The price is right (5), by dutchbuffy2305
Rating: R
Timeline: Season 7, AU after Showtime, some spoilers for eps after that
Summary: Spike, Giles and Xander are searching for the Buffy and the girls. Spike is meeting Buffy on a dream plane. Former goddess Artemis needs a sacrifice form them.
Disclaimer: All Joss's
Feedback: Yes please, to dutchbuffy2305@yahoo.co.uk
"Well?" Spike let the question hung in the air. "Not gonna wait here like little lambs until she comes back, are we? We need to stop her. Bitch is gonna take more than a couple of fillings next time."
Spike started pacing. Andrew clutched the doorpost, Giles and Xander sat hunched and defeated at the counter. Spike could feel something of the terrible seduction of hopelessness, of just giving in to the circumstances, but he knew Buffy would always go down fighting. Buffy would never give up. He stood in front of Giles and tried to will him into action with his eyes.
"Rupert? Harris? For Buffy! For Willow and Dawn! You can't just give up! They wouldn't if it was us!"
"I need to get to a dentist," Xander moaned. "I have insurance."
"Oh, shut up, Xander," Giles said tiredly. "We all have our little problems."
"Is that so? Don't see bleach boy here losing something important to him! Are you in league with her, Spike?"
"Xander – really – while I'm not at all happy to have an unmuzzled Spike around, I very much doubt he was in on it. Not exactly designed to make Buffy happy, is it?"
The statement landed in Spike's stomach with a sickening thud. Would she mind? He had no idea. Of course he realized that without the chip, he would never have loved Buffy, would never have done any of the things he'd been busy with the past four years, but the bloody thing had served its purpose. The soul would restrain him far more effectively than the chip – if he let it. He suspected his soul had become unlike ordinary human souls, because they never stopped people from doing wrong. His soul must be the heavy-duty kind, manufactured with extra guilt features and a leaden mass of conscience, and it was weighing him down so much he sometimes found it hard to stand upright. He knew he moved differently, stiffly, pressing his shoulders back and his chin up, pushing against the heaviness of the soul.
Spike dragged himself forcibly out of the quicksand thoughts and grasped at a memory from last night.
"Clem. Clem said something about her boyfriends ending up in little pieces. He might know more, we could ask their families or something."
He saw Giles right his back with an effort and reach for his glasses, and give up when he realized anew they were useless. He stood up and cleared his throat. "Yes. Indeed. Andrew, you will have to help me with the books, as I can't read right now. Xander and Spike can go visit Clem."
"Hey!" Xander protested. "My teeth! You can't expect me to do this without my teeth!"
"I can and I do, Xander. You'll just have to muddle through driving with sore teeth, difficult as that may seem."
"I resent that. I know that was sarcasm, okay, and you just don't know what pain I'm in right now!" But being Xander, he moved to get his coat and car keys as he spoke.
"You drive, Spike. It's late and my teeth hurt." Xander handed over the car keys to Spike, and was moving to the passenger side of the car before Spike could even manage to snap his jaw back into place.
"You don't have to come along," he offered. "I can talk to Clem just fine on my own." Keeping Harris out of the wind. Would wonders never cease?
"No, that's fine," Xander said, not looking him in the eye.
Right. A definite element of keeping an eye on unchipped Spike, there was.
"Clem still living in your crypt?"
"Yeah. Wanted to start there. We can always go to Willy's if he isn't home."
"Do you miss your comfy crypt, the whole surrounded by mementos of death kind of thing?"
"I miss the peace and quiet alright. Don't miss the corpses and the sewer-smell. But all those little girls getting underfoot…" He could see what Harris was trying to do, distract himself, but it was hard to play along, as he'd never heard him voice an opinion he could agree with.
"You're not wrong, bleach boy. Women. Can't do without them, huh?"
Spike declined to answer. What did Harris imagine women were for? Rolling up his socks and cleaning his kitchen? Not like he'd ever really appreciated the demon girl.
