The price is right (2)
Fanfiction by dutchbuffy2305
Rating: R
Timeline: Season 7, AU, after Bring on the Night, spoilers up to that.
Summary: Spike and the other guys band together to solve the mystery.
____________________________________________________________________________
_.
"Disappearance?"
Spike swayed and clung to the doorpost to steady himself . "Who disappeared? Buffy? Is Buffy gone? Where?"
His knees buckled and he started to slide down to the floor. Strong warm hands steadied him and propelled him to the couch, and he sank down gratefully. When the world had stopped lurching about he looked up and saw Xander's and Giles' faces, hovering over him a little too close, so that he had to blink and refocus his eyes, until the brown and the blue eyes no longer swam together.
He took a deep breath. "All there now. Tell me what's happened."
Giles started his tale. When he had returned from one of his vaguely explained trips around the globe, he'd found a silent house. Andrew was sleeping, and none of the girls were there. Giles hadn't been alarmed at first, but when Xander came back after work, and found nobody home, they started getting worried. Andrew hadn't seen or heard a thing, and none of them had remembered Spike yet. They'd scoured all of Sunnydale and ascertained the girls were nowhere to be found; Dawn wasn't in school, Buffy hadn't been to work, Willow hadn't been to class.
Spike ran a hand through his freely curling hair, unable to take it in. "So.something came into the house, abducted all the bleeding women, and left Geek Boy and me undisturbed?"
"We don't even know when, where, who by, or what for! When I left the house it was just a regular day, the girls getting up, bickering over the shower, Buffy making breakfast." Xander said.
"There were no signs of anything abnormal?" Spike asked.
"Well, Buffy was perky yesterday morning, before she even had her first cup of coffee, but that's not the kind of abnormal you mean, I guess."
No, it wasn't, but it did make him feel chuffed. He noticed Giles' sharp glance, and realized he must be wearing a sappy grin. He tried to assume a normal, smirking Spike-face and thought of what could possibly have taken all the women, and why?
"You seem not to be thinking it's the First. Why?"
"Good question," Giles admitted. "We didn't find traces of a break in, and Andrew was left to sleep in peace. We shouldn't eliminate it yet, but my gut tells me it's something different."
Spike felt his head drooping. "Could any of you fine fellows help me to my basement? I need to sleep now. The sooner I recover the safer you will all be."
At a sign from Giles Xander helped him down. The last thing he noticed before tumbling into sleep was that his skull ring wasn't on the bed stand anymore. Could Buffy possibly be wearing it? His tired brain couldn't think of another explanation right now, and it made him feel all happy and warm inside.
Xander woke him up later in the evening with two cups of warm blood in his hand. "Drink up, buddy. We need you strong."
Spike passed on the 'buddy', and drank up in silence, not interested in snarking right now.
"More?"
The thought made him gag, and he shook his head. Sleep was more important now. There was one thing, though.
"Harris? Could you check under the bed for my ring?"
"I'm your maid now?"
Xander groused, but obliged, and couldn't find a ring. Buffy must really have taken it. He fell asleep again. When he woke the next morning he was feeling a lot stronger. He went up to the kitchen under his own steam, and found the group of solitary males gathered around pots of coffee and tea.
"Any news, mates?" he said, while putting a bag of blood in the microwave.
They all said no in their various ways. Cruising the Bronze, all of Sunnydale's cemeteries and bars, and even scoping out the mall had turned up nothing. After downing the last three bags of blood Spike felt better, and took a cup of coffee. He took in their saggy postures and less than determined faces.
"Well, then, what's the plan for today?" he said, needing there to be action.
Giles dithered a bit, playing with his spectacles, but there was no plan, apparently.
"You're a fine bunch of tossers!" Spike said, indignant. "We can't sit around moping, there's work to be done! Giles, what do your bleeding books say? Well, get going on them! Um, you there, what can you do?"
"Um, well, I could summon a demon? And ask him where we could find the girls?" Andrew suggested diffidently.
"Sounds interesting. Harris, we'll hit the demon world. You can drive me over to Willy's." He waited a beat, expecting opposition, mostly from Giles.
"Hey! I'm not your chauffeur, and I went there already. They knew nothing," Xander protested.
"Yeah, right, 'cause they were going to spill all to the human? Give us a break, mate." Spike was starting to feel a bit dizzy with all the standing about, and wished he could sit again.
"Spike is right. We need information, we know nothing yet. We're completely vulnerable without Buffy, we need her back."
