Title:  Reality Sucks Chapter 4  

Author:  Crunchberry

Email:  crunchberry327@hotmail.com

Rating:  R overall    

A/N – this is a rewritten  version of a WIP I posted a year ago titled What is Real.  That version was NC 17 – and I am rewriting it to be R rated – different ending (never got to end it last year due to FF deleting it.) 

Disclaimers:  Well Joss turned down my latest offer of monetary and physical rewards for giving up Spike, Buffy and the rest of the Scoobies.  For some reason he thinks he can retire on them! 

The tiles are worn from people wandering aimlessly around the corridors.  The paths they take are always the same, for there is nowhere to go.  The smells that permeate the hallways are not the most pleasant.  But it is the colorlessness of the place that seems to seep into a person's soul and makes everything appear hopeless.  Hope does not come often to these hallways, when it does, it is embraced with open arms.

One such instance had just happened in room 302.  For a while, the parents and the doctor had held the belief that the girl who lived in this room would finally stay awake and be with them.  But after seeing the lifeless look come back into her eyes, they were beginning to despair that it would ever happen.  The frail body that held their attention lay huddled in the corner of the room.  She is oblivious to the anguish coming off of the people surrounding her. 

Through it all, her hair is being stroked gently by a woman who is murmuring to her over and over.  "Come back to us honey".  The anguish on her face is heart wrenching.   She has watched her daughter come to life for the first time since last summer and they thought they had finally had the breakthrough that they had been hoping for.  Now they weren't too sure.  The woman continues to stroke her hair.  It is dull and listless just like the girls eyes.  OH god she thinks.  I can't keep going through this.  There is a slight stir and then a small moan comes from the girl.  She starts shaking her head and then looks up into her mothers face.  Recognition comes slowly to her eyes, but it is another sign of hope.

"Mom?  Mommy?  You didn't leave me?  I couldn't do it.  I couldn't kill them.  I am so sorry."  While she says this, her under lip trembles and she starts to cry.

"It's ok honey.  We just want you back here.  Stay with us this time.  We want to take you out of this place and get you home where you belong.  We love you so much.  Stay with us, please honey!

 The girl stays huddled but gradually nods her head.    She wants so badly to stay in this world, where its safe and everything makes sense.  She just didn't realize how hard it would be.  The other world was so real, just like this one. 

"Honey, the doctor explained that to you.  You have to get rid of your imaginary friends to be able to get well again.   None of that is real over there.  You have to understand that."

"I understand that, it's just so believable on both sides.  I love them.  They rely on me to keep them safe."

The woman strokes her face gently.  "I know dear, but it's all in your head.  Do you want to spend the rest of your life like this, in this hospital?  We miss you so much.  Come back to us sweetheart."

"I'm trying, I really am.  I just have to think of another way that is not so painful." 

She starts to gets a far away look in her eyes.  She feels something.  Something that sets her nerves tingling and a cramp in her lower abdomen.  "Spike" she says.  Her eyes seem to lose focus and she moans quietly.

"Spike?" the woman looks questioningly at her husband.

There is an eerie quiet to the house.  As he walks to the basement door, he can hear her coming up the stairs.  He places his hand upon the door.  She is close, and he knows she can feel him too.  He takes an unneeded breath.  Even with the door between them, his body is reacting to her presence.  He can't stop wanting her.  God he has tried.

The door opens and she is standing there just looking at him.  Her eyes look vacant and they look right through him.  The eyes are sunken and make her face look almost like a skeleton.  She can't afford to lose any more weight he thinks.  But she is still as beautiful as ever.

"Spike."  There is no emotion when she says this. "You know you're not real, not part of my life.  I mean, how could I EVER start falling in love with an evil soulless vampire?"  Shaking her head a bit she continues "Nobody in her right mind that is for sure.  If you are dust it's one less problem to deal with in order to get back to normal."

He was stuck on the words "falling in love with".  He never saw the blow coming.  It hit him so hard in the midsection that he flew backwards into the kitchen wall.  Shelving came undone and crashed down beside him.  By the time he looked up, she was on top of him and pulling him up for another punch.  That one was in the face, then a kick to his solar plexus.  This was not going too well he is thinking.  She is searching the kitchen as she is hitting him; he knows what she is looking for.  Why didn't I bloody hide all the wood before agreeing to do this he thinks.  Hell, she could find wood in the middle of Antarctica, who am I kidding? 

She reaches for one of the drawers.  He gets behind her and pins her to the countertop.  Grabbing her arms he pushes his pelvis into her.  Maybe he can sidetrack her.  She rears her head back and collides with his forehead.  Oh that hurt!  He looses his grip on her and she backhands him across the face.  He is knocked down by the force of her blows.  He doesn't want to hurt her but in order to survive he might have to. 

