The price is right (6), by dutchbuffy2305
Rating: R
Timeline: Season 7, AU after Showtime, some spoilers of eps after that
Summary: Former goddess Artemis has taken all the girls from the Summers' house, and shows up at Revello Drive, agreeing to return them for a price.
Disclaimer: All Joss's
Feedback: Yes please, to dutchbuffy2305@yahoo.co.uk
Xander was lying on the ground, moaning piteously and patting his newly skinny ribs and arms helplessly, as if searching for the lost flesh.
"You alright?" Spike asked, feeling compelled to ask, in spite of the uselessness of the question.
Xander wouldn't or couldn't answer, and Spike grabbed his chin, to force Xander to look him in the eye.
"Say something," Spike said roughly. Anything to keep his mind off his own predicament.
"She took my body! She took my flesh! Look at me, there's nothing left…"
Xander looked as if he might cry. Spike couldn't really blame him, even if he personally thought the lost flesh could well be missed.
"Can you stand up?" Spike asked. "Or move at all?"
With Spike's assistance, Xander stood up on shaky legs. Everything seemed normal and in working order. Had she really just taken fat and muscle? Spike turned to Giles, who sat on the kitchen floor, his hands resting limply on his thighs, staring at nothing.
"Rupert? How are you doing? Do you remember anything? Do you know who I am?"
There was a flash of irritation in Giles' eyes. "Of course I do. You are Spike. You're a vampire. You annoy me."
"That all? What do you know about vampires?"
Giles made a huffing sound. "Humph! Everything! I know that…I know…nothing. Vampires don't even exist."
Xander uttered a strangled sound. Spike and he shared a horrified look. Xander knelt down and gently tried to take Giles' hand in his, but Giles shook it off with fluttery flapping motions of his hands.
"Giles, it's me, Xander. I'm a normal human being, and your friend. D'you remember that?"
Giles snorted. Spike was a little shocked at this loss of decorum. Didn't seem like Giles, somehow.
"Friend. Huh. Young whippersnapper."
"What?" Xander mouthed at Spike. Spike shrugged.
"Giles? Tell us who you are? What you remember?"
Giles looked at them suspiciously, but gave in. "Help me up first," he said imperiously. He held his chin high, but his hands shook. Spike and Xander helped him to a chair and poured him a drink.
"My name is Rupert Giles, and I'm a Watcher. I watch…Buffy Summers. Who's a …girl." He looked flummoxed. "That doesn't sound quite right. I'm not the kind of man who watches young girls. Am I?"
"Why don't you check your wallet, Giles?" Xander said. "I'll get your diary, too."
Giles looked up gratefully. "Yes! I remember. I keep a diary. Thank you."
Xander and Spike retreated to the kitchen.
"Spike! What are we going to do!" Xander whispered. "He's not like our Giles anymore! Why is he so different? She just took his knowledge, didn't she?"
Spike shook his head. "She took the thing he was most proud of, that was most bound up with his whole identity. He probably feels like a nobody without his knowledge. Bound to make him cranky and suspicious."
Xander didn't look as if he understood.
"You, Harris, are pretty damn thick and never know anything except useless geeky facts. So, you're not invested in having knowledge. Got it?"
"Huh. What did she take my muscle for"
"Well, apart from needing it to build up the little boy, you must have been proud of it. Symbol of your independence, as a regular guy with a real job?"
Xander pondered that. "Uh-huh. What did she take from you?"
Spike didn't look him in the eye. "What d'you think?"
"I don't know! How would I know what you…Oh. The soul. Really? Your brand-new soul?"
Spike nodded miserably, his throat felt thick and painful.
"That's…well. That's really…Aw, jeez, Spike. I don't know what to say."
They said in awkward silence for a few moments. Spike's limbs felt heavy. He had no idea what to do now.
Footsteps neared the kitchen. Spike looked up slowly, seeing Giles standing in the door opening with a stake in his hands and a wild look in his eyes.