Giles was looking at him warily, but still backing him up. Must be a bloody desperate watcher. He couldn't believe they were letting him take the lead. Were they so used to Buffy taking the reins, they couldn't do it anymore even in an emergency?
"Bit cold-blooded, Watcher. Could think of a coupla more reasons to want her back," Spike said.
Giles looked as if he was going to say a lot more, but changed his mind.
"Come on, Giles, you're not forgetting Willow and Anya? Dawnie? All the little Slayers?" Xander said, a little indignant.
"Hardly, Xander. That goes without saying."
"All right, Harris, help me to your car." Spike wasn't sure if he was the commander or the mother hen to this bunch of particularly clueless little geese.
"Um? It's daylight out there?"
"Yeah? Something happen to blankets?" He could do the commanding thing better if he didn't have to stand anymore.
After a humiliating episode with a smoking blanket and Xander almost carrying him Spike was finally ensconced in Xander's car, huddled under the blanket on the backseat. He needn't have washed, he thought resentfully. The smoke would have masked any other smell anyway. He must have dozed off, because they unaccountably stopped. He knew they weren't at Willy's yet by the sounds of people walking and talking and muzak being piped out of stores. Xander came back in the car.
"Where are we? What were you doing?"
A carrier bag full of cold slug-like things was pressed in his hands. "We were out of blood, Spike. I just stopped by the butcher's."
He leaned back in utter confusion. Xander was buying him blood and he hadn't even needed to ask? Giles had been distant and Andrew helpful. Had they all had personality overhauls in the weeks he'd been away?
"You hate my guts, Harris. How come you're buying me blood?"
"If Buffy thinks she.we need you, I'm not gonna second-guess her, okay?"
They drove on in silence. Xander woke him up in Willy's parking lot cum trash zone cum make-out spot. It looked extremely undesirable in daylight, and smelled worse then ever. Xander helped Spike get to Willy's back entrance. Willy himself was there, as always. Spike's senses had never told him Willy wasn't human, but he had to have some kind of magical augmentation to be able to stay awake 24/7.
The bar itself was almost deserted. From the muted sounds emerging from the backroom the kitten-poker game, uninterrupted since 1972, was still going strong.
"Hey!" Willy said in an aggravated voice when he saw Xander. "Why you back here, huh? I toldya I knew nothing."
Spike advanced as menacingly as he could towards Willy. "Stop nattering and give us the info, you bloodless little wanker!" he growled. He was happy to see Willy flinch a little before he remembered about his chip.
"Don't you try nothing, Spike! I know you can't hurt me, and any of the boys back there will help me beat you up, so just push off and I'll forget about it, okay?"
"Harris?"
Xander obligingly hit Willy's chin. Willy's head seemed to shoot up several inches and he crashed down behind the bar.
"Not on the chin, you wanker!" Spike said, exasperated. "We want him to talk, not have a concussion! Did you never watch Buffy doing this? There's an art to hitting humans!"
"Sorry, Spike. I just thought that all the hitting on the nose seemed kind of sissy," Xander muttered.
"Yeah, right, like Buffy is sissy." Spike tottered around the bar top, steadying himself with his hands. He drew some water from the tap and doused Willy with it.
"She is a girl, though. And she used to hit you on the nose all the time. That wasn't serious?"
"Nah, a good tap on the nose hurts like hell, bleeds a lot, gets a bloke's attention good and proper, and leaves no nasty after effects. It's not sissy, just practical! Come here, Xander, and slap him a bit. Gently. It should sting the skin, not shake his brains."
Spike beckoned impatiently to Xander, who'd been hanging back a little after the unprecedented success with the punch.
"This never happens when I hit vampires, you know, the lift-off kind of effect. It's kinda cool, don't you think? I got me a new kind of power!" Xander babbled excitedly.
Spike started to roll his eyes, but it made him dizzy. "Yeah, right, the power of carpentry. Ever take a good look at yourself lately? You must have gained fifty pounds, not all of it flab. Kind of puts a punch in your punch, if you know what I mean. And Willy's such a weasely little guy, too."
Xander bent over Willy and slapped him lightly. Willy started to moan. "Oh, stop. Please, stop, baby, please stop. Mutton chops, mutton chops."
"What the huh?" Xander said.
"Harris, you are such a..It's a safety word or something." Spike leant in and said in dulcet ones: "Oh, baby, tell me everything and I'll stop. Tell me what you know about the Slayer and her little friends?"
