Title: Tainted Blood
Author: Corri
Email: Corrielle@yahoo.com
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Up to "Normal Again"
Summary: Set directly following the events of "Normal Again." Spike is sick, and when the gang finally figures out that only Buffy can save him, she has to decide how valuable Spike is to her.
Disclaimer: I do not own any of these characters. They belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, and UPN.
Feedback: Please!
Author's note: This is my first actually FINISHED Buffy Fanfic. It's more of a Buffy/Spike
friendship piece than an actual romance
Chapter 9
Like a corpse, or a pale marble angel carved atop a coffin, Spike lay unmoving. Buffy's breath hissed between her teeth as she took in the seriousness of his condition. His skin was a horrid shade of grey, and if he had been human, she would have thought him long dead. She brushed her hand against his face, searching for some sign of life, half afraid his body would disintegrate into ash at her touch. Slowly, painfully slowly, his eyelids lifted halfway off of his fever-red eyes.
"Can you sit up?" Buffy asked. His eyes narrowed, and he scowled at her. "Fine, then," Buffy muttered. "Here, I'll help you." She moved to put her arm under his, but he groaned and weakly batted her hand away.
"Stay... away from me," he rasped.
"You're sick, Spike," Buffy started to explain, but he cut her off with a laugh that sounded more like a hacking cough.
"You think I don't know that, Slayer?" He rolled onto his side so that his back was to her. "Just like a Slayer to come kick a man when he's down..."
"As much as I would like to kick you sometimes, now is not one of them. So, why don't you sit up so we can talk..."
"What? So you don't break any of your pretty little nails when you stake me? I think not!" There was something in his tone, something familiar about the belligerent way he was glaring at her that sent Buffy's mind back in time – back to when Spike had first come to Sunnydale. He doesn't remember, she thought. He doesn't remember that we were ever anything other than enemies... The realization hurt her more than she liked to admit. It was as if something unique and priceless, something a long time in the making, had suddenly been shattered. We're back at the beginning...
"No!" she protested. He cringed at the vehemence in her voice. "I'm not going to hurt you. We're... friends. I want to help you." Spike didn't respond. "You have to remember!" Buffy pleaded.
"You? My friend? You're no vampire's friend, my girl," Spike reminded her.
Seeing that she was getting nowhere, Buffy sat down next to him, close enough that their bodies were touching. She brushed her hair away from her neck.
"You're wrong," she whispered, then leaned in close and kissed him on the cheek. The nearness of her warm blood to the half-starved vampire was enough to make his demon face emerge. "Yes, Spike. Drink," Buffy encouraged him. True to form, Spike did exactly the opposite of what she asked. He shook his head until his human face reappeared. He stared at her for a few moments in astonishment.
"Buffy..." he murmured. Good. He remembers.
"Glad to see you're through doing the time warp. I thought I was stuck with three-years-ago-Spike for good, and I really didn't like him much," she said. "Now, let's get on with it." She ran her fingers down the vein in her neck to illustrate exactly what she meant. Spike shook his head again.
"I can't.... you can't let me... not worth it... " Buffy sighed in exasperation and held up a tightly balled fist in his face.
"I had to punch Angel to make him do it," she told him soberly. "I thought you'd be easier to reason with." To her surprise, the mention of Angel was all it took to bring Spike's vampire face to the surface immediately. He leaned in to touch his teeth to her throat, but she suddenly pulled back, self-consciously fingering the scar Angel had left. She held out her arm instead. She wanted nothing about this to be the same.
His teeth touched her vein halfway between her wrist and her elbow, but before they broke the skin Spike screamed and fell back onto the bed clutching his head.
"I'm sorry!" Buffy said, even before she figured out what she was sorry for.
"Nice try, Pet," he finally croaked. "Damn chip had other ideas, seems to me."
"But there was no violence... I was offering myself freely." Buffy sounded as if she were trying to convince both herself and him.
"Chip didn't know that," he told her, staring regretfully at her pale, upturned arm. Buffy, however, was not yet to the point of looking regretful. Having come so far, she was not about to let the Initiative's hard-wiring stop her. She plunged her hand deep into the pocket of Spike's leather jacket, which had fallen to the floor in a heap at some point in the past two days.
