The End of the World

*Note: This is a fic inspired by my reading of the transcripts for "Crush" and "The Gift". (And before you ask, yes, I said *transcripts*. The real eps have yet to make it here). So a thank you to all transcribers out there. Before I set this up, I must a) say I'm not making a baht out of all this, b) apologize for my tendency to ramble on in these notes and c) apologize again for extended melodrama after the getting on bit. I was just in that mood. I don't know now if this is worth you suffering through this. Okay, to the point. I was inspired by reading the scene in "The Gift" where Buffy and Spike go to her house to secure weapons, and that whole thing with him saying she'll never love him (hear my heart breaking?) and so forth. I saw that there is essentially an entire scene missing after that - or at least, there could have been. So here it is - what happened after Buffy went up the stairs.


Her footsteps sounded almost inaudibly on the stairs. She knew he was still looking up at her, with those eyes, those hungry, hungry eyes. But not a frightening hunger, not bloodlust - just lust. It sent small tremors up and down her spine. To be that desired...she hadn't been the focus of such intensity in such a long time.
She reached the top of the stairs and her bedroom. The door opened slowly with a single push. It was dark in there except for moonlight. Fitting, she thought. The world might end tonight exactly as it had begun. In darkness.
The slayer entered, taking her time, precious time she knew she did not have. His words echoed in her mind. Not just those he'd said a moment ago - "I know you'll never love me." Said with such unmasked pain, pain she never thought one of his kind could feel. But all those words he'd said to her when he declared his love. "You can't deny it." he'd said. So smug, so typical of him. "There's something between us." She'd violently denied it. How could he ever suggest such a thing? *Him* and her? Vampire and slayer? Of course, there was a precedent. Angel. But she'd convinced herself that was different. It'd be the end of the world before she ever felt that way about Spike.
That was just it. It *was* the end of the world. Or almost. True, she'd been through apocalypses before. Yet, dire though they had all been, they had never felt this...final. This conclusive. She had the worst sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. But her body felt something else altogether.
She sat down on the bed and it sagged under her weight. The door was ajar and light from downstairs spilled in ever so faintly. He was still down there. " I'm drowning in you, Summers, I'm drowning in you." The phrase reverberated through her confused mind, the clearest thought of all. He was waiting down there, like he'd said, "I'll be here." She didn't want him down there. She wanted him up here.
"Spike." she whispered, virtually without sound. Buffy knew he would still hear though.
His heavy footsteps clambered up the stairs. Hesitantly, she could hear. He paused just beyond the door, so that he was shielded from her sight and she wondered if he knew. She barely did.
Then he was inside the room, his expansive form blocking practically all the light, so that the room was lit solely in moonglow. Buffy raised her arms, like a small child waiting to be embraced. Spike blinked, perplexity rippling over his features. He flexed the muscles in his arms, unconsciously preparing for battle. Even in the dark, she could see the confusion in his eyes, transformed then into delight. It was like watching the sun set - beautiful and swift.
Her mouth opened, and her pink tongue came out to sweep over her upper lip, invitingly. He came towards her, catching her up against him. His mouth closed over her ear. "What's this?" he breathed.
She placed both hands alongside his head and pushed so that he was facing her. She gazed directly into his eyes, eyes that she had always thought were cold, but were now alive with a raging fire. The fire was for her, and she felt it bathing her, warming every part of her being like no other fire could. She spoke softly, her hands slipping underneath his long leather coat. "The end of the world."
The coat was off, and then Buffy's hands were under his shirt, pressed on the flesh beneath, cool flesh that warmed beneath her fingertips. Spike moaned as she teased him with those fingertips, tracing fiery human warmth across cool vampire skin. Bewildered, he rasped, "But Buffy, the others, your sister..."
She slapped him across the face. His expression was one of pure shock. "No," she hissed. "There is nothing else. It's the end of the world - and it's you and me."
She lay back on the bed so that he was straddling her. "Baby," he exhaled. He hurriedly undressed her, and drew an unneeded breath. Her body was as magnificent as he'd always imagined. Muscles rippled everywhere. Raw power emanated from every single pore. God, she was beautiful. He wanted nothing more than to look and look, for days, for eternity. But time was of the essence.
"Take me," she commanded. He was only too glad to comply.
Spike pinned her wrists down and began kissing her. "Harder," she murmured as his mouth moved to her neck. The kisses became faster and more furious, generating a heat of their own. Buffy moaned.