Willy let out a deep sighing moan. "More. Yeah. Right there, baby."
"Again!" Spike motioned to Xander. Xander hit Willy again, and almost got the pitcher of water that Spike was using all over himself.
"Hey! Watch it!"
Willy's eyes focused and he cringed when he saw Spike and Xander leaning over him. "Aw! You didn't have to hit me that hard, guys! The Slayer usually just threatens me, okay? Works for us."
"Exactly why you need to help us out, snookums, 'coz we want the Slayer back pronto!"
"I know nothing about the Slayer, honest!" Willy squeaked. "But there was one demon here who talked about you guys, and that tall British Watcher fella, and someone whose name I didn't catch."
"About us? Go on, Willy!"
"She wanted to know everything about you guys, if you were human, what powers you had, where you lived. Who were your associates and so on."
"And you told them?"
"Yeah, sure. I'm the snitch, right? Not like you pay me to be exclusive!"
Wily looked from Spike to Xander, trying to assess where the damage was going to come from next.
"Okay. We're not happy, but as we don't pay you, fair enough. What kind of demon was it?"
"Rumor has it she used to be a goddess, came down in the world, lack of followers or something. Don't know what kind of goddess, or if it's true. She was kind of moody."
The door opened and Clem came in. "Spike, buddy! Good to see you. But man, you're looking really beat up. You seeing the Slayer again? Sweet girl," he said to Xander, "but hey, if I got a dollar for every time I had to watch Spike nurse a black eye or a broken nose. And the time I had to drag you out of that alley just before sunup? That wasn't pretty!"
Xander didn't react, but Spike could see rusty cogs start to turn in his brain.
"She doesn't beat me up anymore, Clem, she didn't do this. We were just talking to Willy here about a female demon who was here coupla nights ago, did you see her? Used to be a goddess?"
"Arty? Yeah, saw her around before. Made a pass at me, but not my type, buddy. Her boyfriends usually turn up in lots of little pieces. I like 'em gentle, and with a bit more folds and padding, you know?"
Spike agreed enthusiastically and drew a lush hourglass shape in the air. "They don't make 'em like they used to, eh? Women you could hold on to? Flesh you could dive in, soft and steamy like."
He shared a look of total understanding with Clem. "Tara."
"Lovely girl!" Clem agreed. "Womanly. Ample."
"Yeah."
Spike shook himself out of it first. "Better get going, Harris. We want our skinny bitchy women back."
Xander opened his mouth to protest but changed his mind. "Yeah, we do. Home. Talk to Giles."
******
The house on Revello reverberated along with the menace in Giles' low growling voice.
"You insane little prat. You incredibly foolish runty amateur. If I ever see your grubby little paws near my spell books again your life will be forfeit. I will rip your tongue from your throat before I."
"Giles? You alright?"
Giles paused in the midst of the strangling motion he was making with his hands and looked around at Spike and Xander.
He looked down at his own hands and back at Andrew's white terrified face. "Um, yes. I'm fine." He cleared his throat and took off his glasses to clean them.
"This little pillock here tried to summon a demon without any precautions at all. Could have cost us our souls. Blasted young fool."
"Hey, it worked before! Just let me show you, it'll work like it always has!"
Giles took a step towards Andrew and he backed off hastily. "Okay, okay, I get the message."
"We did not find any clues, we did not summon any demons, we were too busy preventing disaster from happening!" Giles growled, still in Ripper mode.
Spike sank down on the couch. "You tell him, Harris. The info from Willy and Clem."
"Spike taught me about hitting humans beings, and Clem dated a demon named Arky. Who knows all about us guys who live here. Including you, Giles. Right, Spike?"
Spike's eyes were closed.
********
Spike was in a cave. It was darkish, and the only sounds were dripping water and a faraway rushing. He could feel a presence just around the corner. This was a dream, right? He knelt down and touched the floor of the cave, felt wet limestone, sand. It seemed pretty real. Ah, he got it; he wasn't hurt and healing anymore, so it must be a dream, then. In that case, no need to beat about the bush.
"Buffy?" he called out.
As he knew she would she appeared around a stone outcropping. The lighting in the cave strengthened to a soft glow, enough for human eyes to see by. She stepped straight up to him, into his embrace. He folded his arms around her eagerly.
"Spike!" she said, sounding relieved. "I just knew you were here. Where are we? How did you find us?"