"I read all about you in my diary," Giles hissed. "You're evil. You're after my Buffy, and you won't get her. I'm here to watch over her and protect her from vampires like you. I wrote down what I was going to do to you! I just have to put this stake through your heart and you'll be dead!"
Xander jumped up and stood between then." Giles! Come on! You don't mean this! You should really leave staking Spike to Buffy, I don't think she'd like it if you did it! Besides, he isn't evil anymore! He has a soul now! I mean he had one. Before Artemis took it." His voice petered out and he sat down again. "Oh shit, Spike, does that mean you're evil again? Are we going to have to fight you, too?"
There was a huge popping sound in the kitchen, like an elephant sitting on a roll of bubble wrap and bursting all the bubbles at once. A shimmering rectangle of purple light opened to the left of the counter and one by one all the little Maybe-Slayers were squeezed out, like toothpaste from a tube. Dawn and Willow followed, and Buffy came out last. Not for her the toothpaste mode, she jumped out on her own steam, stake ready, a look in her eyes that said she was ready to take on everything that stood in her way.
Spike observed them all, propped up against the counter, a sick anticipation flooding his whole body. All was wrong again, all was lost. Where to go now, what to do? Maybe Corn-fed could put a new chip in, so he could at least be near her. Maybe she would just stake him on the spot, end his misery.
Buffy's eyes swept the kitchen, discovered him standing at the other end and leapt towards him, a broad smile on her face.
"Spike!"
The joy in her voice wrung his heart. Oh God, how could he tell her? At last, she had been ready to acknowledge her love for him, to herself and her friends, and now she would have to know this.
She flung herself against him and gripped him in a fierce hug.
"Spike," she said again. "Real solid Spike. I'm so glad to actually see you now." She lifted her face up to him for a kiss, and he just couldn't help but kiss her back and hold her as tightly as she did him.
Giles' voice sounded too close by. "Buffy. Step away from him. Now. He's dangerous. And now Artemis has taken his soul."
Giles certainly didn't need many words to convey the truth of the matter, did he? Buffy stepped away from him a little, looking from him to Giles in utter shock, her mouth falling open. Spike nodded slowly. Buffy still held on to him. He felt something hard press in his back, and realized he'd seen his ring on her hand when she'd jumped through the portal. Tears misted his sight and he blinked rapidly. He was in danger right now and shouldn't let himself be distracted. Giles was holding the stake, and trying to pull Buffy out of the way so he could point it at his heart.
"That's right, love," Spike said bitterly. "Back to being an animal now, innit. White hat one moment, blackest evil the next. What are you going to do, stake me right now, kick me out? Or are you gonna let Watcher here do it? He's itching to, you know, has been wanting to do it since the bitch took my chip."
"Xander, come here," Buffy said in a low voice, that nonetheless carried an unmistakable message of command. She didn't look at him anymore. Her attention seemed centered on Giles.
Spike felt a painful sting in his heart, and a slow uncoiling of anger rising from the ash of misery. He wouldn't have thought things could become worse, but having Harris do it? Worse than the Watcher. Rupert was at least an enemy he could respect, but being staked by the former Big Blob was the lowest blow she could have dealt. Buffy herself was the only one he would allow to stake him.
"Xander. Bring Spike to the basement. Don't let anyone in but me, especially not Giles. Keep him safe."
The slow flame of anger banked down again. So. Not yet. Xander put his hands on Spike's shoulder and gently propelled him towards the basement, away from Buffy and Giles. Her hands slid off him slowly. He allowed himself to be led like a lamb, dazed, not understanding what she'd said and why. He stumbled down the last few steps and dropped down on the cot heavily. He looked questioningly at Xander, who shrugged, didn't look at him in horror, but didn't come too close again.
"You okay with the bloodlust right now? Should I manacle you to the wall?"
"What? No! Don't even try. No more chains."
