Author's Note: Some warnings for this chapter. It contains an odd blend of fluff, sex and horror. If that doesn't sound like your cup of tea, you might just want to scroll down and only read the last few lines of the chapter.
He awoke to the pleasant sensation of a soft, warm body curled against his naked flesh. His mind felt hazy, but utterly content, and he absently ran his fingers through the dark hair of the woman pressed against him. It was strange for her to be there. All of the women he'd been intimate with recently had fled his room as soon as the deed was done and they had coin in their hand. But if she wished to linger, he certainly wasn't going to complain. This one seemed especially beautiful, an added bonus.
"Welcome back, love," she murmured sleepily, her head rising from his chest as she graced him with a smile. "You've been out cold for hours."
His eyebrows rose up in surprise at her warm reaction. Not a whore then.
"I know this will sound terribly strange given…er…circumstances," he said with a faint blush, his eyes darting down towards their state of undress, "but do I know you, madam? I vaguely recall a woman of your description accosting me in an alleyway. God, but she was a vision. There was something so utterly hypnotic about her…as if she could see into my very soul and pluck out its secrets. She drew me in with beautiful words, words that whispered my innermost desires, but then something changed. Her face became fierce and bestial, and after that, all I can remember is pain. However, the longer I gaze upon you, the more firmly I believe that you and she are not the same person. But I…I cannot fathom how I could have gone from bleeding in an alleyway to lounging in a bed with you, much as it shames me to admit it. I actually can't recall much of anything after that bizarre attack. Trying to remember is like looking through a deep fog. All I see are shadows. Nothing is clear."
"You went through a bit of…trauma…recently," Dawn said nervously. "From what I understand, a little memory loss is normal, but it should all come back to you eventually."
"Well, I remember my name at least. I'm William," he said with a soft smile.
A frown flitted across Dawn's face. She hadn't realized the memory loss would be so severe. She'd only had a few vague descriptions from musty old Watcher journals to go on, after all. A jolt of panic raced through her chest. What if she'd permanently erased everything he'd experienced as a vampire…over a hundred years worth of memories, just gone?
"William? As in William the Bloody?" she asked tentatively.
William winced, a pained expression crossing his face. "I see you are familiar with my loathed nickname then. Is my poetry truly that terrible?" he asked.
"Poetry?" Dawn replied, suppressing a giggle as a small bit of mirth pierced through the panic in her heart. She'd forgotten the real source of that nickname. "You haven't actually written me any poetry yet."
"I lured you in with my charm alone, did I then?" he asked, grinning at her with a crooked smile.
"Something like that," Dawn replied, crawling over him to straddle his waist. When her memories had been lost, Spike had still been able to reach out to her through touch. Her body had responded even when her mind could not. Through their link, she could sense his mind struggling to remember her. But even without his memories, she could feel the surge of affection and desire racing through him as he looked upon her. For once, his mind was free of the rage that always seemed to boil just beneath the surface.
She drank in the sight of his glowing smile, not knowing if she'd ever see him so carefree again. She leaned down to kiss him gently, mentally sending him a glimpse of their earlier love-making. She only sent him select pieces, images free of blood and fangs and eyes glowing with need. Instead, she focused on the passionate kisses, the tender moments, and the look of absolute adoration he'd had in his eyes through it all.
"I'm Dawn," she said as she continued to pepper his skin with soft kisses. "And I actually know you by a different name. You've always been Spike to me."
"How on earth did I acquire such a bizarre name?" he mused absently as his fingers explored the soft skin of her back.
Dawn slid her hand down his chest to grasp the hardness she felt stirring underneath her. William let out a surprised gasp, but he made no moves to stop her. With a sultry smile, she positioned herself over him before sinking down, sheathing him inside of her in one fluid motion. "You always told me it was because you had a talent for…impaling…things," she replied, her voice heavy with desire.
William let out a soft moan. "Who am I to argue with a lady?" he grinned.
With a laugh, he rolled with Dawn until he was positioned on top. "You are the most exquisite creature I've ever seen," he murmured into her ear. "I'm sure when my memory is fully restored, it will prove me right and I will compose entire books of odes in your honor."
Dawn cupped the side of his face, letting her fingers sink into his hair. "I don't need pages of poetry. I just want you to remember me…remember us. Without you, I'd be lost, in ways you can't even begin to imagine. I…I love you," she said softly, and for the first time since she'd regained her own memories, she meant it, down to the depths of her soul.
