Chapter 5

"You're the perfect boyfriend, you know that?" Buffy remarked, studying the wide selection of toiletries that had appeared in the dresser drawer the very next day, all the brands and products that she liked. The dresser itself had suddenly acquired a mirror.

"Am I your boyfriend?"

"Well, duh."

He knew better than to say, ‘What about Angel?' He reached out and drew her down to lean back against him on the bed, his knees slightly raised on either side of her to act as armrests for her. She relaxed against him, smiling, as he started to brush her hair with the brush that he had taken from the dresser. He was casually naked, but she had pulled his T-shirt on, still not as comfortable as he was with walking around the place completely nude.

"You didn't have to get all that," she said, enjoying the slow sensuousness with which he was running the brush through her hair. They were both sated and spent, having made love over several hours since coming back from patrol, and this was just sweetly and lazily stretching out the afterglow.

"Wanted to make it as easy as possible for you to keep coming back here, pet."

"You're what keeps me coming back, silly," she said, turning her head to rub her temple against his jaw. He smiled and bent to lip along the curve of her shoulder. "This last week, it's been lovely. Going out to patrol, then coming back here to..."

He laughed when she broke off. "Go on, pet. To?"

"This," she purred and reached up to pull his head down to hers and kiss him.

"Coward."

"Hard for me to say things," she confessed.

"As long as you feel them," he said quietly.

"I feel them," she said softly and smiled as his arms tightened about her. "Speaking of feeling, did you sense something weird on patrol tonight?"

"Like what?"

"I don't know. My Slayer sense kept picking up a tingle like there was a vamp in the vicinity, but every time I looked around, there was nothing there." She lifted her brows at him questioningly.

He shook his head. "Didn't notice anything. When did it start?"

"About midway through patrol, then sort of on and off." She shrugged it off. "Nothing to worry about if the vamp was too chicken to come close."

"Might be able to flush it out tomorrow if you go ahead and I follow at a distance. Might come up on it while it's concentrating on you."

"Good thought."

He snickered suddenly. "Good thing I didn't take you up against that tree. Damn nearly did. It would have gotten an eyeful then."

"Oh, God." She laughed helplessly. That had happened at the end of their patrol and things had gotten pretty hot and heavy for a while there. They had been all over each other. "You're a primo distraction, y'know."

"Hey! Patrol was over. You know I don't lay even a finger on you while you're on duty."

He didn't. He was very good about that and quite conscientious about it, not even the slightest touch to interfere with her concentration until the patrol was officially over.

"Yeah, but I keep wanting you to," she grinned.

He laughed, tipped her over, pinned her to the bed and kissed her long and deeply. "That's what I like to hear."

She stretched luxuriously, her arms above her head. "It's late. I should be getting home. It's a good thing tomorrow's Sunday."

"More time to spend together."

"Mm." She shook her head at him as he too rose and started getting dressed. "You know you don't have to walk me home. I'm the Slayer, for Pete's sake. I'm more dangerous than anything around."

"And I'm Victorian. A gentleman doesn't let a lady walk home on her own." He grinned as she lifted an eyebrow at him. "Besides, gives me more time with you."

"Now that sounds more believable. Get a fresh T-shirt," she said as he picked up the one she had discarded and pulled it on.

"This one smells of the two of us. And sex. I like it."

"That should sound gross, but it doesn't."

"Coming round to my way of thinking, are you?"

"You're a bad influence." She caught the T-shirt, pulled him to her and kissed him.

He kissed her back, slowly and lingeringly. "I try."

As they crossed the cluttered and dusty open area in front of the factory doors, Buffy paused suddenly.

"There it is again. That vamp feeling."

"Here?" He turned in a circle. "I can't pick up anything."

"Neither can I anymore. I think my Slayer sense is playing up."

His arm came around her shoulders. "Maybe you're tired."

"Maybe." She grinned at him. "It's been a very full week."

He laughed, deep in his throat. "Is that how I make you feel? Full?"

"Oh, yeah."

"We're going the wrong way." He swung her right around and headed back towards the bedroom.

She laughed and pulled him around again. "C'mon. Quit kidding around. I've got to get home."

"Who's kidding?" But he allowed her to haul him through the factory doors.

Spike had just had the best week of his entire existence. It wasn't just that Buffy let him make love to her. It was that she made love back, that she teased him and laughed with him and let him be part of her life. He had never been this happy before. He was living blissfully in the now, refusing to think of past or future, letting neither regrets nor hopes interfere with the present joy. It might not last, probably would not, which was why he held it fast while it was there, storing it up against the lean years.