When they finally tracked Clem down in one of the lesser-known demon bars in town, they were both way past tired and cranky. Clem could only point them to one of his mates, who might have known the sister of the demon boy that had been torn apart. When they went in to Willy's for the third time that night, looking for their next contact, Spike was about ready to tear Xander's head off. Their following stop was the sewer entrance near the Magic Box. The family of the boy was said to live in a disused tunnel about halfway between the Sunnydale town center and Restfield cemetery. They were sloshing towards it through knee-high sewer water, having to walk carefully because of the unnamed substances making the sewer floor slippery.
"Wait up, Spike," Xander begged. "I'm bushed. I can't do this anymore."
"We have to do this now, Harris!" Spike said through clenched teeth. "It's nearly dawn, in about twelve hours the bloody goddess is going to ask us for not-so–pleasant sacrifices, and we still have nothing!"
It still took more than an hour before they found the entrance to the lair, and by then they were thoroughly wet, smelly and dispirited.
Xander acquired more compassion for demons in the uncomfortable half-hour that followed than he'd ever felt before – which, admittedly, was just about zero. The small family, father, mother and sister stood nervously around Spike, wringing their fragile tentacles, brokenly telling the tale of the brother and son that had never come home. How when they had tracked him by the scent of his gore, there had been nothing to find but little pieces of green flesh. Other than that, they knew nothing. That he had had a girlfriend, sure, but neither they nor their extended family had been able to find her anywhere in Sunnydale or the worlds that could be reached by easily accessible portals.
It took another hour to trudge back, and by then even Spike was shivering. The sun had risen in the meantime, he realized. He looked at Harris. Poor guy. Having to go to work without any sleep at all and great gaping holes in your back teeth was not going to be a ball. At least he could get some, his injuries were aching and he was about to keel over. So much for vamp healing powers and immortal stamina, he was going to plop down onto that cot and not move for the next eight hours. His heart sank as he realized he'd be dreaming of Buffy, and that he would have to tell her about the chip. He had no idea how she would react. Should he mention Giles' reaction? Would she believe him?
****
Buffy careened into him the moment he fell asleep and slammed him up against the wall. Most of him could just think helplessly oh, yeah, more, now, but one part was a little miffed at the level of violence.
"What?" he said, against her frantic mouth working his.
"You weren't there! I'm going stir-crazy here, nothing to do but sit around and wait and you weren't there!" Punctuating the words with Slayer-hard jabs of her fingers in his chest.
"Looking for a goddess, love. Hard work. And you thought it would be a good idea to work off those frustrations on me?"
It took her a moment to wrap her brain around that sentence. "Yeah. Shut up. Make love to me now."
Flat on his back on his duster once again, being ridden at a gallop, Spike thought woozily of the return of bitchy sex-goddess Buffy. She'd bloody well convinced him that this was something she only did when newly risen from the dead and in the grips of depression. He remembered knowing differently, knowing for sure, but somewhere between the bathroom and the soul and being insane all that knowledge had slipped away from him. Right, clearly she wanted him rough, tough, and bad, only with the soul.
He should tell her something. Chip. The way she ground down on him made the thought fracture and disperse. He flipped her over with a growl, held one golden leg tight against his chest and started slamming into her the way he remembered so well was her favorite. God, they still knew each other's bodies inside out, look at her mewling and scratching the sand. He wished she would grab his balls now and hey presto, she did, and there was no more room for wishing in his totally fried mind right now.
In the middle of leisurely giving her a third orgasm, he paused as the stray thought found its home once more and lifted his head. "Buffy. Artemis took my chip."
She lifted her upper body on her elbows. "Huh?"
"She visited us. Ruined Giles' glasses, took Harris' fillings and my chip."
She was blinking owlishly, not concentrating too well, he saw. Well, his bad, should have waited until after. She pushed his head back down. "Tell me later."
When they'd finally wrung the last drop of energy out of each other and she lay warm and limp on his chest, playing weakly with his hair, she returned to the topic of the chip.
"Well. It's out. I can harm people again."
She pondered this an unconscionably long time. "Huh. Could you kill a human being?"
He almost flipped her off his chest. "What the hell are you thinking? You think I'd want to try that out?" Bitch.
