Author's Note: This chapter is like a the next night.
To bright. To loud. To everything.
"Rise and shine, love." Spike's caring coo pierces through all of the other louder than normal sounds.
"Spike?" I tentatively respond, cracking my eyes a bit wider to accommodate his calming face, "I'm so hungry."
Yes, so very hungry. A boiling pit is now my stomach, all it wants is to burn me from the inside out . . . burn . . . burn . . . A spasm of hunger pains like I've never experienced before shoots to every nerve ending in my body, sending me into a wincing mess.
Some residue of a type of slimy liquid remains in the caverns of my mouth, tasting of heavenly sweetness surpassing everything and anything I've ever tasted before. I swallow the last bit down, savoring, basking. Memories are a bit fuzzy and undefined, kinda challenging to recollect. Very hungry. Hungry! Hungry!
He chuckles unsteadily, boring with his eyes that everything is fine, "Drink up, pet"
A cup is placed right under my nose, instinctively I sniff to smell the ample alluring waft of the substance. A growl so unlike anything I've ever made, slips out in eagerness of the offering. He urges me on, and I am gulping it down as if I've been in the desert for more months than I can count. My memories slam back into me like a head on collision, subtitles and all. It was going to be the end, but he threw me a curve ball. And right before I blacked out, he was nibbling my neck . . . nibbling? No. That wasn't it. Stupid Buffy brain! Think . . . think . . .
He was sucking my neck. Sucking my blood.
Then he . . . Tears begin to prick the sides of my eyes . . . slashed a vein to give me his potent vampiric blood. Red and cold. I remember it now, all of it.
He did it. He really did. He changed me.
I'm dead. I'm dead. I'm dead. A new Slayer has been called, a new Warrior of Light, to do my duty. Giles . . . he'll be the first to know . . . the council will tell . . . will send the new one here . . . Oh how I fucking failed!
The little selfish puppy of a vampire! No wonder my senses are on over drive. No wonder I feel this gigantic craving. I gulp down the last drop. That is why he's feeding me warm . . .
"Blood." I sputter with a full mouth, ending up with blood oozing down the corners.
Spike recklessly flings the cup behind him. I speedily sit up in his silky bed, eyes wide beyond comprehension, sadness at his betrayal shining through their watery exterior. His stance is venerable and weak, but as fast as lightening flashes it transforms to the animal he is. He leans forward to frightfully creep up my body, forcing me to lay back down once again. Enthralled by his visible beauty and love, I let him do so.
"Forgive me . . . no other choice . . . need you . . ." Spike huskily whispers, taking long lazy licks at his scarring bite marks, "I have no regrets. You and me . . . deserve each other, Buffy, crave and need each other, to the point where we fear each other." He firmly situates himself over me, comfortably nestling between my thighs, "I have you. Will you now have me?"
I shudder with the overdrive he is putting my senses through at another lick to that very sensitive spot. His seduction is almost to good to resist, to good to deny, so gorgeously evil. But I was once a Slayer, not a vampire, I still hold strong ties to my old self, and I find my big girl voice, my shaky voice of reason:
"Stake me."
His wandering hands halt in shock. Deep as the ocean blue eyes burn with anger. Jaw clenches with outrage. My body stays immobile as he scrambles off the bed in a hurry and proceeds to wear a hole through the floor with his habit of pacing, along with that other annoying habit of muttering. Shiny bleach white hair getting mussed each time his hand runs through the locks.
I cannot live as a vampire. I will not. A Slayer needs to die in battle. Not get turned into the thing it hates . . . I glance at Spike longingly . . . or might love. I have a life. I have friends that need me. Willow and her spunky attitude. Xander and his snarky comments. Giles and his father like manner. Dawn and her dependence on me . . . Damn, all of them depend on me, even the world does. Not every girl can say that.
My job is to kill demons, not become one. All Spike's fault. All 'pussy whipped Spike's' fault. So what if he did it for us both . . . just so I don't have to be tired and used anymore. So what?! Oh God, stake me. My thoughts are turning against the logic of the situation! If I really thought more and tuned into my Buffy self . . . I don't want to become dust to feed the breeze.
I grope around deep inside me, and find, a primal demon fueled on its own instincts living peacefully inside me, being apart of me now. It demands to live, to feed, to fuck, to mate, to live. Over and over, over and over, over and over. It dominates me, it's what now is trying its hardest to influence me of its ways.