She pulled out a silver-handled pocketknife and flicked the blade open. Before she could think too hard about what she was about to do, or Spike could try and stop her, she drew the knife swiftly up her vein. Red blood welled to the surface and she gasped at the fierce bite of metal against her skin.
Spike's eyes met hers for a second, confused, but offering silent thanks. Then, he drank. At first, he only lapped up what had welled to the surface as a result of Buffy's self-inflicted wound. At first, it was enough. Then, as his strength and hunger intensified, he began to draw from her of his own power. Buffy gasped as the blood began to flow between them faster. Instinctively, she tried to pull away, but his grip on her arm was too strong. His left hand grasped her wrist, and his right encircled her upper arm, holding her life-giving wound steady. Buffy began to feel light-headed, then to see bright flashes of light in front of her eyes. Yes, I remember this... this is how it goes, she thought to herself before the bright flashes were snuffed out and darkness blurred her vision. Her body slumped to the floor with her arm thrusting up at an unnatural angle to where Spike continued to drink.
..............................
The first thing Spike remembered after coming through the haze of delirium was blood – sweet, hot blood, still breathing and pulsing with life – a slayer's blood. After months of barely surviving on the leavings of the local butcher, it was the most wonderful thing he had ever tasted, and for a blissfully unconscious period, he didn't even care who it was coming from. When it seemed as if his benefactor had little more to give, he forced himself away before falling back onto the bed as the rush of his returning strength overwhelmed him. Slowly, though, he became aware of the familiarity of the thin, muscular arm he held in his hands, the blonde hair spread out on his floor, the indefinable smell that was Buffy. He pulled back in shock, and her bleeding arm left scarlet stains on his blanket.
He remembered everything, or at least enough to realize what had happened. She had taken care of him when he needed it, and now it was his turn to do the same for her. He stood up on steady legs for the first time in what felt like ages. He lifted Buffy from the floor and onto his bed and tore strips from his sheets to tie around her arm to stop the bleeding. As he pulled the knot of his improvised bandage as tight as he could, she gave a little moan of pain.
His eyes traveled up her arm, to her face. Her hazel eyes were open, and stared up at him with a gaze clouded by pain and fear.
"How long..." she whispered. The rest of the sentence wouldn't come.
"A few minutes, I'd guess. I was out too," he told her.
"So tired..."
"You lost a lot of blood, Pet," Spike said. He was about to scoop her up and take her to the doctor so they could fix that little problem, but the expression on Buffy's face had ceased to be frightened. Instead, it was peaceful, resigned. An idea, a vague possibility entered his mind, and Spike shivered. She let me drink from her because she wasn't afraid of dying... what if she wanted it all along?
"Buffy, I want you to listen to me," he finally said, and brushed the hair out of her eyes. "There are two things we can do, here, and I'm going to let you choose. Do you understand?" She nodded, and reached for his hand. He took it, barely even noticing, as if he walked hand in hand with her every day.
"All you have to do is give me the word, and I'll pick you up and run as fast as I can to the hospital. I don't even know what time it is, and frankly, I don't care. I will get you there. Do you understand?" he asked again. She had to know, to grasp the true significance of the choice he was about to offer. She squeezed his hand in response, and Spike took a deep breath before continuing. There was another path she could take, and he had to show it to her, no matter how much he might scream if she took it.
"There's another choice though, Pet. If you want to... go back to where you were before... in peace... Just let me know, and I'll hold you until... until you're gone." The last three words came out in a rush. Buffy stared back at him. It was her turn to be amazed at what he was willing to do for her. She knew how hard it must have been for him to offer her the choice, for she knew as well how much it had pained him to lose her the first time. It was powerfully tempting just to let him put his arms around her and wait for her heart to beat its last. It would be a comfortable death – no pain, no fear.
Spike sensed the direction in which she was leaning, and climbed onto the bed. He wrapped his arms around her and felt her faint heartbeat against his chest. Buffy sighed, once for the opportunity lost, and once for the burden she knew she couldn't put down just yet, and shook her head.
"I want to live," she told him. Though Spike looked surprised, the perfect stillness he had achieved a few moments before evaporated in an instant. He jumped up lifted her into his arms, bedding and all.
"You could have said something before we got all comfortable, you know," he said, and grinned at her as he practically flew up the ladder and out into the pre-dawn morning.