It took physical force to get him to leave Buffy on her front porch; he kept kissing her whenever she tried to get in the door and she had to finally shove him down the steps, both of them laughing helplessly, before leaping into the house and locking the front door behind her. After that, he did a quick pass through a couple of cemeteries, too wired to go back to the factory right away. The way he felt, he could have taken on all the demons in the Hellmouth and licked them hands down.

He came running back into the factory, still with energy to burn. He tossed his duster over the couch in the central room that he and Buffy had turned into a livingroom, then headed towards the alcove that held his fridge for some blood. Something came barreling out of the shadows of the alcove, grabbed him and flung him into the open space in front of the loading ramp doors.

He landed on one shoulder, rolled and came halfway upright when something grabbed his T-shirt and ripped it off him.

"What the fuck..?" he roared and the fluorescents came on right across the factory, blinding him for a moment before his vampire sight had time to adjust. He swiped the back of his hand across his eyes and found himself staring at Angel looming over him with his fists clenched and his legs spread in a threatening stance.

"Angelus," he said softly and came smoothly to his feet. "So my girl was right when she said she sensed some vamp hanging about. Become a bit of a voyeur, have you? Oh, I forgot. You always were."

Angel's fists clenched even tighter. "I came in just as you two were leaving. And she's not your girl!"

"Isn't she?" Spike glanced across with a tight grin to where his T-shirt lay flung on the dusty floor several feet away. "Smell something you don't like?"

"You son of a bitch," rasped Angel. "How dare you? How dare you take what's mine?"

"Yours, is she? Didn't see the marks of a claim. Until then, the girl's her own."

"Why'd you do it, Spike? To get back at me because I could take Dru away from you whenever I liked?"

"Actually, no. Never even thought of Dru. But if it makes you feel the way I used to feel those times? Bonus."

"She doesn't love you."

"Didn't think she did." That was the truth, so the words didn't hurt him; he'd accepted that a long time ago. "Wants me though."

He had the satisfaction of seeing Angel flinch. It didn't last long.

"She's only sleeping with you because she can't sleep with me. I'm the one she wants."

Inside, Spike winced. That was exactly what he was afraid was true. He didn't let it show. One couldn't afford to show weakness to Angelus. He had a genius for finding the most vulnerable spot and cutting one up through it.

"Is that so? Then I suppose she's thinking about you the whole time I'm putting it to her."

Angel snarled into gameface. "You need to be taught your place, boy. It's been too long. You've forgotten."

Spike smiled grimly. "Won't be as easy as you think, Peaches. Was real easy for you before. You a master vampire with a hundred and twenty years experience behind you. Me a mere fledgling. Didn't have a chance then, did I? But it's been a hundred years since then. Things have changed."

"Nothing's changed," said Angel dangerously. He was bigger, stronger, had the longer reach. He had no doubts that he could teach the younger vampire the lesson he deserved. "It'll be easy this time too, Willy."

They were circling each other slowly.

"And you like things easy, don't you?" Spike mocked. "I was ready to take you a hundred years ago, but you got your soul and vanished. Went off to eat rats and wear hair shirts while I had fun fighting. Got the experience now, Angel. You can't take me. But I can take you."

"No, you'll just talk me to death." Angel rushed him. It was a ploy that had worked for him often before, his weight and strength carrying him over his opponents.

Spike slid to one side and hit him, a solid one-two that rocked Angel back against one of the load-bearing pillars. Angel swung around to stare at him, his eyes widening in surprise.

"Yeah," said Spike softly. He blocked the punch Angel threw at him. "How's the soul holding up? You Angel or Angelus? This about protecting Buffy or just because you're sodding jealous? Should be up to her, shouldn't it, which one of us she wants to be with?"

This time Angel's furious punch connected. "She doesn't know what she wants!"

"And you do." Spike hit him back. "She's her own person. She can make her own decisions."

"She's not thinking straight. Otherwise she wouldn't be with you!"

"Ah. And you're going to save her from herself."

They were in a whirl of motion now, slamming blows at each other.

"Someone has to," Angel gasped. "I love her."

"If you did, you wouldn't be running out on her."

"That's for her own good!"

"Ri-ight. You do that then." Spike gave him a grin that showed all his teeth. "I'll still be here, making her...happy."

"I'll claim her first!" snarled Angel, driven beyond reason.

All humor left Spike's face. It went utterly cold and lethal. "Don't you do that to her. I'll stake you before I let you do that to her."

Then his gaze went beyond Angel and his eyes widened.

"Break it up," Buffy commanded coldly.

Spike's arms dropped to his sides and he stepped back. Angel took advantage of the opportunity so suddenly presented to him and flung him against the wall, his hand closing on Spike's throat.