He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. It didn't feel as smooth and fluffy as usual. "It's a dream, love. Just a happy dream. D'you mind that I dream of you? Coz, y'know, we'll be shagging any moment now?"
She laughed and rubbed her cheek against his chest. "You're a little more direct than the real version of you in the basement. And hey, not like I never dream of you, huh? Only like all the time? What's a little dreaming between lovers?"
"Are we lovers, then, Buffy? D'you call us lovers?" It was a weird dream. Usually there was just a bed, like his bed in his crypt, which they had used so seldom. Clean sheets, naked bodies, sex, whispered endearments. Not hard questions.
She looked up at him, her face still soft and open. "In my dreams I do, it's kind of inevitable, don't you think? When I'm awake, not so much. Not even in my mind, coz it's all so hard. All the choices seem wrong. Loving a vampire seems wrong, but staking you, or asking you to leave seems just as bad. But this is a dream, right? No choices. Just doing what you feel like doing."
They kissed. She didn't taste like regular Buffy, a little coffee, a little toothpaste and whatever she had been eating. She tasted like just-awake Buffy, Buffy in the buff, her own personal mouth flavor, that he didn't have words for. She smelled very much like herself, too. Like Buffy might smell after not showering for three days, maybe, and hanging around in a damp cave. Just like a dream, to infuse these snippets of reality into the dream images at random and inappropriate intervals.
Buffy unbuttoned his shirt and ran her hands over his chest. "You're all healed up. All smooth and lickable." She kissed his breastbone and ran a nail lightly over his nipple, making him gasp and shiver. The light in the cave glowed a little stronger, and it was warmer, too.
"Let's get comfortable, love," Spike said huskily, looking around and finding a patch of dry-looking sand.
He spread his duster on it and they lay down. The fact that he was wearing his duster in the dream sort of bothered him. He wasn't that Spike anymore, and he didn't want to be reminded of the old Spike anymore. It did come in handy, though.
He peeled off her clothes slowly, savoring the feel and the heat of her skin. Skinny she might be, and bloody bitchy as well, but here was nothing like the soft texture of her skin, all the tiny invisible hairs tickling the sensitive tips of his finger or the palm of his hand. So many plusses to being a vampire, so many things to feel with a warm breathing sweating woman. He buried his nose in her armpit, and tickled the tip with the unexpected bristle of little hairs there.
"You smell so good, love. Like you, only tripled." He slid his cheek over her soft breast, feeling the nipple hardening, and took it in his mouth, sucking slightly, then giving it a bite and a tug. He felt more than heard her gasp, and smiled. She still liked rough better than soft.
"Like it rough, don't you, honey? Like it firm, and hard, and everywhere." he said in to her ear, and she writhed against him, loving the talk, getting hot from his talk like before. Her hands were everywhere, touching and searing him, branding him with hand-shaped marks, tugging at his jeans, nearly ripping the buttons of with those strong impatient hands.
Buffy was really wet for him, and she gripped him so hard, it was almost painful, but in a good way. She drew him inside her and he couldn't think anymore, just babble about good and hot and wet and more. She panted and moaned under him, groaning his name and saying harder, and fuck me Spike.
It was almost like being back in time, except that he felt really really different. It must be the soul, that made everything so much more than just about the physical, more than his cock sliding in and out of her, more than pounding her into the sand, more than feeling her hands bruising him in her hard grip, feeling her gasp a hot breath against his mouth. It was as if his soul was burning inside him, filling every sensation with a meaning so painful, so intense it made him gasp. He felt its dizzying brightness and sheer weight bear down on him, making him shake and lose his rhythm, and made him unable to say anything but: "Buffy, Buffy, Buffy."
And there was higher and brighter to come. She gasped, "Spike, I.I.I can't say it, but I." It was as if she had said it, really said it. As if this wasn't just a movie his own brain made while he was sleeping, but really real Buffy telling him she loved him. They clutched each other, helplessly bucking on the ride of their feelings. He rolled them over, holding her tight against him on his chest. Her heart beat a fast gallop, slowing down only a little when they rested.
Buffy lifted herself on her forearms and looked at him. "Let me say it, Spike. I can only do it in a dream, anyway. In real life I can't do it. I'm such a wuss, if people only knew."
"Shh. You don't have to make yourself say it, love. When it comes without you even thinking about it it'll be the better for it, okay?"
