Buffy left the crypt, walked away from Angel and right out into the sun, where vampires couldn't follow. She went home in a daze, feeling like a shell of herself, an empty picture frame. Dawn was in the kitchen, eating ice cream. She was seventeen, not concerned about her weight because she had a slayer's metabolism if not the strength and speed. Buffy walked past her silently, ignoring her hello, and went upstairs. Once there, she packed a bag, enough for two days, her stuff and Dawnie's. Hell, she even put in some of the stuff that she never let Dawn wear out of the house, just cause it was close to hand. Still feeling like night of the living dead, she grabbed the bag and did her zombie walk back to the kitchen. Once there, she took Dawn's hand and pulled her to the door.
"Buffy?" said Dawn, pulling back, but not too hard. "What's wrong? What are you doing?"
"You're driving us to the Holiday Inn," Buffy said, her voice sounding stiff from the work it took to keep the anger from showing. "We need some girl time. Alone."
"Buffy, where's Angel?" Dawn sounded afraid now, and it cut at Buffy, but she didn't stop hauling her little sister towards the car.
"He's with Spike. Who's probably comforting him as we speak. I interrupted a moment."
"I don't understand what you're talking about," Dawn protested.
"Thank god. You're too young to understand."
Dawn dug her heels into the ground. "Buffy, talk to me. I don't understand what's going on and you're scaring me. What do you mean about Spike? Is he back?"
"Yep, Spike's back, Angel is a liar, and you and I are getting the hell out of the house. Just come on, Dawnie. You know I can't drive myself."
Buffy could feel herself losing it, could feel her hold on her self-control slipping by the second. Not in public, there would be no meltdown in public. Bad enough she still had Angel's blood on her shirt. "Come on, Dawn," she snapped, wishing for once that she could be the little sister, that somebody could take care of her for once.
Dawn must have heard the emotion in her voice, because she took the bag from Buffy, raced back to the house for the car keys, and put Buffy and the bag in the car.
When they had been on the road for ten minutes, halfway to the Holiday Inn on the other side of town, she finally spoke. "You want to tell me what the hell is going on now?"
Buffy fought off her first response, to scream and frustration and kill something, maybe the car. That couldn't possibly be a good idea. "Angel's been lying to me," she said in what she hoped was a calm voice. "The curse is gone, it's been gone for years. He just never bothered to tell me."
Dawn processed that. Buffy had never been way up front about the curse, just gave Dawn the highlights. But she knew enough to know what that meant. "And Spike?" she asked after a moment.
"Spike. Yeah, Spike who promised to love me forever and keeps running the hell out on me. Yeah, found out that he was the one Angel told the truth to. Spike, the guy that Angel's forever snarking about, and here he is, in town less than three days, and Angel's pouring his damn soul out to him like they're the best of friends. And Angel wants him. Wants him maybe even more than he wants me, cause it was Spike he was trying to get busy with, and he could have had me years ago."
Through this whole rant, Dawn just stared at Buffy, wide-eyed; in a way, it was nice to know that there was something in this world that could render the girl speechless. After a long bout of silence, Dawn finally managed a quiet, "And which part of this sparked the insane jealousy?" and Buffy just shrieked inarticulately in response, pushed past any more sane response.
Buffy checked them into the hotel, and followed the clerk's directions to their room, up a floor and over the pool. As soon as the door closed behind them, Buffy picked up the first object she focused on, the plastic cups in their sani-wrap, and threw them as hard as she could across the room. The lack of any shattering sounds when they hit the wall dulled her pleasure in the act a bit, but a few years managing the family finances had finally taught her that really good temper tantrums were expensive.
"Feel better?" Dawn asked sardonically, and Buffy glared at her.
"You could try crying," she suggested, unfazed by the look on Buffy's face. "It is, you may have heard, the acceptable girlie thing to do. Might even make you feel better."
Buffy stalked to the T.V., grabbed the remote and threw herself on the bed, trying for nonchalance. The image of Spike and Angel was still burned into her brain, taunting her. "This place get porn?" she grumbled, hitting the power button, and Dawn hopped on the bed next to her sister, her muttered reply of, "It's gonna be a long weekend," lost in the growing volume of the T.V.; Buffy had found the adult section of Movies-on-Demand and did indeed seem to be trying to find the trashiest thing on it, anything to take the picture of Spike and Angel out of her mind. If she was going to be angry and frustrated, she wanted to have more control over it than this.
