Disclaimer: the usual, everything Buffy belongs to Joss Whedon, I just borrow the characters for my own naughty and nefarious purposes.
Chapter 10
Buffy made a noise of deep disgust in the back of her throat. "Ew. Vampires and sparklies so do not mix. Spike, you are totally losing whatever sexy bad boy points you had left by goggling over the shiny things."
"Oh, shut it, Slayer." He dropped his gaze from the crystal ball holding his soul and when he turned to look at her his habitual mask of sly cockiness was set firmly in place, as if it had never faltered. "I was bad enough to get Dru to spill about your soul, and that crazy bint can take some seriously twisted workin' over. Had her beggin', I did. You remember begging, don't you, Buffy? " He curled his tongue obscenely behind his teeth in a snarling smirk, his use of her name somehow inappropriately intimate.
"Fuck you, Spike. If it weren't for my brat sister," she jerked her head, gesturing at Dawn, "I'd be thoroughly enjoying bringing your favorite grandsire back to play. You want to talk badness and exes, and I will trump you every time, rollerboy."
"Oi!" Spike began, but Anya interrupted him before the pair could degenerate into further taunting.
"Would you two stop? I need to concentrate on summoning my ex and manipulating him into helping us, and you've got the sexual tension in the room up to extremely distracting levels." The vampire and Slayer continued to scowl at each other, but fell silent. "Good. Now, we've got the binding circle laid out, how did that summoning ritual go again…?" Anya mused to herself and then began chanting and lighting candles set up around a diagram made of salt and red sand on the floor. There was a tense, expectant hush after her words fell away and they all waited to see what would appear in the circle. Nothing happened. Anya let out a little grunt of frustration and was about to blow out the candles and try again when there was a sudden pricking thickness to the air, then a little pop, and a blue humanoid figure materialized in the center of the circle.
"Anyanka! You, you called!" There was a note of wonder in the demon's voice. He stood maybe six feet tall, and was covered in shimmering bluish-green scales. His head sprouted a mane of wild, indigo hair more reminiscent of something from a 1980's hair band than a powerful, dimension-creating demon. And far from being furious and intimidating as everyone had expected from Anya's trepidation about calling him, everything in his voice and posture spoke of longing.
Anya sighed. "Yes, Joe, I called."
"Does this mean you want to," he bit his lip, "give me a second chance?"
Spike cringed at the hope in his eyes, the poor sap. That look was far, far too familiar for comfort, and he knew from experience that it did not lead to anything remotely pleasant. He hoped the bird didn't come down too hard on the guy.
"I'm sorry, nothing's changed."
Joe's face fell, "then why…?"
"You said if I ever needed help with anything, I could count on you. And I need help now. It's really, really, important."
The demon seemed to swallow his hurt and when he answered his voice was steady. "Right, I did. So, um, what did you need?" He tried to take a step towards Anya, but jolted back as he knocked into the invisible barrier extending up from the diagram on the floor. He looked down, noticing it for the first time. "You bound me?" The hurt was back in his eyes, now accompanied by anger.
"Well, yes. But it was only a precaution. You know you tend to get a little grabby, and well, I'm an engaged woman, and I can't have exes getting all touchy-feely!" Anya blurted.
"Engaged?" he roared, "you called me here to help you after years of no contact and you just conveniently neglected to mention that you're getting married!" His eyes fell on the only other male in the room, "Oh no. Tell me it's not the vampire. Please tell me you haven't fallen in love with a vampire!"
"Oi! I'm right here! I'll have you know vampires are perfectly respectable members of the underworld!" Spike burst into the conversation, indignant.
Anya rolled her eyes at him before turning back to her jilted ex-lover. "No, it's not the vampire. My fiancé is a very powerful demon of, con- I mean, de-struction! Yeah, he's huge on the destruction! Not the kinda guy you want to upset!"
"Oh please, Xander's—" Buffy began derisively.
Tara cut her off with a few hastily muttered words in Latin and a gentle touch on the forehead and the Slayer slumped forward on the cot. "I, um, thought maybe I should put her to sleep to get ready for the consciousness-transferring spell." The other girls, and Spike, shot her grateful glances.
"Consciousness-transferring spell? What have you gotten yourself into, Anyanka? I don't even know if I should help you. You clearly only called because you were desperate, not like you wanted to see me or anything… And you're hanging out with humans and vampires, I bet I'm too demon for you now. Was it the greenish tint to my scales? It was wasn't it? I knew I should have had them dyed…" he trailed off sulkily.
"Oh, now don't be silly, the green is quite attractive, it highlights your eyes."
"You think so?" he asked, mollified.
"Yes. In fact, I know someone else who'd be very interested to make your acquaintance as a," she paused, shooting a glance at Dawn, "um, a grown up friend. I think you'll like her. She's a vengeance demon like me."
"Really?" Joe sounded interested, "is she pretty? You know how much I love a woman with well-defined facial veins."
"Oh yeah, Halfrek's a great beauty. I'll let you know how to call her if you just do this one itty bitty little favor for me, what do you say?" Anya wheedled.
Joe caved. "Yeah, ok. What do you need?"
"We-ell, you know how you told me that it was possible to do the whole dimensional soul extraction thing in reverse? I um, kinda need you to do that for these two." She gestured to Spike and Buffy.