"Yeah," she breathed and lay down again, shifting around against him until she had found the snuggest possible fit. He felt her slide down into sleep and was happy and proud to keep holding her like that, keeping vigil over his love.
TBC
Spike swayed and clung to the doorpost to steady himself . "Who disappeared? Buffy? Is Buffy gone? Where?"
His knees buckled and he started to slide down to the floor. Strong warm hands steadied him and propelled him to the couch, and he sank down gratefully. When the world had stopped lurching about he looked up and saw Xander's and Giles' faces, hovering over him a little too close, so that he had to blink and refocus his eyes, until the brown and the blue eyes no longer swam together.
He took a deep breath. "All there now. Tell me what's happened."
Giles started his tale. When he had returned from one of his vaguely explained trips around the globe, he'd found a silent house. Andrew was sleeping, and none of the girls were there. Giles hadn't been alarmed at first, but when Xander came back after work, and found nobody home, they started getting worried. Andrew hadn't seen or heard a thing, and none of them had remembered Spike yet. They'd scoured all of Sunnydale and ascertained the girls were nowhere to be found; Dawn wasn't in school, Buffy hadn't been to work, Willow hadn't been to class.
Spike ran a hand through his freely curling hair, unable to take it in. "So.something came into the house, abducted all the bleeding women, and left Geek Boy and me undisturbed?"
"We don't even know when, where, who by, or what for! When I left the house it was just a regular day, the girls getting up, bickering over the shower, Buffy making breakfast." Xander said.
"There were no signs of anything abnormal?" Spike asked.
"Well, Buffy was perky yesterday morning, before she even had her first cup of coffee, but that's not the kind of abnormal you mean, I guess."
No, it wasn't, but it did make him feel chuffed. He noticed Giles' sharp glance, and realized he must be wearing a sappy grin. He tried to assume a normal, smirking Spike-face and thought of what could possibly have taken all the women, and why?
"You seem not to be thinking it's the First. Why?"
"Good question," Giles admitted. "We didn't find traces of a break in, and Andrew was left to sleep in peace. We shouldn't eliminate it yet, but my gut tells me it's something different."
Spike felt his head drooping. "Could any of you fine fellows help me to my basement? I need to sleep now. The sooner I recover the safer you will all be."
At a sign from Giles Xander helped him down. The last thing he noticed before tumbling into sleep was that his skull ring wasn't on the bed stand anymore. Could Buffy possibly be wearing it? His tired brain couldn't think of another explanation right now, and it made him feel all happy and warm inside.
Xander woke him up later in the evening with two cups of warm blood in his hand. "Drink up, buddy. We need you strong."
Spike passed on the 'buddy', and drank up in silence, not interested in snarking right now.
"More?"
The thought made him gag, and he shook his head. Sleep was more important now. There was one thing, though.
"Harris? Could you check under the bed for my ring?"
"I'm your maid now?"
Xander groused, but obliged, and couldn't find a ring. Buffy must really have taken it. He fell asleep again. When he woke the next morning he was feeling a lot stronger. He went up to the kitchen under his own steam, and found the group of solitary males gathered around pots of coffee and tea.
"Any news, mates?" he said, while putting a bag of blood in the microwave.
They all said no in their various ways. Cruising the Bronze, all of Sunnydale's cemeteries and bars, and even scoping out the mall had turned up nothing. After downing the last three bags of blood Spike felt better, and took a cup of coffee. He took in their saggy postures and less than determined faces.
"Well, then, what's the plan for today?" he said, needing there to be action.
Giles dithered a bit, playing with his spectacles, but there was no plan, apparently.
"You're a fine bunch of tossers!" Spike said, indignant. "We can't sit around moping, there's work to be done! Giles, what do your bleeding books say? Well, get going on them! Um, you there, what can you do?"
"Um, well, I could summon a demon? And ask him where we could find the girls?" Andrew suggested diffidently.
"Sounds interesting. Harris, we'll hit the demon world. You can drive me over to Willy's." He waited a beat, expecting opposition, mostly from Giles.
"Hey! I'm not your chauffeur, and I went there already. They knew nothing," Xander protested.
"Yeah, right, 'cause they were going to spill all to the human? Give us a break, mate." Spike was starting to feel a bit dizzy with all the standing about, and wished he could sit again.
"Spike is right. We need information, we know nothing yet. We're completely vulnerable without Buffy, we need her back."