"Bloody fucking hell!!!" Spike bellows, causing the poshly furnished bedroom under his crypt to vibrate with the accented terms, his loving eyes caressing my scantily clad form before locking into, my eyes, my soul, "I give you, what you want, what I want, and you throw it back in my face!! Don't you feel it?? Don't you love it??" Again he refers to another mysterious It, "How can you fucking ask me to stake you? If I stake you everything I've done," He continues to scream in frustration, "that you've finally admitted, will be for soddin' nothing! NOTHING! Bloody fucking hell!!!"
The tears that have been saved for this speech, glide and dip down my face in a torrent of salty liquid. He's exactly right, but oh so wrong. I'm not mentally ready for this. A guttural sound just like a wounded wolf empties from my throat, bringing Spike over to me in a blink of an eye. His body limp with exhaustion and understanding of my view. I reach out to touch him, right when he leans in to touch me. He's concerned with my transition from superhuman, to super-vampire, and he's just plain concerned. All over his face in little lines its artfully etched . . . but his eyes they show more than I ever thought could be shown in eyes.
I silently coax him to drape himself on me, lose himself by means of me, and that is what he does. He somberly entwines our bodies till I cannot tell where he begins and I end. We lay there cuddling and purring (I never knew vampires could purr, go figure) like giant cats, giant vampiric cats. Not another notion or thought flutters through my brain as we settle into a kind of peace dreams are based on.
But it feels more than that. Kind of the, calm before the storm.
What storm? The storm has already happened, or was that just an appetizer, and the main course is on its way?
"I love you . . ." He possessively mutters into my mane of golden hair, nuzzling it with pure affection, seemingly forgetting my earlier statement.
"I . . ." The words won't form, "know."
"How are you adjusting?"
I start to nuzzle his neck, "Bitchy-like."
A low chuckle erupts from him, "Well, you being a bitch and all . . . I suspected it would feel that way."
"You didn't even have my consent . . ." Anger simmers underneath my words, attempting to scorch him.
"Shhh . . ." His tone soft and soothing, "Forgive me."
I solemnly deadpan, "Never."
Spike's whole body flinches expectantly, but he recuperates and way to intensely inhales my luscious scent again, "Love me?"
Moments fly by as I muse this. I feel for him. I care for him. I hate him. He has made me what I am right now, a bloodthirsty monster. Even after drinking some of that pig's blood from that cup . . . I'm still thirsty, the thirst is insatiable. If a human came close enough to touch I'd be on them for all I'm worth. I can't completely . . . control myself . . . Though I hate him for changing me, I'm a bit glad he did it. The reason for the flicker of happiness I have yet to fully discover, or uncover from my denial.
Ugh.
I'm leading myself far from the question. Do I love Spike?
Yes.
Somewhere terminally mixed with my blinding hate for him, is my fiery love. But can I make him understand? Will he, if I try? My unlife is getting as complicated as my life was!
"Yes." I pick the simplest answer, relieving him of his carefully hidden doubt, "Permanently blended with my hate for your undead, bleached self, is my love."
It takes him a second to conduct his analyise of my words and truthfully reply with one of his cheeky little smirks, "Bugger, The Might Slayer's being a bit honest here, never thought I'd still be biting when she admits she loves another vampire . . . a soulless one no less."
"Never thought . . . I'd become a vampire, a soulless one no less." Unlike his words that were full of mirth, mine are shallow and empty.
Hastily his face nuzzles down to my neck, splaying violent kisses at my bite marks. Without any warning his fangs emerge and digs into them, again. My nerves sing with rare sensations that get my juices flowing, again. I scream through the fogging bliss he has trapped me in . . . again.
And for the first time I vamp out, eyes golden yellow, fangs scissor sharp, ridges taking up residence along my face, and eyebrows gone. Why do our eyebrows have to go anywhere, anyway? And where do they go? Time for those answers later though . . . for I can't resist the urge to feed, any longer. . .
With a roar of an animal who is just getting its first meal I clamp down like a vise on Spike's enticing neck. Not warm. Cold Fire. Fulfilling. Grade A.