"That's disgusting! If anyone found out, they'd think I had an eating disorder!"
"Oh come on, please? No one will know, and I'll set you up with Halfrek, and…" Anya searched for something else when it seemed like he wasn't going to budge, "and if you're not helpful I'll be forced to tell your mother that when we thought I was pregnant, you wanted to raise the baby to be a secular demonist!"
At that Joe the demon's purple eyes bugged out a little and he made emphatic 'no' motions with his clawed hands, bringing a chuckle to the vampire's lips. "I'll help, I'll help! What's a little Roman feast once in a while, anyway?"
"Great! Tara, you get Buffy in Spike, and we can get this show on the road!" Anya said, pleased with herself and leering a little at the unintentional innuendo.
"Yeah, of course. Baby, get ready to feed me some energy, ok?" She looked to Willow, the exhaustion starting to show around her eyes, then lit the two bowls of herbs she had set out earlier. She placed one at Buffy's feet, beckoned Spike over to them, and placed the other at his. He watched her take a small bottle from her purse and pour an inch of slick oil into a shallow dish. "Ok, Spike, I need you to dip your left palm into the oil and then take Buffy's hand in yours." He bit back a twinge of anxiety and did as he was told, slicking his palm before gently taking Buffy's hand and lacing his fingers through hers. Tara placed one hand over Buffy and Spike's clasped fists, and held onto Willow with the other. She began to hum wordlessly, more of a winding tune than a chant, long, haunting vowels rising in volume as she went on. For the third time that night the air in the room thickened and buzzed with magic.
Buffy's previously limp fingers went rigid, twining harder with Spike's, and the thin layer of oil between them started to prick and spark electrically, painfully. Fuck I hope Glinda knows what the hell she's doing, Spike had time to think before the little shocks went from annoyance to a rushing jolt he felt in his bones. He let out a roaring bellow. The vampire and Slayer remained joined for a shuddering second, locked in an explosive surge of power before they were both thrown back hard, crashing into opposite walls of the room.
He was muddled from smashing his head into the cinderblock walls of the basement, but he could still feel her. She was quiet, heavy, but he could feel her in him. Filling him. He gasped for air he didn't need, almost overpowered by the conviction that the bolt of magic had somehow restarted his heart, unable to ignore the sense that something inside was beating so heard it would break his chest. His hand moved of its own accord, lifting slowly to rest on his breast, his eyes going wide when he felt only familiar stillness. "Buffy…"
"She won't 'wake up' for a little while, because of the sleeping spell I put on her, but Buffy's consciousness is within you now," Tara said softly, her tone providing more comfort than the simple information of her words. Spike said nothing, just nodded, still adjusting to feeling Buffy-presence in his toes, in his hair, buzzing in his lips and stinging behind his eyes.
Dawn and Willow moved to adjust Buffy's unconscious body where it slumped twisted, still in chains, against the wall of the basement. Dawn stroked her sister's hair tenderly. "So, she'll just stay like this? Like a coma, until Spike gets back with their souls?"
"Yes Dawnie, her body will stay asleep until she gets back, but don't worry, she'll be totally healthy. We can take turns being Buffy-nurses, and you can paint her nails!" Willow reassured the younger Summers sister, who rolled her eyes to hide the flash of worry in them.
"Umm, this seems like an important moment for you guys, but um, I kinda have someplace I need to be. So, if we could get my part of this out of the way?" Joe butted in awkwardly.
"Yeah, I'd like to get the fuck out of Sunnyhell and onto my luxurious holiday as well, if you don't mind," Spike added, his voice just a tiny bit too loud.
Everyone nodded. "So, how's this work then?" he asked.
"Usually I do this with folks who have their souls in their bodies, but this is a special case. Why don't you just hold the two souls, and then, well, I guess it'll be obvious." When Joe finished speaking, instead of closing his mouth he opened it wider. All of a sudden his perfectly proportionately sized mouth was stretching bigger and bigger, his jaw literally extending to the floor. A long, snakelike, blue tongue rolled out like a carpet from between ivory teeth longer than Spike's forearm.
"Oh balls. I have to go in there, don't I?" Spike stared at the swirling dimensional portal at the back of the demon's throat. He tucked the two soul-filled globes into the side pockets of his duster and turned back to the Scoobies before heading in. "Right then, this is awkward. You lot watch after the little Bit, or I'll rip your throats out, and er, take care of yourselves. I'll bring Buffy back good as new. Oh, and by the way, keep an eye out for Drusilla, she's escaped. Well, I'm off then!"
Before any of them could process that information or say anything to stop him, Spike was running forward, booted feet pounding down the welcome-mat of the demon's tongue and catapulting him head first through the cloudy swirl at the back of his throat.
Hunger. Hunger so strong he thought it would rip and gnaw its way out of his belly just to be sated. And fear. Fear caking him like the mud under his nails and sucked into his nostrils, and eyes, and bleeding out his knuckles and everything pushing too close too hard, crushing him, suffocating. Then he was struggling, clawing upwards, gulping air, and water pouring down his throat and into his lungs, and that smell. That smell attacked him, filling his nose and mouth and throat and suddenly everything else was gone. He wrenched himself from the ground and screamed as his gums split and his bones crunched and pain and power and hunger took over, vibrating through every inch of skin and cord of muscle, and demanding blood, now.