Then he froze, feeling the point of the stake against his back.

"Let him go, Angel."

"You'd dust me?" Angel said incredulously.

"I told you to break it up. Spike chose to listen to me. You didn't."

Angel let go reluctantly and stepped back. Spike stayed where he was, rubbing his throat absently as he leaned against the wall. Angel's actions didn't interest him. Angel wouldn't have been able to keep him pinned against the wall for long, even if Buffy hadn't intervened, and he was perfectly ready to pick up the fight from where it had left off should Angel start it up again. What he was really concerned about was the guilt trip Angel was sure to lay on Buffy.

Angel had turned and was staring reproachfully at Buffy. Buffy was looking back quite calmly, her brows faintly raised. The silence stretched out painfully.

"How'd you know he'd be here, pet?" Spike asked, more to break up that silence and divert Angel's judgmental stare from Buffy than because he really wanted to know.

"Apparently he saw us making out in the cemetery, then lost track of us. Mom told me he tried to get her to tell him where we were, but of course she didn't know and wouldn't tell him even if she did. I thought he might track you down, so I came to check out the situation."

"Ah."

"You're protecting him?" exclaimed Angel, affronted.

"I kinda like him in one piece."

"Thanks, pet, but it really wasn't necessary," said Spike. "He's not good enough to hurt me."

He gave Angel a tight, provoking grin when Angel turned to snarl at him. He wanted to keep Angel's attention on him rather than on Buffy.

But Angel had already turned back to Buffy. "You're sleeping with him."

"Yes."

"How could you? How could you let him touch you? He's...He's...Buffy, I thought we meant something to each other!"

"But you're leaving, Angel. You're going away to find yourself a new life far away from temptation."

"Yes, but..."

"What am I supposed to do? Sit here all pure and untouched like a nun?"

"I want you to have a normal life!"

"News flash, Angel. I'm the Slayer. I'm never going to have a normal life. Most Slayers don't even live to be twenty. I've got less than three years."

"You're gonna live to retire, pet," growled Spike. "‘M gonna make sure of that or dust trying."

"Shut up, Spike!" Angel snarled. "You have nothing to do with her. You have no rights here."

"I have whatever rights she gives me," he retorted. "Why don't you ask what rights you have?"

Angel made an uncontrolled movement in his direction, but Buffy stepped between the two of them.

"It's a valid remark, Angel," she said quietly. "You're taking a lot for granted."

Angel stared at her. "But you...But we...We love each other!"

"Do we?"

"You can't possibly be telling me that you love him!"

"I'm not." Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Spike slump just fractionally in defeat against the wall and turn his head away, not looking at either of them. "I'm not discussing Spike with you."

"Look," said Angel. "I'm sorry. I was just shocked and surprised. I understand why you did this. I really do. You couldn't sleep with me, so you slept with him."

Spike's face had turned to stone and his lips were pressed together into a tight, hard line, their corners pointed with strain. Buffy realized suddenly that he believed that what Angel said was true.

She laughed abruptly. "God, Angel! Ego much? I didn't sleep with Spike because I wanted to sleep with you. I slept with Spike because I wanted to sleep with Spike."

Spike's head whipped around and he stared at her, his eyes wide.

"Buffy, you can't mean that!" Angel exclaimed. "It's like...You're not...It's like you're saying you had an itch and scratched it. That's not the kind of girl you are!"

"No, it's not," she said. She saw that Spike was following her, but Angel still didn't have a clue. "But you don't know the kind of girl I am. You don't even want the kind of girl I really am. All you want is the perfect Slayer, the obedient dutiful girl up on her pedestal, following her ‘destiny'. Tell her what to do and she does it, like an automaton. Not."

She gave him a dangerous smile. Angel stared at her in disbelief.

"Buffy, you're getting this all wrong. I never thought of you like that. I..."

"Didn't you? It doesn't matter. I'm Buffy. I'm my own woman and I make my own decisions."

"Buffy, listen..."

"‘I'm doing this for her own good.' Isn't that what you said, Angel? But I want to decide what things are for my own good. You don't have the right to decide for me. I never gave you that right and I'm never going to."

"Look, someone had to make the decision. I can't stay here."

"Don't see why not. Oh, that's right. It's such a temptation."

"Yes," said Angel heavily, looking very grave.

"I'm sorry about that. It's very flattering. But, really, there's no danger, Angel. You can stay or you can go. As you please. It doesn't matter. You're not a temptation to me. Haven't been for some time."

Angel's jaw dropped and his eyes went completely round as he finally clued in. "You mean that he..."