Giles was looking at him warily, but still backing him up. Must be a bloody desperate watcher. He couldn't believe they were letting him take the lead. Were they so used to Buffy taking the reins, they couldn't do it anymore even in an emergency?
"Bit cold-blooded, Watcher. Could think of a coupla more reasons to want her back," Spike said.
Giles looked as if he was going to say a lot more, but changed his mind.
"Come on, Giles, you're not forgetting Willow and Anya? Dawnie? All the little Slayers?" Xander said, a little indignant.
"Hardly, Xander. That goes without saying."
"All right, Harris, help me to your car." Spike wasn't sure if he was the commander or the mother hen to this bunch of particularly clueless little geese.
"Um? It's daylight out there?"
"Yeah? Something happen to blankets?" He could do the commanding thing better if he didn't have to stand anymore.
After a humiliating episode with a smoking blanket and Xander almost carrying him Spike was finally ensconced in Xander's car, huddled under the blanket on the backseat. He needn't have washed, he thought resentfully. The smoke would have masked any other smell anyway. He must have dozed off, because they unaccountably stopped. He knew they weren't at Willy's yet by the sounds of people walking and talking and muzak being piped out of stores. Xander came back in the car.
"Where are we? What were you doing?"
A carrier bag full of cold slug-like things was pressed in his hands. "We were out of blood, Spike. I just stopped by the butcher's."
He leaned back in utter confusion. Xander was buying him blood and he hadn't even needed to ask? Giles had been distant and Andrew helpful. Had they all had personality overhauls in the weeks he'd been away?
"You hate my guts, Harris. How come you're buying me blood?"
"If Buffy thinks she.we need you, I'm not gonna second-guess her, okay?"
They drove on in silence. Xander woke him up in Willy's parking lot cum trash zone cum make-out spot. It looked extremely undesirable in daylight, and smelled worse then ever. Xander helped Spike get to Willy's back entrance. Willy himself was there, as always. Spike's senses had never told him Willy wasn't human, but he had to have some kind of magical augmentation to be able to stay awake 24/7.
The bar itself was almost deserted. From the muted sounds emerging from the backroom the kitten-poker game, uninterrupted since 1972, was still going strong.
"Hey!" Willy said in an aggravated voice when he saw Xander. "Why you back here, huh? I toldya I knew nothing."
Spike advanced as menacingly as he could towards Willy. "Stop nattering and give us the info, you bloodless little wanker!" he growled. He was happy to see Willy flinch a little before he remembered about his chip.
"Don't you try nothing, Spike! I know you can't hurt me, and any of the boys back there will help me beat you up, so just push off and I'll forget about it, okay?"
"Harris?"
Xander obligingly hit Willy's chin. Willy's head seemed to shoot up several inches and he crashed down behind the bar.
"Not on the chin, you wanker!" Spike said, exasperated. "We want him to talk, not have a concussion! Did you never watch Buffy doing this? There's an art to hitting humans!"
"Sorry, Spike. I just thought that all the hitting on the nose seemed kind of sissy," Xander muttered.
"Yeah, right, like Buffy is sissy." Spike tottered around the bar top, steadying himself with his hands. He drew some water from the tap and doused Willy with it.
"She is a girl, though. And she used to hit you on the nose all the time. That wasn't serious?"
"Nah, a good tap on the nose hurts like hell, bleeds a lot, gets a bloke's attention good and proper, and leaves no nasty after effects. It's not sissy, just practical! Come here, Xander, and slap him a bit. Gently. It should sting the skin, not shake his brains."
Spike beckoned impatiently to Xander, who'd been hanging back a little after the unprecedented success with the punch.
"This never happens when I hit vampires, you know, the lift-off kind of effect. It's kinda cool, don't you think? I got me a new kind of power!" Xander babbled excitedly.
Spike started to roll his eyes, but it made him dizzy. "Yeah, right, the power of carpentry. Ever take a good look at yourself lately? You must have gained fifty pounds, not all of it flab. Kind of puts a punch in your punch, if you know what I mean. And Willy's such a weasely little guy, too."
Xander bent over Willy and slapped him lightly. Willy started to moan. "Oh, stop. Please, stop, baby, please stop. Mutton chops, mutton chops."
"What the huh?" Xander said.
"Harris, you are such a..It's a safety word or something." Spike leant in and said in dulcet ones: "Oh, baby, tell me everything and I'll stop. Tell me what you know about the Slayer and her little friends?"
Willy let out a deep sighing moan. "More. Yeah. Right there, baby."