William let out a sigh of pleasure. "And I love you. Even without my memories, I can feel in my heart that this is true."
Dawn gently ran her nails down his back as she arched her hips against him. "How about you take a stab at earning your new nickname?" Dawn said with an impish grin. Even though her body was slightly sore from their earlier activities, she felt the compulsive need to experience all she could of Spike before this new-found innocence was lost forever.
"A wish such as that is easily granted," William replied.
He stared at Dawn with a wonder-struck look, as if he expected her to disappear at any moment, like a pleasant dream that vanishes upon waking. He couldn't fathom how he'd managed to earn the love of such a remarkable woman, but he certainly wasn't going to protest her affections. He'd been searching his entire life for the love he saw shining in her eyes, and he wanted more than anything to reclaim the memory of every moment he'd shared with her.
When he began to move within her, his motions were deliberately gentle. He planned to etch the memory of her into his very skin so that he could never forget such a treasure again. He drew out each thrust, stretching every moment to the limits of his endurance. Dawn attempted to speed his motions, her hands grasping at his hips, but he continued his languid pace, taking time to enjoy the little details. The slide of her smooth skin against his…the way her breath caught in her throat every time he sank fully into her…they way her eyes burned with desire as they gazed upon him. William drank in all of this, her love like cool water to his thirsty spirit.
And through it all, sensual images from earlier in the night flitted through his head. Like motes in the sun, the memories danced away from his grasp when he tried to claim them as his own, but they never disappeared completely. He contented himself to bask in their warmth while doing his best to burn the new memories he was creating firmly into his mind. He drank in every detail of Dawn as he continued to worship her with his body. The flat planes of her stomach, the swell of her breasts, the curve of her smile…they were all a delight to him, a gift that he wasn't quite certain he deserved.
He dragged out their love-making for as long as he could, until they were both sweaty and panting with need. However, even though he felt filled with an unfamiliar strength, he could not force his body to endure indefinitely. The pleasure building within him was a siren call too powerful to resist forever. Gradually, his careful motions increased in speed, hastened even more by Dawn's encouraging whimpers and moans as she writhed beneath him. His thrusts became less deliberate and more need-driven as his release drew near.
But as he neared the peak of pleasure, new memories began surfacing in his mind, bizarre images that somehow managed to mesh seamlessly with the tender memories that had already been awakened. They were in a cemetery, seated in the grass between headstones. He saw Dawn cradled in his arms, her lips stained with blood, glistening ruby red. Her eyes flashed with an inner green light, and her pale skin glowed like moonlight, filled with power.
William buried his face against Dawn's shoulder, trying to reconcile the goddess in his memories with the image of the woman beneath him. He placed frantic kisses against the skin of her neck, trying to prove to himself that she was nothing but flesh and blood…just a girl…not a terrifying creature of ancient power. After the strange woman in the alley, he'd had more than his fill of otherworldly beauty. But then an even more disturbing vision flared to life in his mind.
He saw himself with his teeth buried in her throat, eagerly glutting himself on her blood. William would swear that his canines actually grew longer in response to this memory, their tips suddenly needle-sharp against the inside of his lips. Her pulse seemed to leap out at him, visibly throbbing against her skin, and he had the animalistic urge to bite down and release her lifeblood into his eager mouth. Even more horrifying, Dawn seemed to somehow recognize this terrible desire within him, and she urged him forward, murmuring "yes, oh yes," as her hands grasped his head and guided his lips to her throat.
William removed Dawn's hands from his head, pinning them firmly into the mattress as he forced his lips away from her tempting neck. His eyes were wide with terror, and his breaths came in labored gasps. Suddenly, his muscles convulsed, causing him to grasp Dawn's wrists in a bruising grip as a white-hot bolt of pain lanced through his head. When he heard Dawn's startled cry of pain, he released her wrists and pushed himself to his knees. Instinctively, his hands flew to cover his eyes in a vain attempt to shut out the nightmares suddenly filling his mind.
"Spike, what's wrong?" Dawn asked, the heat of her desire rapidly cooling as a tendril of ice-cold fear wormed its way into her heart.