"I told you before. I'm not discussing Spike with you, Angel."

Spike's whole face had gone soft and he was looking at her with his eyelids tensed and faintly strained, as if he were looking into a blinding light.

"You mean that you and he...No. You can't mean that. No." Angel shook his head like a bull harassed by stinging insects.

"What part of not discussing Spike didn't you understand, Angel?" Buffy demanded and snapped her fingers at him to get his attention. "What I want to discuss is that claim thing you talked about. What is a claim and why did Spike get so angry when you said you were going to claim me?"

"Oh, that!" Angel looked horrified and upset. If he hadn't been a vamp, she suspected that he would have been bright red with embarrassment. "I didn't mean that. I was just angry, just talking off the top of my head."

"Okay, I get that. But what is it? I think I noticed it in some of the books Giles has, but I was looking for other things at the time and didn't pay attention."

Angel looked down and then to the side, as if he were searching for some way to escape.

"It's a vampire thing, luv," said Spike. "It's a link between two vampires. It links them together for eternity. A double claim, where each of the pair claims the other, is like a marriage. Except no divorce is possible. It's irrevocable and can only be broken by death, and usually the death of one is so traumatic that the one surviving also dies shortly after. It's a way of, I don't know how to explain, owning each other, I guess. Separation causes physical pain, so neither can stay away from each other long."

"I see. And a single claim?"

"Well, that's a mark of ownership by the one making the claim. It's rare. Most vamps won't stand for a single claim. It's a mark of possession, like a leash put on you. The link is there, but the one making the claim has the power. It's like the hold a Master has over his minions. The Master can do anything he likes, but the minion has to obey."

Buffy gave Angel an accusing stare. "So you were going to leave, but still keep a hold over me, control me, still go on telling me what to do?"

Angel looked as if he were trying to disappear into the wall behind him. "I wouldn't have done it! I swear, Buffy! I was just angry! Saying things I didn't mean!"

Buffy suddenly had a horrible thought. "You mean any vamp I meet on the street while I'm slaying could decide to do that to me and I couldn't do anything about it?"

"No, no," said Spike reassuringly. "You have to agree. It can't be done without your consent."

"Then how..?"

"Well, you can be fooled into it if you didn't know what was happening." He rubbed his forehead, trying to find an easy way to explain. "See, it's like this. The usual way is to bite your partner, take a sip of blood and say, ‘Mine.' And, if your partner agrees, she says, ‘Yes,' or ‘Yours," or some such thing that signifies agreement. Got it?"

Buffy nodded. "Got it."

"Now, if you're trying to trick someone who doesn't know about it, you say, ‘Mine," and then you say something like, ‘Do say you're mine, sweetheart,' all romantic and whatnot. And if the partner says something as innocuous as, ‘Of course I am,' the thing's done. And it can't be undone. It's set in stone. Irrevocable. Easy if the other person doesn't know about claims."

Angel could have pulled that on her. She could see how simply that could have been made to happen. She frowned at Angel and he made a helpless gesture of appeal and distress.

She looked away from him and back at Spike, smiling crookedly. "Sounds as if you've done it."

He was affronted. "Never! I've never done that. Not to anyone."

She looked at him thoughtfully. "Have you wanted to? Could have done it to me any time this last week, couldn't you?"

He looked appalled. "God, no! Not against your will. To force a claim? That would be worse than a rape. It would take away all your choices. Would like to claim and be claimed, yeah. To belong to y..." He caught himself up. "Someone. God, yeah, I want it. But not like that! Never like that!"

"You didn't even think about it, did you?" She could see that he hadn't. Despite the way he felt about her and despite his conviction that she'd never love him, that she cared for Angel instead, it had never even occurred to him to do that. And, as he said, it would have been so easy. "Does it even work on a human? I mean, you said it was a vampire thing."

"As long as there's a vampire in the mix, it works."

"So a human could even initiate the claim, as long as the other person was a vampire."

"I suppose. But why would a human do that?" He grinned faintly. "Not a good thing to have a vamp permanently hanging around."

"Might have its benefits."

She looked at the two of them, both vampires, both with a soul, but so utterly dissimilar. It was like looking at night and day, darkness and light. Angel, static and unchanging, wanting peace and order, needing to be in control so that he could keep things in that order. Spike, the chaos figure, always in flux, always changing and reinventing himself, the poster boy for anarchy, the Fool in the Tarot deck always dancing on the edge of the abyss. Angel accepted things as they were. Spike never stopped looking for solutions. Angel kept himself to himself, never opened up for fear of getting hurt. Spike gave himself away with both hands, profligate and uncaring of hurt.