And further down the rabbit hole I descend. Hell is just a blink away. But at this particular moment nothing could tell me this is wrong, when it feels righter than two plus two makes four. Strangely Spike isn't pulling much blood, just a drop or two. While I on the other hand, am taking enough to fill a bucket.
Slowly the mild blaze that is in my stomach, is doused to tiny sparks. The hunger is . . . satisfied . . . for now. We retract our fangs in unison. Instincts telling us to go in a cleaning frenzy. My tongue laps up at the leaking wound, as Spike does the same. I find this oddly, comforting, it's spiraling me into contentment. It's not sexual, just sensual. I could get used to this . . . and that's what is scaring the shit out of me. The Slayer, gladly enjoying being a Vampire!? Wrong. Bad. Wrong. No. No. No. My morals won't allow it.
What morals? You have no soul . . . the demon happily whispers.
Yanking me face to face by my hair, he grounds out words that pack more of a punch than I ever will, "You are mine." He fondles the fresh vampire bite claim on my tender neck, "And," He giddily smirks, as if he has something so precious to him to show me, "I am yours." After those short words he angles his neck to show off the marks I just made.
See this is when I would have kicked him till he lost all his blood in sticky puddles around him, but now, I just stare innocently at him, mouth slightly parted in amazement. The animal/demon in me reveling in finding such an adequate specimen to mate with. But me, Buffy, has to weep inside at the consequences of a few words this night has witnessed . . . a few words.
But then again, I am coming to grips with this situation, what I've got, what I am, how I've changed. And most importantly a glimpse of who I am and who I can be. Why fight the tide? Why fight a tide that promises good things to my satisfactory? Why . . . ? This whole time I have been flinging objections this way and that. Wrong. Bad. Bad. Wrong. Slayer light. Vampire dark. Slayer good. Vampire bad.
Well, I've now seen Spike's logic, his view, his words in all their truthful glory. Bad is what you confirm it to be. The same goes for good. It's all in the eye of the beholder. The sinner. The saint. The sinner is the saint, the saint is the sinner. We all are what we see ourselves as.
I see myself still as . . . good. I am a saint basking in my own sin.
"Mate?" I wishfully want to confirm.
"Mate."
Today's Buffy forecast: turbulent storm right ahead. For the best life preserver, buy a Spike.
To bright. To loud. To everything.
"Rise and shine, love." Spike's caring coo pierces through all of the other louder than normal sounds.
"Spike?" I tentatively respond, cracking my eyes a bit wider to accommodate his calming face, "I'm so hungry."
Yes, so very hungry. A boiling pit is now my stomach, all it wants is to burn me from the inside out . . . burn . . . burn . . . A spasm of hunger pains like I've never experienced before shoots to every nerve ending in my body, sending me into a wincing mess.
Some residue of a type of slimy liquid remains in the caverns of my mouth, tasting of heavenly sweetness surpassing everything and anything I've ever tasted before. I swallow the last bit down, savoring, basking. Memories are a bit fuzzy and undefined, kinda challenging to recollect. Very hungry. Hungry! Hungry!
He chuckles unsteadily, boring with his eyes that everything is fine, "Drink up, pet"
A cup is placed right under my nose, instinctively I sniff to smell the ample alluring waft of the substance. A growl so unlike anything I've ever made, slips out in eagerness of the offering. He urges me on, and I am gulping it down as if I've been in the desert for more months than I can count. My memories slam back into me like a head on collision, subtitles and all. It was going to be the end, but he threw me a curve ball. And right before I blacked out, he was nibbling my neck . . . nibbling? No. That wasn't it. Stupid Buffy brain! Think . . . think . . .
He was sucking my neck. Sucking my blood.
Then he . . . Tears begin to prick the sides of my eyes . . . slashed a vein to give me his potent vampiric blood. Red and cold. I remember it now, all of it.
He did it. He really did. He changed me.
I'm dead. I'm dead. I'm dead. A new Slayer has been called, a new Warrior of Light, to do my duty. Giles . . . he'll be the first to know . . . the council will tell . . . will send the new one here . . . Oh how I fucking failed!
The little selfish puppy of a vampire! No wonder my senses are on over drive. No wonder I feel this gigantic craving. I gulp down the last drop. That is why he's feeding me warm . . .
"Blood." I sputter with a full mouth, ending up with blood oozing down the corners.