She scooted upwards a little and looked at him earnestly, big hazel eyes free of make-up. "Sorry. Being flippant." She peppered little kisses on his face. "Love you." Her breath hitched as she said it and he could hear her heart thumping wildly, faster then when they were fucking. His intrepid Slayer, afraid of all the soft things. His girl, though.
******
"Well, Spike, had a nice rest?"
"What did the Buffster say about the chip, Spike?"
Bunch of gleeful vultures staring at him. What now? Could they tell?
"Um, well, gave her a blow-by blow account" -wrong imagery, you ponce, do you have to point their minds in that direction? "- of our research and results and, um, Artemis."
Could he possibly sound any more as if someone had fucked his brains out for hours? He needed blood. Giles sat tiredly rubbing his eyes, Xander was moving his tongue around in his mouth like an old man fiddling with his dentures.
"So, um, Rupert, did you and the little boy find anything useful?"
Giles's hand moved to his face, only to realize again there were no glasses. "Not in the books, but of course I have a lifetime of accumulated knowledge myself, and I think what we're dealing with is the kind of balance that's always important in magic, for example in fairy tales. You'll remember there are often wishes granted by witches or monsters, or sacrifices demanded. The hero or heroine is always tricked into giving something away that's really important to them."
"In fairy tales there always is a happy ending," Andrew chirped, happy to contribute.
"Thank you, Andrew. I certainly hope that we will manage to wrest a good ending from the fates. My fear is that we have tacitly agreed to an exchange, thereby satisfying the rules of the game, and that we can be forced to give up things that we wouldn't like to give up."
"Such as?
""Your firstborn child?" Andrew again.
"Yes, indeed, that is the idea." Giles nodded grudgingly to the boy.
"We will just have to sneak up to the campfire and listen to the goddess sing out her secret name!"
"You do remember we're dealing with Artemis and not with Rumpelstiltkin? That we know her real name, and that can't possibly be the secret she's hiding?"
"Could I be forced to give something up that's like my firstborn child that I don't have? Like my car?" Xander didn't seem scared enough, in Spike's opinion.
"Possibly." Giles didn't sound as if he cared one jot about Xander's precious car, Spike noted gleefully. "Still, Andrew, you gave me the germ of an idea. I think we should try to imprison her when she returns and force her to return the girls to us. Any exchange she's willing to make is bound to be unfavorable to us."
"That's the Giles we all know and love!" Xander hugged Giles, clearly as relieved as Spike was at the return of the Giles who always had a solution to everything. They got busy with magic sand and the looking up of binding spells, the activity masking their lack of a real counter plan. The binding spells took a lot of time and the evening had turned into night by the time they were done.
With the same suddenness and buzzing-ears brownout effect as the night before the goddess arrived into the middle of the power circle. She raised her perfect brows at the evil-colored magic sand and stepped out of the circle without so much as a flick of her fingers.
"Nice effort, boys," she said disdainfully. "Unfortunately, I'm not a demon to be summoned and bound that way."
Spike's heart sank at the dismayed expression on Giles' face. He knew very well they had nothing else, but had still been hoping on a bit of extra from the Watcher.
"And now for the real thing. Are you ready to sacrifice all for the women you love? It's a big deal, you know. Recreating something out of nothing. First, I need me a little basic substance."
She crooked her finger at Andrew. He walked towards her like a puppet on a string, looking back at the others with a helpless plea in his eyes. Artemis looked him up and down, turned him around a few times and checked his teeth.
"A perfect blank slate," she pronounced. "Not good, not evil, not much of anything. No fixed sexual orientation, no morals. He'll do."
"What? I'll do for what?"
Artemis ignored him. She walked up to Xander and poked him in his belly. "The boy's a little weak and skinny, though. I'm going to use some of your ample resources to fill him out. Ready to give up your pound of flesh for the ladies?"
"Huh?" Xander looked around wildly. "Giles? Spike? What does she mean? What does she want from me?"
"Sounds like she wants some of what you've got in plenty, Harris," Spike drawled, amused in spite of himself. "Donating some lard doesn't sound so bad."
