon have it’s one good day, although that one came close.” She gestured where Dawn still stood on the stage. “I’m done. I’ll patrol, I’ll slay, but I’m going to live my life for me now instead of trying to give your lives meaning, cause hey, nobody paid much attention to me after I got back. Well, other than why isn’t Buffy happy to be back? You do the freaking math, okay? Until then, I don’t know that I want to see any of you for a while.”

She turned to Spike and gestured her desire for him to join her, and he was at her side in an instant. “Come on, Dawnie, let’s go home.” Buffy linked her arms with Spike's, then with her sister’s, and together they left the stunned and guilty crowd with their mouths agape.

Spike looked down at the diminutive Slayer at his side, their arms linked as they strolled through the quiet Sunnydale streets to the house on Revello. Tonight had been more than he had ever hoped for; hell, it had been a bloody triumph for him and for the Slayer as well. He was proud of her for finding the stones to tell off her well-meaning friends, and prouder yet for her ability to let them know about their relationship without letting them nose into her business yet again.

He started to open his mouth to speak when Buffy broke the silence herself. “Dawnie, are you going to be all right with, um, me and Spike? I mean, not that you have a choice in my boyfriends or anything, but…I don’t want you to feel like I’m not taking you into consideration here.”

Dawn looked at both of them like they had multiple heads. “What? You two are so meant for each other. And I get my big brother back, so yeah—you’ve got my support. But only if you’re both cool about it and don’t keep me awake at night, ‘kay?”

Spike gave Dawn his patented smirk, then looked down at Buffy with a genuine heartfelt smile. “Well, if we have the Bit’s blessing, that’s really all that matters, isn’t it?”

Buffy smiled back up at him. “It’s a start. For now.”

It was a start. Tomorrow would tell whether the Scoobies would come around, or not. But then again, as long as the three of them had each other, right now that seemed like enough.