Spike recklessly flings the cup behind him. I speedily sit up in his silky bed, eyes wide beyond comprehension, sadness at his betrayal shining through their watery exterior. His stance is venerable and weak, but as fast as lightening flashes it transforms to the animal he is. He leans forward to frightfully creep up my body, forcing me to lay back down once again. Enthralled by his visible beauty and love, I let him do so.
"Forgive me . . . no other choice . . . need you . . ." Spike huskily whispers, taking long lazy licks at his scarring bite marks, "I have no regrets. You and me . . . deserve each other, Buffy, crave and need each other, to the point where we fear each other." He firmly situates himself over me, comfortably nestling between my thighs, "I have you. Will you now have me?"
I shudder with the overdrive he is putting my senses through at another lick to that very sensitive spot. His seduction is almost to good to resist, to good to deny, so gorgeously evil. But I was once a Slayer, not a vampire, I still hold strong ties to my old self, and I find my big girl voice, my shaky voice of reason:
"Stake me."
His wandering hands halt in shock. Deep as the ocean blue eyes burn with anger. Jaw clenches with outrage. My body stays immobile as he scrambles off the bed in a hurry and proceeds to wear a hole through the floor with his habit of pacing, along with that other annoying habit of muttering. Shiny bleach white hair getting mussed each time his hand runs through the locks.
I cannot live as a vampire. I will not. A Slayer needs to die in battle. Not get turned into the thing it hates . . . I glance at Spike longingly . . . or might love. I have a life. I have friends that need me. Willow and her spunky attitude. Xander and his snarky comments. Giles and his father like manner. Dawn and her dependence on me . . . Damn, all of them depend on me, even the world does. Not every girl can say that.
My job is to kill demons, not become one. All Spike's fault. All 'pussy whipped Spike's' fault. So what if he did it for us both . . . just so I don't have to be tired and used anymore. So what?! Oh God, stake me. My thoughts are turning against the logic of the situation! If I really thought more and tuned into my Buffy self . . . I don't want to become dust to feed the breeze.
I grope around deep inside me, and find, a primal demon fueled on its own instincts living peacefully inside me, being apart of me now. It demands to live, to feed, to fuck, to mate, to live. Over and over, over and over, over and over. It dominates me, it's what now is trying its hardest to influence me of its ways.
"Bloody fucking hell!!!" Spike bellows, causing the poshly furnished bedroom under his crypt to vibrate with the accented terms, his loving eyes caressing my scantily clad form before locking into, my eyes, my soul, "I give you, what you want, what I want, and you throw it back in my face!! Don't you feel it?? Don't you love it??" Again he refers to another mysterious It, "How can you fucking ask me to stake you? If I stake you everything I've done," He continues to scream in frustration, "that you've finally admitted, will be for soddin' nothing! NOTHING! Bloody fucking hell!!!"
The tears that have been saved for this speech, glide and dip down my face in a torrent of salty liquid. He's exactly right, but oh so wrong. I'm not mentally ready for this. A guttural sound just like a wounded wolf empties from my throat, bringing Spike over to me in a blink of an eye. His body limp with exhaustion and understanding of my view. I reach out to touch him, right when he leans in to touch me. He's concerned with my transition from superhuman, to super-vampire, and he's just plain concerned. All over his face in little lines its artfully etched . . . but his eyes they show more than I ever thought could be shown in eyes.
I silently coax him to drape himself on me, lose himself by means of me, and that is what he does. He somberly entwines our bodies till I cannot tell where he begins and I end. We lay there cuddling and purring (I never knew vampires could purr, go figure) like giant cats, giant vampiric cats. Not another notion or thought flutters through my brain as we settle into a kind of peace dreams are based on.
But it feels more than that. Kind of the, calm before the storm.
What storm? The storm has already happened, or was that just an appetizer, and the main course is on its way?
"I love you . . ." He possessively mutters into my mane of golden hair, nuzzling it with pure affection, seemingly forgetting my earlier statement.
"I . . ." The words won't form, "know."
"How are you adjusting?"
I start to nuzzle his neck, "Bitchy-like."
A low chuckle erupts from him, "Well, you being a bitch and all . . . I suspected it would feel that way."
"You didn't even have my consent . . ." Anger simmers underneath my words, attempting to scorch him.
"Shhh . . ." His tone soft and soothing, "Forgive me."
I solemnly deadpan, "Never."