If she had been asked only a few weeks ago which one stood for darkness and which one stood for light, she would have had no problem answering. But now she found herself remembering the way Spike's soul had looked like during Jenny Calendar's test—silvery and very bright, full of light. She wondered what Angel's soul would look like.

Darkness and light. They even looked the part. And the light in Spike burned sunfire bright, very sure and steady. The only thing more steadfast was his love for her.

She looked at him leaning bare-chested against the wall, the bruises from his fight with Angel in no way diminishing his beauty. Beautiful and savage and deadly and hers. With every fiber of his being.

"Don't need to claim you to keep you around, do I?" she said. She came to him and put her hands lightly on his shoulders. "You belong to me already. You're my dog, isn't that what you said?"

He nodded, smiling wryly. "I'm your dog, Slayer. You own me."

She raised herself up on her toes to get the proper angle and struck like a snake, biting as hard as she could at the junction between his neck and shoulder. She felt him jerk against her as all the breath left him in shock, heard Angel make a sound as if he had been punched right in the gut. A little blood welled up in the bite. She tasted it coppery on her tongue, swallowed and said firmly:

"Mine."

His knees nearly gave. She felt the shift in his balance, then he braced himself dazedly against the wall.

"Yours," he breathed in a shaky whisper. "Always yours, Slayer. Till I'm dust."

She tilted her head sideways, offering her neck to him. He stared at her incredulously, his eyes full of disbelief and awe.

"Buffy?"

"Complete it, Spike."

Angel was saying something indignant and furious, coming towards them.

"Angel, if you interfere," she said clearly, "I will kill you."

Angel stopped. Spike hadn't even looked in his direction. He was staring at her as if she were the only thing that existed in the entire universe.

"Buffy," he whispered. "Buffy, are you sure?"

"I'm sure. I want it. I want you. Want you to be mine. Want to be yours."

His arms swept around her, closing about her shoulders and her waist, crushing her so tightly to him that she felt that their bones would fuse together. His head dropped to her neck and she felt his lips brush her, light and cool against her skin. She felt the shuddering exhalation of his breath, then his fangs slid with exquisite delicacy into the vein at the side of her neck. She felt the draw as he drank and a sensation of voluptuous pleasure thrilled through her, a languorous rapture. She sighed contentedly and leaned into him.

His fangs retracted and he licked the puncture marks to seal them.

"Mine," he said very quietly, reverently.

"Yours," she agreed.

She could almost feel the click, as of something slotting irrevocably into place. Like fingers interlinking or jigsaw puzzle pieces interlocking. Everything was suddenly just so right.

"Angel," she said. "Go away."

Angel went. They ignored him. He was utterly irrelevant to them, an unimportance barely on the edge of their consciousness.

"Why?" Spike whispered. "Buffy, why?"

"Because I love you," she said, running her hands over him, caressing his naked shoulders and chest and back.

He was trembling against her, shaking uncontrollably.

"This can't be happening," he muttered disbelievingly. "Things this right don't happen to me."

"They do now."

She kissed him sweetly and he caught her to him and kissed her over and over again.

"Say it again."

She smiled against his mouth. "I love you."

"Oh, God! Buffy! Buffy!"

There were tears in his eyes. She wrapped her arms around his head and kissed them away.

"Love you, Will."

"Whistler must be having a cow," he muttered. "I really don't think this is what he intended to happen."

"You said he wanted me to be happy, right? And that a lot of nasty things don't happen to me. Well, they're not happening and I am happy. So you did what he wanted you to do."

"Yeah, but...Creature of the night here, yeah? Can't be right for a Slayer. A Slayer is of the light."

"A Slayer is of the dark too. It's like that yin yang symbol. Light with a spot of darkness. Darkness with a spot of light." She touched his face lightly. "More than a spot, in fact. Look at you. Creature of darkness, but full of light."

"Buffy..."

"It's true, Will. That's why the PTB sent you here. We balance each other. It's right. It's exactly right. And if Whistler turns up, trying to change things, I'm going to rip off his head."

He laughed involuntarily. "I don't think he will, pet. He said he wouldn't interfere. He said I could do it all my way."

"And what is your way?"

He looked completely at a loss. "I don't really know, pet. I've just been struggling along, trying to do the right thing."

She kissed him softly. "Loving me. That's your way."

They looked at each other for a moment, she smiling and he totally taken aback. Then his face crumbled in surrender and he caught her to him.

"Love you always, pet."

"Love you too, Will." She gave him a wicked grin. "And now will you take me to bed? I want to see what it's like when we're claimed."

He laughed aloud and swept her up in his arms. "Oh, I think you'll like it."

She did.



The End