Author's Note April 2020: I'm finally resuming the trip. My apologies for the 10-year delay.
Chapter 15:
She should have expected this. It was laughable, really, that she never had. He was a killer. Killers took trophies. These were his.
The prostitute's torn fishnets. The scientist's stuffed rabbit. The young girl's diary. The contractor's eye patch.
Between Spike's case file and his own mouth, Buffy knew enough about the victims to match them to their belongings. But she only counted four where there should be six. She wondered what he took from Cecily, and the high school principal. She wondered what he would take from her if he killed her, then balked at her optimistic use of the word if. There was no other possible end. Where else would he be dragging her but the grave? And here she was, allowing it, bound by chains so weak as her word and a fucking handshake.
Fuck that. Fuck him.
She should go. She could go. There was money here, tight bundles of cash scattered among his mementos. Money that had financed this trip and could fund her return. But to get to it she would have to touch the rest, dirty her hands in the death he'd made with his. Besides that, she would have to move her body from this bed, her eyes from his depravity. The latter of which she'd never been able to do. Not completely, and now not at all.
It was like gazing upon the corpses themselves. Except he'd hidden these souvenirs as he never had their human counterparts. They could have sent him to his death. Although schizophrenia had not spared him a life sentence, it had been the deciding factor in keeping capital punishment firmly off the table. But the methodical accumulation and ferreting away of trophies proved him competent and accountable as nothing else could. Had they been found, he might have been strapped to a table, a chemical cocktail flooding his veins.
She would have watched― hearing his last words with no more emotion than if she'd read them in the next day's paper. He would have been nothing but a peculiar case study, a faded scar on her neck. Instead of her patient, captor, and kink.
Time passed. Minutes, hours, there was no sense in checking. Buffy remained still and staring even as Spike entered the room, a takeout bag in hand. She did not brace herself for his reaction, nor try to cover up her snooping. Let him look. Let him hate that she had.
He took her in at a glance, paused only for a moment, then smoothly resumed motion, setting the bag down beside her. She was faintly aware of her hunger, but beyond that the food held no interest.
"You've been busy," he said, fingering the box's broken lock. He didn't seem angry, just weary. Of her, and all the ways she tried him. "If you wanted to see it, you only had to ask."
"Bullshit." It was meant to sound cutting, but her tone fell flat.
"Not so." He removed the box from her grip and closed its lid.
"Why did you hide these, when you confessed everything else?"
He scoffed and sat down, unwrapping the burger he'd brought for her. "Earned 'em, didn't I? Wouldn't have my legacy rotting away in some evidence room. Pigs had enough to lock me up, besides."
She began to eat, if only to have something to occupy herself with, something to look at other than him. "But not enough to kill you," she said. "How convenient."
Spike tilted his head to one side, an inquisitive dog. "You'd rather I was dead?"
She swallowed with difficulty. "Yes," she said. Then, "No." Then, "Sometimes."
"Not to worry, luv," he said with a slight smile, one she couldn't help but find somewhat sad. "You don't have to decide." He stood, heading outside. As he closed the door behind him, she barely heard him add the word, "Yet".
His calm left her deflated, the exhausted sag of his shoulders made her righteous indignation seem pointless, her words cruel. How odd, feeling guilty for wanting him dead. How twisted, to just as strongly not want it. How frightening, this ambivalence.
Those few bites of beef sat leaden in her stomach, the dead meat smell gagging her. She stuffed the burger back into its grease-stained bag and lay on her side, achingly aware of the box of horrors inches away, and of her desire to open it again, marvel at his monstrosity. Of the two of them, Buffy didn't know who disgusted her more.
Spike returned, trailing cigarette smoke. She watched him go about the room, shrugging out of his duster, removing his boots. He cleared her half-eaten meal without a word. Scornfully, she hoped he was disappointed in her too-thin form. What a pathetically small sacrificial lamb she would make.
"Why don't you just kill me now? Save yourself the mileage."
Spike slid into a crouch, his expression soft beneath the bruises of their skirmish. Placing a hand on the side of her face, he said, "Don't you know that's not what this is about?"
Buffy sat up, dismissing his touch, ignoring the way her cheek flushed. "I know what you're about, Spike. Spare me the cryptic mindfuck for once."
"Poor girl," he said, "You'd fight the whole world if you could. Such needless suffering." He leaned toward her, a strong arm on either side, fists denting the mattress. "I can make this so much easier for you."
The implication crushed her so she had trouble breathing. She couldn't think with him this close. She placed her fingertips on his chest, pushing lightly, an empty gesture.
She said, "Don't."
She stiffened when he kissed her, just for a moment, then parted her lips with a soft sigh―of relief or resignation, Spike wasn't sure which. She smelled earthy, unwashed but lovely all the same. Her hand radiated heat through the fabric of his t-shirt, her fingers clenching around the material, pulling and pushing him simultaneously. He pressed her back against the bed, a knee between her thighs. He gripped the collar of her tank top. Already ragged from their fight, it ripped with a simple flick of his wrist. She gasped into his mouth; he deepened the kiss, cupping the back of her head in one hand—such a delicate skull—while the other made quick work of undressing her.
After slipping off the flimsy fabric of her thong, Spike drew back to study her lithe body, her flushed face. Green eyes were wild, desire tempered by distrust. Under unblemished skin, her muscles were stretched taught, like rubber bands about to snap. She was holding her breath, awaiting his next move, but he required more than simple compliance.
"You've wanted this." He hovered above her, his thumb skimming her bottom lip, drifting down her neck to trace his bite mark. "Let me in."
His shirt still twisted in her fist, she dragged him back to her mouth, urgent and rough. The fingers of her free hand undid the button on his jeans, lowered his zipper, and curled around him. She made a noise in the back of her throat. Not quite a moan, almost a purr. The sound went straight to his groin, hard as steel in her hot little palm. She stroked him, her movements deft, as if she already knew what he liked, as if they'd been lovers all along.
All at once her legs were spread, knees drawn to her chest, tits rising as she took one shuddering breath beneath him. "Spike? Please…I need to hear you say it."
"What's that, pet? Anything."
She pressed her forehead against his. "My name."
The one he never used.
"Buffy." The word rolled from his throat like a growl, and he buried himself in her, her slight hips surging up to meet him.
It felt like coming home.