Spike's whole body flinches expectantly, but he recuperates and way to intensely inhales my luscious scent again, "Love me?"
Moments fly by as I muse this. I feel for him. I care for him. I hate him. He has made me what I am right now, a bloodthirsty monster. Even after drinking some of that pig's blood from that cup . . . I'm still thirsty, the thirst is insatiable. If a human came close enough to touch I'd be on them for all I'm worth. I can't completely . . . control myself . . . Though I hate him for changing me, I'm a bit glad he did it. The reason for the flicker of happiness I have yet to fully discover, or uncover from my denial.
Ugh.
I'm leading myself far from the question. Do I love Spike?
Yes.
Somewhere terminally mixed with my blinding hate for him, is my fiery love. But can I make him understand? Will he, if I try? My unlife is getting as complicated as my life was!
"Yes." I pick the simplest answer, relieving him of his carefully hidden doubt, "Permanently blended with my hate for your undead, bleached self, is my love."
It takes him a second to conduct his analyise of my words and truthfully reply with one of his cheeky little smirks, "Bugger, The Might Slayer's being a bit honest here, never thought I'd still be biting when she admits she loves another vampire . . . a soulless one no less."
"Never thought . . . I'd become a vampire, a soulless one no less." Unlike his words that were full of mirth, mine are shallow and empty.
Hastily his face nuzzles down to my neck, splaying violent kisses at my bite marks. Without any warning his fangs emerge and digs into them, again. My nerves sing with rare sensations that get my juices flowing, again. I scream through the fogging bliss he has trapped me in . . . again.
And for the first time I vamp out, eyes golden yellow, fangs scissor sharp, ridges taking up residence along my face, and eyebrows gone. Why do our eyebrows have to go anywhere, anyway? And where do they go? Time for those answers later though . . . for I can't resist the urge to feed, any longer. . .
With a roar of an animal who is just getting its first meal I clamp down like a vise on Spike's enticing neck. Not warm. Cold Fire. Fulfilling. Grade A.
And further down the rabbit hole I descend. Hell is just a blink away. But at this particular moment nothing could tell me this is wrong, when it feels righter than two plus two makes four. Strangely Spike isn't pulling much blood, just a drop or two. While I on the other hand, am taking enough to fill a bucket.
Slowly the mild blaze that is in my stomach, is doused to tiny sparks. The hunger is . . . satisfied . . . for now. We retract our fangs in unison. Instincts telling us to go in a cleaning frenzy. My tongue laps up at the leaking wound, as Spike does the same. I find this oddly, comforting, it's spiraling me into contentment. It's not sexual, just sensual. I could get used to this . . . and that's what is scaring the shit out of me. The Slayer, gladly enjoying being a Vampire!? Wrong. Bad. Wrong. No. No. No. My morals won't allow it.
What morals? You have no soul . . . the demon happily whispers.
Yanking me face to face by my hair, he grounds out words that pack more of a punch than I ever will, "You are mine." He fondles the fresh vampire bite claim on my tender neck, "And," He giddily smirks, as if he has something so precious to him to show me, "I am yours." After those short words he angles his neck to show off the marks I just made.
See this is when I would have kicked him till he lost all his blood in sticky puddles around him, but now, I just stare innocently at him, mouth slightly parted in amazement. The animal/demon in me reveling in finding such an adequate specimen to mate with. But me, Buffy, has to weep inside at the consequences of a few words this night has witnessed . . . a few words.
But then again, I am coming to grips with this situation, what I've got, what I am, how I've changed. And most importantly a glimpse of who I am and who I can be. Why fight the tide? Why fight a tide that promises good things to my satisfactory? Why . . . ? This whole time I have been flinging objections this way and that. Wrong. Bad. Bad. Wrong. Slayer light. Vampire dark. Slayer good. Vampire bad.
Well, I've now seen Spike's logic, his view, his words in all their truthful glory. Bad is what you confirm it to be. The same goes for good. It's all in the eye of the beholder. The sinner. The saint. The sinner is the saint, the saint is the sinner. We all are what we see ourselves as.
I see myself still as . . . good. I am a saint basking in my own sin.
"Mate?" I wishfully want to confirm.
"Mate."
Today's Buffy forecast: turbulent storm right ahead. For the best life preserver, buy a Spike.