Angel was sitting in a sullen slouch against the wall of main section of the crypt when Spike finally returned, stinking drunk on his new best buddy Jack Daniel's. Figured the poofter would still be here. Wasn't enough the bastard had shown up and ruined all Spike's chances with Buffy. No, then he had to stay. And stay. And stay.
"Damn it, don't you have a home?" snarled Spike.
"Not so much anymore," Angel repiled dully. "I went to the house. She's gone. She's left me."
Now there was news to stop the presses. It was almost enough to sober Spike up. Well, no, it wasn't, but if he had been less drunk, it would have been enough. Angel looked like hell, pure hell, almost as bad as he had after that lovely little time Spike had him tortured. Spike thought about not laughing, but hell, whose fault was this if not Angel's? And he himself wouldn't be Spike if he wasn't laughing at Angel's pain. Angel looked hurt as Spike laughed, and it just made Spike chuckle the more. He was still fighting giggles as he slide down the wall in alcohol induced spinelessness to sit next to Angel.
"Hate to be the one to twist the knife, old mate, but that's what you get for lying to the girl. Now, me, I was never anything but honest with the slayer, and you see what that got me."
"A pity fuck?" suggested Angel bitingly, and Spike managed a halfhearted snarl at him before speaking.
"Even if it was, it's more than you've gotten from the girl in years. Don't know what you were on about when you were all Angelus and out to destroy the world- that girl has skills. I was all but panting, trying to keep up with her. Serves you right, her leaving you. Talent like that, it was a crying shame to keep her acting the nun so you could feel holier than thou."
"Do you have to keep bringing up your sex life with Buffy?" Angel's voice was tired, almost broken.
"Hey, you're the one who keeps coming back here." Silence then, as Angel didn't dispute it. "What do you want, then, Angel?" he asked.
Angel grabbed the bottle of JD from Spike's hand, the nice, beautiful bottle that Spike had only just started, and sucked down a long swallow. With drunken interest, Spike watched Angel's throat move as he did so. Angel might be the big the biggest sheep's prick to walk the Western hemisphere, but there was no denying he was a handsome sheep's prick.
"I need your help," said Angel after he finished his much-too-deep drink.
"With what?" asked Spike sullenly, grabbing the bottle back. His house, his rules, damn it; he was not in the mood to be sharing his booze with Angel.
"I need to prove to Buffy the curse is gone."
Spike stilled, lips wrapped around the mouth of the bottle. He would choke in surprise, but he didn't want to waste the whiskey. Carefully, he finished his drink before he spoke. "Seems to me you're in the wrong place for that. What were you thinking, a peep show for the girl, starring you and me? Didn't think a bounce in the bed with me was your definition of perfect happiness."
"Not like that!" Angel protested. "Well, maybe like that, because I'm out of practice, and I don't want to disappoint Buffy. No, I need your help getting her into bed in the first place."
"You need my help," Spike repeated. "Getting Buffy in bed. Why in the name of everything that's unholy would I want to do that?"
Angel leaned over, pried the bottle from Spike's hand, and placed it carefully on the floor. With calculated precision, he then leaned over and kissed Spike full on the mouth. Spike, drunk, horny, abandoned by the love of his unlife, kissed back, glad for anything familiar in his life, even if it was Angel taking what Spike didn't want him to have. When the kiss ended, Spike was sucking in unneeded air, reminded again of how Angel had kept him and Dru in thrall for so long. "You'll help," Angel said softly, "because there's something in it for you, as well."
It wasn't until the third night, after Buffy had extended their reservations, called herself and Dawn in sick to school, and spent a small fortune on adult films that had probably put Dawn off sex and the gynecologist forever, that Angel and Spike showed up. In a dark corner of her mind, Buffy had been wondering if they would both simply kill each other after she left. Or if they would just forget about her entirely, caught up in other interests. She hadn't wanted to care, but couldn't quite stop herself or even distract herself from the thought. Stupid hotel porno, geared for lonely traveling salesmen, with no consideration for the working girl. Why couldn't she set it up for the Red Shoe Diaries, that's what she wanted to know. She could do with a little David Duchovney angst to distract herself.