"Lard? This is all manly muscle, you skinny corpse!"
So far, this sounded doable. Although it wasn't exactly clear what she intended to do with blank slate Andrew.
"Your ample pearly flesh, my boy," the former goddess crooned to Xander, "is so very attractive to all and sundry in the demon world, you don't know half of it! And the more there is, the more we love you. That's why I need some of it. Not to mention the fact that you're so proud of your 'construction muscle…' "
Artemis yanked off Xander's check shirt and ripped the T-shirt he was wearing in two. Xander stood revealed in all his manly glory. Without further ado, Artemis plunged her hands into Xander's flesh and started to tear off great chunks of it. There was no blood, but Xander screamed in shock and pain. Spike stood transfixed, fascinated and horrified both. Artemis raked her hands all over Xander's body, adding to what looked like a great ball of cookie dough in her hands. Xander fell down limply, no longer screaming, and Artemis carried the cookie dough over to Andrew. She threw the stuff over Andrew's face, and more screaming ensued. Andrew sank down on the floor, too, kicking his legs and futilely trying to tear the pale stuff off.
Spike tried to move, but was unable to. He could just glance at Giles from the corner of his eyes, and he was wearing a look on his face that must be identical to the one on his own. This was unexpected. They were not prepared for this! How could she do that? Had they somehow consented to this?
Artemis stood up from her sculpting work. The writhing lump of cookie dough, which once had been Andrew and part of Xander's belly, stood up and faced them blankly. It now wore the face of a handsome young man of classical Greek beauty.
She dusted off her hands and threw them a broad smile. "Exciting, isn't it, creation? So much more fun than doing it the old-fashioned way."
Creation? Is that what she called it? And what was she creating here? A lover? He tried to signal to Giles, but he couldn't move his head at all and could only listen to the voice of the goddess. The slippery satisfaction that was oozing from it made his skin crawl.
"That went well, don't you think? And now we have a perfect physical specimen, the ideal blank vessel. But it's lacking something. Care to guess what? Oh, you can't, I froze your voice. My loss."
She could have had an attractive laugh.
"I need something precious to you, and this is how it works. That's why I picked you. You have something very interesting to give. The love you bear your surrogate daughter? Well, no, what would I do with it? He'll only have to love me. I just like the fear in your eyes."
A small but fast growing tendril of apprehension took root in Spike's gut. Something precious?
"No, really. What is it that you think makes you worthwhile in other people's eyes? What is your true value in this world? What gains you respect? Oh, you've got it, I can see it in your eyes. Clever man. Your learning is what I'll take, all that lovely book-knowledge, that took so many years and hard work to acquire. Now don't cry! I'm leaving you intelligence. Speech. Language, even. You could always relearn all that stuff, you know?"
Spike heard Giles give a strangled sob. Considerate of her, to return his voice so he could sob. He feared he knew exactly what she was going take from him. Please let him be wrong!
Artemis returned to his field of vision, looking very pleased with herself, the Andrew-thing in tow. It looked different already. It looked at him and he could see it mentally classify him as a vampire, William the Bloody, souled. Or something like that. His insides were a mass of liquid fear and hatred and helplessness.
Artemis put her face close to his and smiled. "I love that. You two are such great donors, so aware of what's happening. Makes it just that crucial bit more fun."
She put her hands on his temples, exerting terrible pressure with those slim feminine hands. Why not take it from his heart?
"Gird your loins, William. Here goes."
Spike thought of the pain and suffering with which he had paid for every step of his journey. Everything he had gained the past years he would lose in a couple of seconds. Buffy. All about Buffy. He didn't regret one drop of heartache he'd spilt to gain this prize. So there had been no more than a couple of precious hours with her? It would have to be enough.
There was nothing like the pain Lurky had given him. There was a lifting of pressure and his soul was gone. Just like that. Except for the terrible lightness he felt, where there had been weight, there was no change.
Artemis blew him a kiss. The thing she'd made stared at him with horrible self-awareness for a moment before they both disappeared.
He could move again.
TBC