"Oh, God, slayer, you teased me with this body for so long..."
His hands slipped under her bottom, lifting her up, crushing her to him. Buffy began kissing him back, her eyes shut tightly, so that all her other senses became more alert. Her body had never been so alive, so sensitive to the faintest touch. The primitive smell of him, the feel of him, the taste of him - why had she resisted before? She'd missed so much by being arrogant and close-minded. Oh, God, Spike...
Spike himself was in heaven. He never thought he'd get there, personification of evil that he was, but here he was. Feeling the slayer beneath him was the most excruciating pleasure he could ever have wished for. It was different from the kill, so terribly different. He had no desire to hurt her, unless she wanted that. Instead, what he wanted was the sweet melody of her calling out his name. "Say my name," he whispered in her ear. "God, say it! Scream it!"
"Spike!" Her voice echoed through the empty house, filled with ecstasy.
He moved inside her as easily as wading through melted butter. She was as warm and soft and honeyed as he could ever have dreamed. Her hips rocked back and forth, and her mouth was open in a perfect 'O' of desire. He pounded against her, but not violently, not painfully. Perhaps for any other human, his actions would have inflicted searing pain, but for Buffy, whose body was molded for punishment, it was the sweetest agony in all of her short life. She wanted to share that altogether private bliss his body was giving her, but its equivalent could only be pain.
She raked her fingernails across his back, not enough to draw blood, but to injure, slightly. But all he could feel was *her*. To have her like this was indescribable, completely beyond the realm of coherent communication.
He moaned as her body responded to his motions, responded more resoundingly than either of his other lovers. It had never been like this with the others - the other two women who'd occupied his bed whose names he didn't wish to recall, but also, the countless victims he had claimed during his years of undeath. The moment of penetration, when their blood had come gushing over his lips, and with it, their lives - he'd thought that was the pinnacle of sensation. He'd been wrong, as wrong as he'd been to think that the only way he'd ever have the slayer as a man has a woman was if he took her by brute force. The end of the world was turning out to be the best thing that had ever happened to him.
Buffy's back arched as she reached the zenith of physical passion. She had never imagined it could feel so utterly *good*. She'd been a virgin before this night, she was sure of it. The dull corporeal acts she had tolerated with other men, even that other vampire she'd dare to have believed was her soulmate, paled immensely in comparison with the fervor that now gripped her. It was a raging fire, no, an inferno, that was between her legs, shooting up her spine, her stomach. Such intense animal heat soared through her, she wondered vaguely why she hadn't yet combusted.
Spike's hands sought the taut muscles of her shoulders to raise her up. He was going to make her look into his eyes at the exact moment her body endured enough and succumbed to the madness that was pure, unadulterated carnal pleasure. She bucked wildly against him, and he steadied her with his hands. Her eyes were closed, but he pried them gently open with his thumbs. Her breathing was rapid and staccato. Even the slayer's body has its breaking point.
"Come for me, baby." he said, in a voice low with desire.
As if on cue, her spasmic movements ceased for the briefest heartbeat. They both waited, fused together, and it was if the world took a breath. Then, she came in roaring, earthquake glory and for an instant, Spike thought he saw the sun. Bloody fools who thought the female orgasm was a myth had obviously never seen the slayer climax.
She gave one piercing cry of "Spike!" before collapsing backwards onto the bed. His mouth curved into a satisfied smile, but he also noticed tears on his cheeks. When had he cried them? He had no idea. It frightened him what a powerful affect this coupling with the slayer had had on him. He rolled off of her to lay by her side, hurriedly brushing away the wetness, less she see them glisten in the light of the moon.
Her eyes were closed again, and he could hear a soft whimpering. "What is it, kitten?" he murmured, running a finger along the curve of her neck. "Was I too rough?"
Buffy was too drained to speak. Every fiber of her being was reeling from her encounter with Spike. An encounter that had lasted mere minutes, but had felt like a lifetime of emotion. Was he too rough? She wanted to laugh. He was so rough he'd bruised her in places that usually felt no pain, yet so gentle he'd healed parts she'd never thought could be healed. God, he was a contradiction. So was this, though. Sleeping with the enemy on the night when all might end. The end of the world was a weird occurrence indeed.
Her eyes flew open as she felt his tongue lap at a crevice near her collarbone. "No more," she said firmly. The licking halted abruptly, and she almost wished she hadn't said a thing, allowed him to continue. It felt so overpoweringly wonderful, like his lovemaking. Only in slow motion.