Dawn, taller, moved in front of Buffy to try to shield her from the two of them, but Buffy just put a hand on her shoulder and moved her away.
"Dawnie, why don't you go down to the arcade and play some games? You know where the money is."
Dawn looked at her with surprise; this was the most Buffy had spoken since coming to the hotel. Dawn, still with only the barest idea of what had cracked her sister's seemingly blissful life with Angel, directed a death glance at both the men. "You hurt her," she threatened, not sure which vamp she was talking to and frankly not caring, since they both seemed equally guilty, "and I'll find you both and burn you to ash. Dickweeds."
"Dawn," said Buffy warningly. "I'm the slayer. I'm the one who gets to kill them. You get a free hour virtually blowing stuff up in the activity center."
"Going," Dawn said reluctantly, grabbing the cash and flouncing to the door. "But I'm your sister and it's my job to make them feel like shit for hurting you."
"Out," and that word in Buffy's I mean it' voice, so Dawn went.
"C'mon in," Buffy said as Dawn disappeared from view, making a vague gesture in the direction of the interior of the room. "How'd you find us?"
"Remember how I'm a private detective?" Angel reminded her, stepping in to the room. Once in, he grabbed Buffy by the waist and pulled her over to the bed, sitting her down there.
"Presume much?" she bit out, seething at him as he sat down next to her. This was not the Angel she knew. This was like, playful Angel. Annoyed, she figured she could chalk this new behavior up to Spike's reemergence in his life. Even as she thought about it, Spike dropped down on the other side of her.
"We do presume," agreed Spike, "but we presume for a reason. See, we got to talking, Angel and I, during those three days when we couldn't find you, and we decided how we were going to do things."
Oh, yeah, there was the anger. She had been starting to worry that three days of bad food and worse movies had totally destroyed any hope she had of reacting normally to anything. "Oh, you decided? Great, that's just what I need. From what I last saw, it looked like you two decided you could do well enough without me." Her memory flashed back to Angel and Spike together in the crypt, kissing hungrily, all thoughts of her vanquished in their need for each other. If it hadn't hurt so much, it would have been hot, but as it was, she was feeling pretty angry and betrayed right now and the last thing she wanted to do was get turned on by either of these two guys. They were supposed to love her. Wasn't that what they kept telling her, all those times they hurt her for her own good?
"Actually, what we figured out is that we couldn't live without you," Angel said, draping an arm over her shoulder. Almost against her will, Buffy leaned into the familiar strength of him. Pissed. She was pissed at him, pissed and furious. Antagonized even. He, he was a liar, and, and he was in love with Spike. That alone should be enough to keep her in a towering fury for years to come. But he was so beautiful. Every time she saw him, every time after they had been apart, when she saw him again, it was like seeing him for the first time. She remembered how he looked, as he followed her into that alley. They had fought that first time, sure, but even as they traded blows, she had marveled at how handsome he was. She was still marveling. Closing her eyes, she leaned her forehead against his hard shoulder with a sigh. Mad, she was mad. The leaning thing, that was only cause she was tired. Stupid hotel beds.
"Neither of you count as alive," she retorted. "And where's broody, mopey Angel?"
"It's a figure of speech," Spike defended, sliding his arm around her waist. "And I ate broody Angel. The point is, we would do anything to win you back. Anything to keep you." He trailed a finger down her spine, slowly, moved closer to her.
For a minute, Buffy's mind caught and held on the image of Spike eating Angel. He didn't actually mean that, did he? What kind of eating was he talking about? So compelling was the image it actually took her a moment to register Spike's touch, but when it did, her eyes snapped open. "What are you doing?" she managed to ask. She could feel the fire come licking through her blood again at his touch, the same slow smolder she had always felt near him. She had never reacted to anyone like she had to Spike, had never felt this drawn to another creature, a moth to his flame. It was not exactly a feeling she was happy with, seeing as Angel sat right next to her.