She has grabbed a wooden spoon from the drawer and jumps on top of him. Its probably the same one she almost dusted him years ago when she found him with Joyce.  Fond memories those.  But right now, he is in a bit of a jam.  He is stuck between the island and the sink cupboards.  Not a good position to maneuver and he tries to buck her off but before he knows it, she is raising the spoon ready to impale him.

"Buffy, look at me!   Just for a minute before you stake me!  I deserve that much luv."

She looks down at him.  All she has to do is stake him and most of her problems will go away.  Or would they just begin?   She looks at his face; his eyes are looking at her like she has never seen.  Bits of yellow seem to dance in front of the blue.  More yellow, what beautiful eyes he has she thinks. 

Good, can't bullocks it up now.  Concentrate mate, don't take my eyes off her eyes, don't

 think about how close you are to being a pile of dust right here on the Summer's kitchen floor.  God, haven't done this since the 1930's.  Putting your meals into a thrall was always Dru's bag.  He always loved the thrill of the hunt too much and it didn't seem sportsman like to do it this way.  But now he needs to do it, to be able to control her so he can survive.  He reaches out to her in his mind.   Tries to find the part of her that she needs to feel complete.  What every human strives for and very seldom reaches.  Vampires are able to find that center in humans, maybe it is because of the blood, and how life is connected to blood.  When you find the place for them, humans will do anything for you.  It is similar to heroin for the starved junkie. 

He is drowning in her eyes.  Eddies of turbulence are all around.  He sees her parents, the hospital, her sister and friends.  Anchor her to her friends he thinks.  He goes further, by this time both of them are still as statues. 

Going further he finds images of him.  Emotions are the strongest here.  Desire, lust and desperate need, for him.  The desire even now as she is fighting him almost overwhelms her.  She is always thinking of him.  She keeps telling herself its only physical attraction for her since love is too close to the truth.  She shuts these feelings behind a door where they stay locked up and she doesn't have to face them. It's a shadowy place where she won't go.   He tries to open it but its locked.  He wonders what else she hides behind this door and has an idea.   Everything she tries to deny is behind this.  Another time and place he might be able to help her, if she will ever let him.

Going further he finds where the turbulence has gone and it is peaceful and beautiful.  Like sitting in the park on a warm spring day with not a care.  She strives for this.  Total denial of what she is – but its what he needs to find for now. 

Wrapping around that area in her mind, she will totally be under his control.  He is not sure how long this control will last.  Dru could make thralls last for days but she had a talent for it before she was turned.  The Master could make a thrall last for up to a day. 

 Not a lot of vampires could do it.  You had to be of the Masters line and you had to be taught.  You also had to have someone willing to teach you.  Dru had been more than willing to teach him.  He did it to please her, but it just wasn't his bag.   Angelus never learned it since he had Dru to do it for him.  Dracula made a big show out of it.  Used it all the time, the wanker. 

He gently starts taking control.  She starts moaning.  He thinks for a moment it is painful for her, but no, the smell of her arousal permeates the air around him. It is pleasurable for her.  She wants this. 

 Desire courses through him, through his every fiber.  His demon surges forward in anticipation.  He wants to claim her now while she is pliant.  Claim her and she can only be his.  No one else could have her then.  The demons reasoning is hard to resist, but he does.  The human part of him wants her to love him freely, not forced.

 What a pansy he is. Vampires are supposed to just take what they want, and he has everything he wants here in his arms and he can make it permanent.  Oh whom does he think he's kidding, he has never been a normal vampire.

His demon tries to surge forward again.  He didn't know it would be this tough of a battle.  Figured it would be with her that he would be battling, not himself.

 
As he exerts more control over her mind, he feels her defenses slip away.  It is easier than he thought, her will was now his for the time being.

He gradually pulls himself out and when he is back to staring into her eyes, he has to mentally shake himself.  His demon has never been this strong before.  He had no idea that would happen.  He can't let the demon take control for he might try to claim her or drain her without being able to stop. 

The spoon clatters to the floor beside him.  She has started rubbing herself against his pelvis and a flush has come across her skin.  He can't help himself; he traces her collarbone with his index finger and then up the column of her throat.

 Oh god, he has wanted her blood since the day he first saw her dancing at the Bronze.  When she teased him in the bathtub the day of the witches spell, he almost ripped the chains out of the wall to get to her neck.  He remembered that day as one of the best of his unlife.  Not that he thought so at the time, but looking back on her being happy in his arms and planning a life with him was his own version of heaven.

But it wasn't the time, and maybe he wouldn't need to if she stayed under his control. 

But at the rate she was rubbing against him, he was losing the control to her….

TBC…..   

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