"Again!" Spike motioned to Xander. Xander hit Willy again, and almost got the pitcher of water that Spike was using all over himself.
"Hey! Watch it!"
Willy's eyes focused and he cringed when he saw Spike and Xander leaning over him. "Aw! You didn't have to hit me that hard, guys! The Slayer usually just threatens me, okay? Works for us."
"Exactly why you need to help us out, snookums, 'coz we want the Slayer back pronto!"
"I know nothing about the Slayer, honest!" Willy squeaked. "But there was one demon here who talked about you guys, and that tall British Watcher fella, and someone whose name I didn't catch."
"About us? Go on, Willy!"
"She wanted to know everything about you guys, if you were human, what powers you had, where you lived. Who were your associates and so on."
"And you told them?"
"Yeah, sure. I'm the snitch, right? Not like you pay me to be exclusive!"
Wily looked from Spike to Xander, trying to assess where the damage was going to come from next.
"Okay. We're not happy, but as we don't pay you, fair enough. What kind of demon was it?"
"Rumor has it she used to be a goddess, came down in the world, lack of followers or something. Don't know what kind of goddess, or if it's true. She was kind of moody."
The door opened and Clem came in. "Spike, buddy! Good to see you. But man, you're looking really beat up. You seeing the Slayer again? Sweet girl," he said to Xander, "but hey, if I got a dollar for every time I had to watch Spike nurse a black eye or a broken nose. And the time I had to drag you out of that alley just before sunup? That wasn't pretty!"
Xander didn't react, but Spike could see rusty cogs start to turn in his brain.
"She doesn't beat me up anymore, Clem, she didn't do this. We were just talking to Willy here about a female demon who was here coupla nights ago, did you see her? Used to be a goddess?"
"Arty? Yeah, saw her around before. Made a pass at me, but not my type, buddy. Her boyfriends usually turn up in lots of little pieces. I like 'em gentle, and with a bit more folds and padding, you know?"
Spike agreed enthusiastically and drew a lush hourglass shape in the air. "They don't make 'em like they used to, eh? Women you could hold on to? Flesh you could dive in, soft and steamy like."
He shared a look of total understanding with Clem. "Tara."
"Lovely girl!" Clem agreed. "Womanly. Ample."
"Yeah."
Spike shook himself out of it first. "Better get going, Harris. We want our skinny bitchy women back."
Xander opened his mouth to protest but changed his mind. "Yeah, we do. Home. Talk to Giles."
******
The house on Revello reverberated along with the menace in Giles' low growling voice.
"You insane little prat. You incredibly foolish runty amateur. If I ever see your grubby little paws near my spell books again your life will be forfeit. I will rip your tongue from your throat before I."
"Giles? You alright?"
Giles paused in the midst of the strangling motion he was making with his hands and looked around at Spike and Xander.
He looked down at his own hands and back at Andrew's white terrified face. "Um, yes. I'm fine." He cleared his throat and took off his glasses to clean them.
"This little pillock here tried to summon a demon without any precautions at all. Could have cost us our souls. Blasted young fool."
"Hey, it worked before! Just let me show you, it'll work like it always has!"
Giles took a step towards Andrew and he backed off hastily. "Okay, okay, I get the message."
"We did not find any clues, we did not summon any demons, we were too busy preventing disaster from happening!" Giles growled, still in Ripper mode.
Spike sank down on the couch. "You tell him, Harris. The info from Willy and Clem."
"Spike taught me about hitting humans beings, and Clem dated a demon named Arky. Who knows all about us guys who live here. Including you, Giles. Right, Spike?"
Spike's eyes were closed.
********
Spike was in a cave. It was darkish, and the only sounds were dripping water and a faraway rushing. He could feel a presence just around the corner. This was a dream, right? He knelt down and touched the floor of the cave, felt wet limestone, sand. It seemed pretty real. Ah, he got it; he wasn't hurt and healing anymore, so it must be a dream, then. In that case, no need to beat about the bush.
"Buffy?" he called out.
As he knew she would she appeared around a stone outcropping. The lighting in the cave strengthened to a soft glow, enough for human eyes to see by. She stepped straight up to him, into his embrace. He folded his arms around her eagerly.
"Spike!" she said, sounding relieved. "I just knew you were here. Where are we? How did you find us?"
He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. It didn't feel as smooth and fluffy as usual. "It's a dream, love. Just a happy dream. D'you mind that I dream of you? Coz, y'know, we'll be shagging any moment now?"