"I'll say this for you; you don't look like bloodthirsty Spike. You look like somebody dropped a ton of bricks on your head. And what's with the hugging of our Buffster?"
Spike didn't answer, too miserable to cater to Xander's curiosity. Xander walked away. He paused at the top of the stairs and looked down on him.
"Spike. Buffy will do the right thing."
"And what's that? Is it in the bloody slayer manual? Do the right thing when your boyfriend loses his sodding soul?"
"In that case, hell dimension for hundreds of years. And, um, boyfriend? You're kidding, right?"
Spike turned his face to the wall, not bothering to answer.
"Oh," Xander said. "Boinking on the dream plane. Ew."
"Get away from me, Harris. You smell way too good," he growled. The yelp Harris uttered, and the little jump he gave before hastily exiting were delicious. Not that he had any intention of following through with the implied threat, but it felt bloody great to be able to inspire some terror again.
The dazed feeling dissipated and his brain cleared. Fuck! He felt feather light, about ready to float up and bash through the ceiling. The whole bleeding weight of the damn soul was lifted, and the squashed demon inside shifted and stretched and stood tall, ready to fight and kill. Except he wouldn't. Not Buffy or Dawn, never them, but not even donkey's arse Harris or suspicious git Giles. Spike knew that if there was even the tiniest chance of staying in Buffy's neighborhood he would take it, and it would, of course, bloody well include not eating people.
The love he felt for Buffy hadn't changed or diminished in the slightest, that love was older than his soul and would withstand a setback or two. On her side it might not be the same, of course. Had taken her long enough to accept her love for him. And now? If she didn't stake him, she would banish him from her sight and he couldn't blame her for it. He'd forget what was right and wrong again, even if he still remembered it now, make stupid mistakes again with the best intentions. Demon eggs. Fatal Bathroom Mistakes. Oh god, was he buggered and bollixed.
There was a slight sound near the basement door and it started to open. Before the scent had reached his nostrils, he already knew it was Buffy. Tension coiled tightly in his guts. He pushed back at the demon who was trying to shift his features.
She hadn't even showered or changed her clothes yet. The gorgeous over-the-top-ness of her scent wafted towards him, and the demon and the man both hungered at the rush of blood through her veins, the agitated pumping of her heart, the hectic flush on her cheeks.
She walked over to him, her feet bare, he saw now, biting her lip and not looking up. When she lifted her eyes to his, their glance was like a blow.
"Spike," she said, one word only, and he was already crushing her into his arms. When had he decided on that? No restraint any more, and kissing her with the passion of the damned.
"Love you so much, Buffy," he panted against her lips, and he felt her chest hitch in a little sob. He drew back and stared at her.
"You're not – I was afraid you'd be different. That you wouldn't love me anymore."
"Don't be daft, sweetheart. Loved you before the soul, didn't I? Couldn't ever stop loving you. But I am different. Didn't get the soul for nothing, remember?" He wasn't going to say the name, but he knew she was thinking of Angelus, and what he'd done when he lost his soul. Brilliant extra motivation for him to stay on the straight and narrow, spiting and bettering his hated grandsire. He could work with his baser instincts on this for once.
They continued to kiss and clutch at each other in desperation, and his cock and his demon fought each other for dominance. Fuck first, kill later, he thought. No, not her.
She pushed him on the cot. "How different will you be? Like when you were just vamped?" She was unbuttoning his shirt with so much haste and unnecessary Slayer strength that half of the buttons went flying.
He tried to think through the incredible arousal her body and her blood scent brought him. The feeling of her hot fingers on his chest made him arch his back and he growled loudly. A faint voice suggested something about the others hearing him but he ignored it. They had better know she was his, and his only, and a good way to let them know that was to make them listen in on their sounds.
What had she been asking? When he'd first been vamped?
