FOOLS FOR LIFE:

CHAPTER 39: ANYTHING FOR MY GIRL

He had slipped in and out of consciousness for a while now.

She had drained him and then held him, still sitting on his lap, pressing his head against her neck, stroking his hair. Every now and then he was aware she was licking his wounded neck again. 'Sorry luv, done too thorough a job there,' part of his mind had thought. 'Dry as toast now.'

Then he'd heard voices. When he realized one of them was Buffy he'd become aware that she was no longer on top of him, but at the door. And the other voice. Was that Clem? Could he help? No wait, probably couldn't enter the room...the spell was still active.

"I know. No I can't open the door...you can't come in anyway..."

"MumblemumblmutterSpike?" Clem's voice said.

"He's fine. He's here. But he needs blood. Could you go to his crypt and get some more? He must have a stash, or maybe you could buy some more. As much as you could find. Could you..do that? Please?"

"Mumble murmur suremurmur"

"That's okay. We'll...be here."

He tried to muster the strength to call out Clem's name, but the effort just made him pass out again.

Draining a vampire won't kill him, but it does render him basically immobile and helpless. Her watcher, Giles had wondered about it when Spike had just been chipped, and tied to the chair. "Living skeletons, mate," he had said. It was true, he had seen vampires that for some reason had not been able to feed and the results were gruesome. He knew it had been too short a time for that so far, but she had kept him where he was, on the ground, tied to the bed and in his few lucid moments he realized he had no idea what to do.

He was aware of her walking around sometimes. He heard her boot heels on the floor around him. At one point he thought he saw her just stare in a mirror. Not in adoration of herself this time, more like she was in a trance. Sometimes she sat next to him, looking at him in the same way. And sometimes she was on his lap again, cradling his head or licking his neck.

She hadn't spoken since she had said it. 'Always hurt the one you love,' he'd mumbled.

'I know,' she had said.

He didn't know what it meant. By this time he just didn't know anything anymore. Nevertheless those last words kept echoing in his head.

He was hungry.....so hungry....

When he came to later, he heard her talk again. The room was a little lighter. The door was open again. Clem's voice. Still not that audible. 'Man I'm out of it'. He laughed to himself and felt his head roll. So much for sharp vampire hearing.....well that mostly goes for healthy vampires.

"Thanks, Clem." Her voice again.

"Mummrmrmmmumblemrr??"

"No really. Go. We'll be fine. Thank you."

She walked back in the room after closing the door. He heard her put down two or three bags. Sounded heavy. He heard a zipper open and fumbling and rustling with creaking plastic.

She walked up to him. At first, all he saw was her boots standing right by him, the heels sunk a little into the motel carpet. It took him a moment to realize it was because his head was hanging down that he saw nothing else. He tried to look up. And slowly he managed, barely. She still just stood there, watching him trying to look up at her.

She was holding two clear plastic blood bags. She stepped over his legs with one foot and knelt down on his lap again. She took his head and held it back. Then she let go and tore one of the bags. His head was falling again, but she grabbed it once again and held it up. "Drink." She simply said and started to pour the blood into his mouth.

The sensation was indescribable. He had been through rough spots in his life with feeding, (the time about two years ago as he just got the chip came to mind) but never had he been this utterly deprived of blood. He could only imagine how pale and weak he looked.

Her left hand held him tightly by his jaw as she poured the blood in. When the bag was empty she tossed it aside and got another out. Apparently Clem had come through, and there were several sport bags filled with blood packages.

This continued for a while and he slowly felt strength return to his limbs. His senses started to work again as he gulped and gasped desperately to fill his body with the liquid he needed so badly. Buffy looked at him without a word. Sometimes she turned his face to one side and back again as if checking for something. He realized his game face was on, but he couldn't hold that back now.

After a few more packages he found his voice again, his mind was sharp and the clouds had lifted. He gasped for air in order to speak. "Bu-BUFFY! Listen..*gulp*..."

She frowned a little, then smiled as she gave him that studying look again. "I knew you'd be all better again. All full again....." and she smiled like a little girl and licked her lips.

He caught it. He saw her fangs had never gone away. He saw her eyes and realized: she wasn't saving him at all. She wasn't all clear again, bringing him back to hear him out and learn what he had to say and how to leave the room.

She was walking and talking, but her mind was still all messed up. She had sucked every drop out of him, and now she was 're-filling' him to do it again! She made no effort to try drinking from the bags. None at all. She wanted to bite, to taste his flesh as she tore open his veins again and drain him like before! Like a child with a new toy that wants it to work again!

"Buffy! NO! You can't!"

Her smile faded and she frowned as if she didn't understand. "Yes I can. I want to. I should. It's what I want now, and it's how you wanted me to be. A 'creature of darkness', that's what you called me. And it's what you want. I know it. You wished it. For me to be this way, and it hurts you and loves you at the same time......it's what you want."