She was sandwiched between the two vamps now, the kind of thing she might daydream about but had no idea how to respond to. Okay, check that, she had ideas, lots of them, but the courage to follow through... oh god, oh god, oh god... Spike's hair was a mess, tangled by old gel and what had to be Angel's fingers running through it. She remembering how much work it took to actually muss his hair, even now that it was longer, and could only imagine what Spike and Angel had gotten up to without her, to make him look this disheveled. Wow, was she ever over her head here. Angel. Spike. Bed. Dawn out of the room. "What are you two doing?" she repeated and even she could tell that her voice sounded weak.
"Seducing you," whispered Angel, leaning in to kiss her lightly as Spike held her, caressed her.
"Um, guys..." This was wrong, wasn't it? This wasn't the way her mother raised her act. But oh god, it felt so good. They were so beautiful, and she loved them both so much, a fact she couldn't ignore no matter how angry she was with them. Angel's kiss was like fire and ice, burning her and chilling her at the same time, Spike's touch like silk and velvet over claws against her skin. She was starting to forget why she was so mad. Their combined actions felt so good, she could barely move, felt paralyzed with pleasure. How many years of experience did these two have added together, three hundred and some? Oh god...
And yet, that word, seduced like she was just another of their prey, some stupid human too caught up in their beauty to look under the skin to the predators beneath. She could feel a hint of anger bubble up again, even through the mind numbing combination that was Angel and Spike focused on the same goal. "I'm not the kind of girl you can seduce-" she began, working to get the heat of rage back in her voice.
"We love you, Buffy," Spike said, interrupting both her words and her thoughts, brushing her hair off the back of her neck and dropping a kiss on the skin he revealed. She could feel his fangs scrape against her skin, a promise and a reminder. She had never had a lover like Spike and he knew it, was more than happy to help her reminisce over their shared past. Angel's kisses were lingering on her throat, tasting her skin slowly, as if he had all the time in the world to make her his. If it were either one of the men doing these things, she would be on him in a second, but with both she was terrified. The anger sank again, lost in a world of rising confusion and lust.
"And we know that you love us," Angel continued, kissing her jaw, her collarbone, back to her throat. She whimpered, tried to hide it, but she saw the sudden flash of Angel's smile and knew he heard her. Vampire. She was weakening by the second. She let her back curl into Spike's touch, almost moaned as he nipped at her neck, all sharp teeth and promise. She dropped her head back, felt it rest on Spike's shoulder. Angel chuckled at the newly exposed skin and trailed his tongue down her throat and between her breasts.
Spike's breath against her neck made her skin come all over goosebumps. "And after careful thought..." he began.
"...We decided to prove it to you," Angel finished for him, and he tilted her chin down so she could look him in the eyes.
"So don't think of it as seduction," Spike said between bites at her neck, "if you don't want to."
"Right," agreed Angel, lifting his eyes to her even as he worked at unbuttoning her shirt, "think of it as making us pay for hurting you."
"Yeah, love," added Spike, now adding his hands to the mix, and he had always had such talented hands, "just think of us as your willing slaves."
"I'm pissed at you both," she murmured, her last stab at a protest. Really, she was pissed. Not turned on at all. Okay, maybe a little turned on. Another kiss, another touch, sensation over sensation till she could almost not tell who was doing what. Okay, completely turned on and quickly forgetting whatever they had done to make her so mad in the first place. She had to admire the method to their madness- she would have no mind left to be mad with after enough of this. She couldn't believe what it felt like, to have all their attention focused on her this way, to have them so intent on her pleasure, her passion. The anger had fallen away, gotten lost in the fire building between the three of them. She could feel her breath quicken, feel herself respond to them, feel herself become lost in her response. A moan escaped her and the two vamps drank the sound up like the finest virgin blood. They had won and they knew it. No, no, she wasn't this kind of girl. Right? Not the kind that would let two men do, oh god, what were they doing now?
"Be pissed later," suggested Angel. His hands were moving lower, beginning to explore territory he already knew well. "Let us do this for you."
"Maybe by then you won't even be pissed,} whispered Spike, suggestively. He was matching Angel move for move now and it was getting harder for her to think. Maybe she could be this kind of a girl if she tried. Another mirror caress from Spike and Angel and she started to think that she wouldn't even have to try, what with the vamps doing all the work. Spike's voice again, this time breathing in her ear, "What with being exhausted from the pleasure." She could feel him against her back, hard and solid, the way she always remembered him.