"Loved being turned. Loved the feeling of freedom. I loved being free of my life, of the old me. Don't feel- I don't feel that now. I won't push the feelings away. Want to be with you, be a man for you."
He growled again at hearing the poncey babble escaping from his lips. He flipped her over on the cot and started tearing her clothes off. She was his. Her neck, her glorious soft-skinned neck. He ignored her lace-covered breasts and started sucking on the hotly quivering vein he could sense just beneath the delicate skin. The demon kept pushing and pushing at him to break the skin and drink her, drink the sweet hot coppery liquid straight from the vein, he could almost feel it gushing, fountaining in his throat. Drink her and fuck her 'til she's…
With an agonized roar, he rolled off the cot and backed off to a corner.
"Get away from me, Buffy. I can't do this."
She walked right up to him and gripped his hands in hers. Why wouldn't she listen? Why not do as he said for fucking once, brass-nosed bitch?
"Spike. Spike! Look at me. You can do this. I know you can. I trust you. I'll help you."
She kept looking at him with those ridiculously soft big eyes, didn't she know that was going to replace the crushing weight of his soul with the heavier burden of trust? Didn't she know he would break under that? His souled self had welcomed each added burden and penance, soul, trust, belief, love, whatever she wanted to put on him, he'd taken it and longed for more. This self, this demonic Spike, resented all that, felt it was being shackled, being walled up, each word a brick.
"Spike, you did this before, when you had the chip. Why is it so much harder now?"
He shook his head.
"Dunno. Maybe the demon resents the soul, wants his own back. Knows he can, without the chip."
With her greater strength, she drew him out of the corner.
"I'm not gonna go easy on you, Spike. No manacles for you. You'll have to do it yourself. Come on, we're gonna go up. Dawn is watching over Giles. He crossed a line there in the kitchen, trying to stake you without my permission. You're mine, for better or worse, and he'd better respect that."
"Buffy, the man had a bad shock. The bleeding goddess took all his hard-won knowledge. He doesn't know up from down right now!"
Buffy regarded him fondly." See? Insights, even now. I knew you could do it!"
They neatened their clothes as much as was possible. She tugged him towards the stairs. He followed, tamed again by confusion. Up? They were going upstairs? He was led by the hand into the hallway, and then they walked further upstairs. To her bedroom. He'd only snuck in her old room a couple of times, her silly teenage frilly room where Willow now slept. But he had only been in this holy chapel of Buffiness once, and then tied up. She probably was going to tie him up again. The demon didn't like that at all. Tying Buffy to the bed, now, that would be fun.
"You going to tie me up, love?"
She just raised her eyebrows at that and pushed him down on the bed, starting to strip off her clothes matter-of-factly.
"I need a shower, I probably smell to high heaven."
He felt the smirk forming on his face, drawling, "Oh yeah, love, that you do, in the best way, love to stick my nose in that smell a bit more…"
She turned to him, a shy look on her face, and stepped closer. "Really? Where exactly?"
Sodding Americans with their two showers a day, washing away the good earthy womanly scents, that unique Buffy-aroma, that she probably thought smelled nasty. It was the most powerful aphrodisiac he had ever smelled. After she'd slayed it was ten times as strong, times were he could follow her trail from a mile away.
He grabbed her, came off a bit more rough than he'd intended, but she didn't seem to mind. He rent her flimsy bit of underwear off her and shoved a finger in the place where she smelled strongest, he knew she'd be wet there, and she was, all that honey just dripping off his fingers. He held the finger under her nose, and then licked it off with relish.
"Best scent ever. Best taste in the world, Buffy," he said huskily, and he could see that she was liking this so much, this slightly rough direct play was even hotter for her than all the soulful words and restraint, he could tell. If he'd still had the soul, it might even have saddened him to see his old self preferred to the new one. His Slayer responded in kind, all afire, throwing him on the bed and yanking off his jeans and just climbing on top off him without much ado. And of course he was hard for her, he always was.