He bowed his head in agreement, and in the dark, she felt him leave the bed. The sudden lightness made her want to cry. She saw him dress with no hesitation since the dark was his friend, and he knew it well. He was practically made of it, except for the platinum of his hair, and a luscious shiver overtook her as she thought of how she'd invited that darkness inside her just moments before. He held up her clothes to her, but she shook her head. She could feel him gazing silently at her, contemplating. Then, he nodded, and dropped the clothes back onto the bed. He rounded the bed and stood once again in front of the door, concealing the light.
"Uh, I'll be downstairs. Waiting." Spike looked at her, knowing she couldn't see him in the dark, but that she knew, anyhow, knew that he was looking. Did she also know how this dismissal pained him? He felt like...a whore. A deeply satisfied whore, but a whore nonetheless. Her next words were like a stake through the heart.
"Don't expect me to ever mention this." she told him, her voice resolute, yet child-like in a way.
It took all his resolve to nod, and then to say, "I know." Still, there was a catch in his voice, and though he hadn't felt them the first time, now he was acutely aware of the tears flowing freely down his pallid cheeks.
He turned quickly away, shielding them from her sight. She must never know. Although he'd said the words, made it clear how he felt about her, she would never know how incredibly, deeply, heartbreakingly he loved her. Not just desired, or wanted, but *loved* with a hunger that no amount of physical contact, no matter how intimate, could ever subdue. It went beyond the body, beyond the spirit - it was a passion even a vampire, that dances forever on the precipice between life and death, the only creatures who can ever truly experience that feeling, could not explain. Spike couldn't explain it. He only knew he felt it when he looked in the slayer's eyes, and the moment he entered the room, he knew that a part of him was never leaving. It was truly the end of the world for him. Before, he could have pretended there was some escape, some asylum for his tortured state. No longer.
He angrily brushed away his tears and turned back into the room. He strode purposefully towards the bed, where the slayer was sitting upright, sheets pulled up to her neck. The golden skeins of her hair beckoned, but again, time was crucial. Any moment, she might decide she'd had enough and just kill him. She'd never been able to do it before, but tonight was different. It was the end of the world.
Her face looked up at him in surprise. He would not be swayed. She'd gotten what she'd wanted. It was his turn. The lovemaking, yes, he'd wanted that, too. But this was his true prize.
He bent down, and she moved away automatically. He caught her face and pulled it towards him. In the moonlight, he could see the fear and puzzlement reflected in her eyes. She thought he was going to kill her, or turn her, or something. Spike almost laughed out loud at the thought, if not for the gravity of the situation.
"Kiss me," he whispered. His voice was determined. "Of your own accord. Kiss me."
Relief flooded her features. Yet, she didn't respond. Spike didn't care, he was beyond caring. Screw her willingness. His mouth closed over hers. It was so sweet, like it was coated in sugar. His lips kneaded hers, and amazingly, he realized she was kissing him back. Her hands ran through his short hair. Her tongue slipped into his mouth, and locked with his own. They were making love again, but only with their tongues. Then, abruptly, it was over. She was pulling him away by his hair. "No more," she repeated.
She raised a finger towards the door. Spike took one last lingering look at the mouth of the slayer, pink and moist, and sighed. He walked out of the door and paused in the hallway. "I'll be waiting. We're gonna stop the end of the world, aren't we?" he asked, meekly.
"Yes." was her only answer. He looked, one more time, one final time, nodded and strode down the steps.
Buffy licked her lips, tasting again Spike's flavor. Salty, with a touch of spice. She was glad she hadn't scared him off so fast. She thanked the heavens for his audacity. Without it, she would never have known what a kiss, a real kiss, could taste and feel like. It would have been sad if the world had ended and she had never truly been kissed.
She groped for her clothes in the semi-darkness and stood up to put them on. Hoping she was dressed more or less accurately, because she was in no mood for questions, she smoothed back the bedsheets as much as she could. No one would ever know what had passed here tonight. Spike was many things, and loyal was chief among them. He could be trusted to never tell. If she died tonight, if he died tonight, their secret died with them, and even if she didn't want to admit it, that was a true shame. It was a shame that the only man capable of making the slayer thrash and kick in delicious, unbridled pleasure, of making her scream out his name with fevered abandon, was the vampire that had tormented her for years. Issues worth contemplating, but not tonight.
Tonight could be the end of the world. And downstairs, Spike was waiting.