She laughed and rubbed her cheek against his chest. "You're a little more direct than the real version of you in the basement. And hey, not like I never dream of you, huh? Only like all the time? What's a little dreaming between lovers?"
"Are we lovers, then, Buffy? D'you call us lovers?" It was a weird dream. Usually there was just a bed, like his bed in his crypt, which they had used so seldom. Clean sheets, naked bodies, sex, whispered endearments. Not hard questions.
She looked up at him, her face still soft and open. "In my dreams I do, it's kind of inevitable, don't you think? When I'm awake, not so much. Not even in my mind, coz it's all so hard. All the choices seem wrong. Loving a vampire seems wrong, but staking you, or asking you to leave seems just as bad. But this is a dream, right? No choices. Just doing what you feel like doing."
They kissed. She didn't taste like regular Buffy, a little coffee, a little toothpaste and whatever she had been eating. She tasted like just-awake Buffy, Buffy in the buff, her own personal mouth flavor, that he didn't have words for. She smelled very much like herself, too. Like Buffy might smell after not showering for three days, maybe, and hanging around in a damp cave. Just like a dream, to infuse these snippets of reality into the dream images at random and inappropriate intervals.
Buffy unbuttoned his shirt and ran her hands over his chest. "You're all healed up. All smooth and lickable." She kissed his breastbone and ran a nail lightly over his nipple, making him gasp and shiver. The light in the cave glowed a little stronger, and it was warmer, too.
"Let's get comfortable, love," Spike said huskily, looking around and finding a patch of dry-looking sand.
He spread his duster on it and they lay down. The fact that he was wearing his duster in the dream sort of bothered him. He wasn't that Spike anymore, and he didn't want to be reminded of the old Spike anymore. It did come in handy, though.
He peeled off her clothes slowly, savoring the feel and the heat of her skin. Skinny she might be, and bloody bitchy as well, but here was nothing like the soft texture of her skin, all the tiny invisible hairs tickling the sensitive tips of his finger or the palm of his hand. So many plusses to being a vampire, so many things to feel with a warm breathing sweating woman. He buried his nose in her armpit, and tickled the tip with the unexpected bristle of little hairs there.
"You smell so good, love. Like you, only tripled." He slid his cheek over her soft breast, feeling the nipple hardening, and took it in his mouth, sucking slightly, then giving it a bite and a tug. He felt more than heard her gasp, and smiled. She still liked rough better than soft.
"Like it rough, don't you, honey? Like it firm, and hard, and everywhere." he said in to her ear, and she writhed against him, loving the talk, getting hot from his talk like before. Her hands were everywhere, touching and searing him, branding him with hand-shaped marks, tugging at his jeans, nearly ripping the buttons of with those strong impatient hands.
Buffy was really wet for him, and she gripped him so hard, it was almost painful, but in a good way. She drew him inside her and he couldn't think anymore, just babble about good and hot and wet and more. She panted and moaned under him, groaning his name and saying harder, and fuck me Spike.
It was almost like being back in time, except that he felt really really different. It must be the soul, that made everything so much more than just about the physical, more than his cock sliding in and out of her, more than pounding her into the sand, more than feeling her hands bruising him in her hard grip, feeling her gasp a hot breath against his mouth. It was as if his soul was burning inside him, filling every sensation with a meaning so painful, so intense it made him gasp. He felt its dizzying brightness and sheer weight bear down on him, making him shake and lose his rhythm, and made him unable to say anything but: "Buffy, Buffy, Buffy."
And there was higher and brighter to come. She gasped, "Spike, I.I.I can't say it, but I." It was as if she had said it, really said it. As if this wasn't just a movie his own brain made while he was sleeping, but really real Buffy telling him she loved him. They clutched each other, helplessly bucking on the ride of their feelings. He rolled them over, holding her tight against him on his chest. Her heart beat a fast gallop, slowing down only a little when they rested.
Buffy lifted herself on her forearms and looked at him. "Let me say it, Spike. I can only do it in a dream, anyway. In real life I can't do it. I'm such a wuss, if people only knew."
"Shh. You don't have to make yourself say it, love. When it comes without you even thinking about it it'll be the better for it, okay?"
"Yeah," she breathed and lay down again, shifting around against him until she had found the snuggest possible fit. He felt her slide down into sleep and was happy and proud to keep holding her like that, keeping vigil over his love.
TBC