She rode him mercilessly, flipping him on his back every time he tried to turn her over and get the upper hand, and god, how he liked that. His harsh mistress. He roared without shame when she made him come harder than ever, scrunching his eyes shut against the bright glare of the love on her face, and only noticed when he opened them again that she was crying.
"I'm sorry, Spike," she said. "I'm so sorry, I love you, but you need the soul, I need the soul, I'm not strong enough to help you."
Icy fingers dug in his gut, and he forced the question through numb lips, "What do you mean, love?"
She was crying too hard to talk, and he gathered her in his arms and tried to comfort her.
"I loved you like this before, I'm sorry I never told you, but I did, and I'm so afraid I'll be that Buffy again. It's so seductive, so easy to follow you into the darkness."
Spike didn't understand. "What we did just now? Was that darkness?" Was it? He tried to grasp the possible wrongness of two consenting adults doing mutually agreeable things to each other as being wrong, but he just couldn't.
She shook her head. "No, not yet, but I could feel that you would let me hurt you, and I wanted to, and that's…"
He was relieved that their fucking hadn't been wrong, but he realized with a pang that he couldn't make the distinction. Something in him leapt at the mental picture of being delightfully hurt by Buffy, hurting her back, skirting again that fine edge between pleasure and pain. He remembered though that she thought it was wrong, dangerous. He had to hold on to that memory.
"What are you saying then, love? Should I go away? To protect you from yourself? I will if you tell me I must."
"Spike, don't you dare leave me. You can be good."
No he couldn't. He could probably give a shot at not being bad, but he knew he couldn't be good.
"Don't say that. Utter bollocks. You're the Slayer, I'm an evil vampire."
"Not so evil, Spike, not so evil at all."
She gently and thoughtfully drew her thumbs over his eyebrows, made little circles on his cheekbones, finally stopped and tugged at his earlobes. He could just about see a plan forming in her eyes, dreading it, but at the same time rejoicing in her every aspect.
She set her jaw and got off the bed. He watched in amazement and admiration as she dragged a suitcase from under the bed and started throwing clothes in, summer clothes by the look of it.
"You going somewhere, Buffy?" he ventured. She looked like a woman who knew what she was doing.
"Duh! We are going somewhere. To Africa, of course. We need to get you another soul."
Spike was appalled. He couldn't speak. He was going to have to go through that again? She really knew how to ask for the impossible. The chip might be an easier option.
"Don't look like that, Spike. You won't have to go through the torture again. I'll be your champion."
She'd do that for him? Woozy with love and gratitude he almost fell off the bed and dropped to his knees in front of her, burying his face in her belly. He crushed her to him as hard as he could. He felt her hands burrow in his hair.
"Buffy," he said thickly. "Please. Your duty is here. You can't do that for me, I'm not worth it. You have to defeat the First, protect everyone."
He looked up at her. She looked down grimly, her jaw set. "Is that so? I've made my choice, Spike, and that choice is you. And don't try to tell me what to do. Pack your stuff."
Even Spike in his present confused state knew traveling to Africa right now wasn't an option. He shrugged, at a loss how to persuade her. "I don't have anything to pack, love. I'm ready."
Buffy threw him a dazzling, unexpected smile. "You have one thing! You forgot this in the basement."
She held the duster up to him with a pleased, expectant look on her face.
Spike was speechless again. He dimly remembered hating the damn thing at seeing it again, and when he'd found himself wearing it on the dream plane, but all he could feel now was pleasure at reclaiming his lost trophy. He took it from her and caressed the worn leather.
"Do you know who this belonged to?"
Buffy looked pleased at his reaction, and shook her head at the question. "I probably don't wanna know, huh?"
Spike shrugged. "Guess not, love. You know what I am – what I was, no need for the gory details, right?"
He saw her smile waver for a moment, but then she plastered it back on determinedly. "Let's go, baby. We'll have to tell the others where we're going."
TBC