"No! Listen to me!" and he bit down on his own words. Somehow when people are crazy, and they need to listen, the one line that always seems to make sure that they will not hear a word you have to say, is 'listen to me'.

She frowned and pouted. "I want to! And you can't stop me! You shouldn't! You love me, you want to die for me and give me whatever I want even though it hurts you! And I accept that now! I never did before but I get it now....Which is good of me..Isn't it?? And......and I need it......t-the taste......your smell, your body....,..the blood.....no one ever said it was sweet.....literally sweet....It used to taste coppery but now....."

Her eyes turned cold. "I want it." She opened her mouth and went for his throat again. He thrashed wildly with everything he had, but he was still weak. Her leg muscles were stronger than his and clamped down over his lap again, her one hand slamming him with his back against the bed, and her other grabbing his hair as she reached behind his neck and pulled his head backwards over the edge of the mattress.

"ACK!! NO!" he screamed as he realized that with enough blood bags, she could keep up this little cycle for a long while. He wasn't so sure HE could though! Then he felt her teeth sink in again, straight for the right spot, which she had learned by now, and he felt her sigh of pleasure as she started drinking again.

He didn't stop fighting it though. "ARGH!! BLOODY HELL WOMAN!" He tried to move but he was no match for her now, she held him tightly in place and continued to feed. "This will kill BOTH of us! Me first most likely, leaving you to either die in this room, or go through life as a demon!! You've never let anything get to you before! Don't START NOW!"

Her only answer was a soft 'hmmmmmm' as she swallowed and swallowed.

Spike stared at the ceiling....nothing worked. Nothing reached her. Physically there was no escape....what was left?

"Dammit," he hissed. "Yes you can have whatever you want...if this would help you, cure you, you could take it all. And refill me and drain me over and over again until the bloody sun pops out of the sky!"

The only change in her was her grip lessening. Her hand was now firmly but sweetly caressing his hair as she drank. He laughed a sad laugh.

"Or until you lose interest....which is the usual state of things with you and the rest of the world's women where Spike is concerned anyway. You believe me now....you say you've felt my love for you and my pain......believe me then that this will hurt *you*.....and I don't want that. I can help you now, I worked it out......but like this I can't.....and this will hurt you...."

She stopped....her mouth hovered over his neck. Then she slowly raised her head up to look at him. "Why...?"

"What?"

"Why can't you see me hurt? Why not after all that's happened, after all I've done....?" Her face started to change as if she would cry. "I've felt it....I felt how it hurt you....I was a monster but I do have a soul...and I wasn't 'wrong'.....it was all just.....me. What do you love? Why do you love me...?"

"Like I said earlier to someone. There is no why. There is no choice you just do! Some people just fit. Maybe I don't fit you, but you sure as hell fit me. From your beauty and strength to your lust and your fire....selfless, heroic, self-centered, arrogant, caring, cruel, messed up......pure...you're all of it. And all of it makes me want you.....I may be too pathetic to be a monster anymore, and too soulless to be a man, but it doesn't matter. Whatever I am. I know what you are. I don't idolize you, I see you exactly for what you are.....no one knows better than me...the heights and the depths of your whole being.....and I love you.......I can't help it, Buffy."

She started to cry and backed away. She lost her balance and fell to the floor. She continued to cry and looked at him, her chest heaving irregularly with the kind of sobs that can't be controled over.

He sat there, watching her cry it all out, and saw clarity slowly return to her face. And it wasn't like she had woken up from a dream and had no idea what was going on. She didn't awake from a trance...her wits returned, but she knew what she had done. She knew and remembered because she could still feel it. She had been a part of it and it had been a part of her.

The knowledge both set her free and tore her up.

After a minute she started to calm down. Spike softly said, "Luv, unchain me. I got some things to say you need to hear."

She nodded, wiping her face. "Y-yes.....the curse....you, you needed.....to say something. I k-know...." She fumbled in her pockets for the keys to the cuffs. She crawled up to him to uncuff him, her hands reaching around. But then her eyes saw his neck, all bloody and hurt and for a second she was surprised, then she started to cry again. She fell against his chest and cradled up to him like a little girl. He whispered to her, her head under his chin, trying to reassure and comfort her, his hands still tied behind his back. "That's okay luv....not your fault. You're back....you're back.....we'll get things fixed now....."

They sat like that for while.

Then she stopped crying and just laid still against his chest for a few minutes. Still lying like that, her hand moved behind him, finding his wrists, trying to get the key she was still holding into the locks. As she slowly fumbled with that, her cheek soft against his chest, she whispered, straining to find a tone of levity:

"G-guess today I added a whole new dimension to.....being a high maintenance girl....."

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TBC!