William fearfully let his hands drop to his side. But as looked down at her, his eyes filled with a golden fire, and it was not Dawn that he saw. All of the tender memories that had been soothingly washing over his mind were gone, swept away in a flood of grotesque images that perverted the beauty splayed out beneath him.
He saw Dawn with her head tilted at an unnatural angle, her neck broken. He saw her with her throat savagely ripped open, her naked flesh covered in blood and a look of surprised horror frozen on her face. He saw her with her face covered in cuts, her beautiful chestnut hair crudely hacked off. He saw her lips blue with asphyxiation, the bruises circling her throat bearing the imprint of his hands. He saw her split open, gullet to garters, as he feasted on her heart's blood. Over and over again, visions of horror cycled before his eyes, causing him to let out a wail of despair.
Through their connection, Dawn was able to see what Spike was experiencing. When they'd first reestablished their blood bond the day before, she'd caught glimpses of the atrocities he'd committed as he pined for her, but now she was seeing them again in full Technicolor. Even though the knowledge of what he'd done caused bile to rise in the back of her throat, she cautiously pulled him back down into her embrace, trying to soothe away the pain.
"Hush, love, hush. It wasn't your fault," Dawn murmured.
"How can this be?" he asked, his voice full of anguish. "I remember murdering you…over and over again. And I enjoyed it. I can recall the wicked glee in my heart at each depravity. How can I have killed you dozens of times over and still have you here in my arms?"
"I won't lie to you…you did kill those girls. But they weren't me. You picked them because they looked like me…" Dawn replied cautiously.
"You…you knew this, and yet you still claim to love me? Perhaps I am not the only monster in the room," he said angrily, turning his face away from her in shame.
Dawn grabbed his face and forced him to look her in the eye. "You are not a monster," she said firmly. "The woman you remember attacking you in the alley…her name is Drusilla, and she infected you with a demon…turned you into a vampire. You may have a monster inside of you, but you are not the demon. I've seen you do wonderful things. You have such a potential for good in you."
"Vampires…demons? Fanciful tales to explain away the harsh reality, my pet," William replied. "Something is broken in my mind. I'm a psychopath and a murderer, and you'd do well to run away as far and as fast as you can," he said bitterly.
William tried to pull away from Dawn, but she desperately clutched him to her. "I swear to you, there is good inside of you," she said fiercely.
He grabbed her wrists, pinning her to the bed once more. When his memories began to resurface, his desire had fled, causing him to go limp, but now he felt himself growing rock hard once again. With a growl of anger, he rammed himself inside of her.
"You think I'm a good man?" he laughed harshly. "I enjoyed what I did to those girls! I took just as much pleasure from making them moan with desire as I did when they screamed in pain. There is nothing but sickness in me, and it will destroy us both."
To demonstrate his point, he began thrusting forcefully into Dawn, not caring whether he hurt her or not. It was the exact opposite of the gentleness he'd show earlier. He held her down and slammed into her over and over again, as if he wanted to prove to her that he really was a monster. Involuntary cries of pain escaped her throat, and tears leaked out of the corners of her eyes. But despite his roughness, Dawn did not resist. She freely allowed him to vent his anger onto her body without protest. In a way, the pain she was enduring was her own form of penance. After all, she was the one who had forced this mental agony on Spike without ever pausing to ask for consent.
But she was not entirely passive against his assault. Rather than fight back physically…a fight she knew she could not win…she fought back with her mind, pouring memories of them together through their mental link as he ravaged her. Spike had immersed himself in the memory of his sins, drowning out anything else. But like a gentle wave, Dawn buffeted his mind with all of the wonderful things she remembered about him, trying to break him free from his self-imposed mental prison.
His physical release is what finally allowed her the crack she needed to slip into his mind. In that moment of weakness, as his seed flooded her body, she flooded his thoughts, forcing him to remember the good alongside the bad. Eventually, the dam broke, and she felt over a hundred years worth of suppressed memories surge back into his conscious mind.
For ages, he clung to her, sobbing into her shoulder as he wept for all the depravities he'd committed over the years. She rubbed his back soothingly, mentally telling him over and over again that she loved him despite it all.
Eventually, he rolled off of her, gasping for breath. "Cor, luv. What have you done to me?" Spike asked, his voice hoarse with pain and remorse.
"The only thing I could do," Dawn replied softly.
"I've given you back your soul."