"This is not a good idea," she said, but her voice lacked any sincerity at all and she thought she might actually be melting. Her mind started to drift to whether or not either Spike or Angel had remembered to bolt the door when they came in. It would be bad if Dawn came in, very bad. Talk about getting an education. The movie porn had been one thing; this was surround-sound and 3D special effects. Buffy wasn't even sure that she was old enough to know what was going on here.
"I think you're wrong," Angel said and kissed her for real, no more playing. Oh hell, she thought, losing herself in the taste of him, the texture, the coolness. She could feel Spike pressed up against her back, his arms around her, hands touching her everywhere they could reach, teasing, taunting, driving her wild. God, she loved him. Them, she loved them. Why was she even pretending to fight this? People had fantasies about things like this. People wrote letters to Penthouse about stuff like this, only they were making it up.
She fell into the kiss, gave it as good as she got, knew there was no turning back once she let them get this far. She would go insane with need if they didn't finish what they started.
"Angel, you can really, we can really..." she began, and then trailed off, not quite sure she could finish the sentence. She had never let herself belief they could make love, had never let herself believe they could have what came too easily to other lovers.
"We can really," he agreed, knowing instantly what she was talking about, and she could hear laughter hiding in the words, and maybe a trace of fear. Really, this must be scarier for him, his first test of whether or not the curse was truly broken. But he wanted her, she could tell he wanted her. His body was rock-hard from the effort of holding back, of not just taking what he wanted and damn the consequences. His eyes were yellow as he fought the monster inside of him, trying to stop it from taking her before he could.
"We're going to talk about the lying thing," she managed to gasp as Angel touched her particularly well, knowing that it would be the last thing she would be saying for awhile, at least if Angel and Spike kept up with their current actions.
"We'll talk later," Angel promised. "We want you now."
Spike repeated the sentiment, backed it up with another heart stopping kiss and she gave up even pretending to protest. She'd feel all kinky and wrong and perverted tomorrow. There would be plenty of time to feel like nasty slut girl tomorrow.
"Angel, bolt the door," she whispered and she felt Spike's laugh all the way through her as Angel leapt for the door. By the time he got back to the bed, Spike had already laid her body out and begun feasting on it. He had pushed her shirt up, tangled her hands in the sleeves, trapping her and for once she didn't care, because it felt so good not to be in charge, not be the one in control. If this was their plan to make things up to her, she was all for it. She couldn't remember the last time she had been seduced by anything. This was like some strange dream, like it wasn't even really her on the bed, writhing under Spike's touch, like it was a stranger's body and she was watching. Only it was about a thousand times better than anything she had found on the hotel channel. She was whimpering as she felt his mouth on her breasts, his hands gone lower; he was tasting her, touching her, devouring her, greedy in his need; a person would never know that he had been with her only a few days ago. It was like he had been starving for her, as if a thousand years would not be enough to slake his desire and she knew suddenly that it was the same for her, that if she had him every hour, it was still not be enough. It was that thought that did her in, that thought that dragged her under totally, and she gave herself up to Spike, to Angel when he came back, all her plans of protest gone like they had never been.
Angel stopped briefly on his way back to the bed and stared, apparently frozen by the sight of his childe and his lover, well started on passion, lost in each other. "Two hundred years," he breathed, "and I have never seen anything as beautiful as you two together." All his feral grace lost to need, he joined them on the bed and when he traded places with Spike, took over where the other left off, Buffy stopped even trying to pretend like she felt guilty for doing this. Why had she waited this long?
"C'mere, boys," she said, her voice throaty and deep, a stranger's voice to go with her stranger's actions, and she drew them both to her, taking back the control, taking back her rightful place with them, a queen to their princes. "C'mere..."
Afterwards, she lay exhausted and content in their cool arms, feeling almost dwarfed by their strength, their sheer presence. She had thought she heard Dawn knock at some point, couldn't even remember what she said in response, but could just remember hearing Dawn say she was going back to the house, would meet her later. Now it was just Buffy and the men.
"God, could it always be like that?" she asked softly. She had thought she would feel dirty afterwards, unclean, but all she felt was loved and beloved. And sated. God, did she felt sated. Replete, even. She had lost count of how many ways and times they had made love; they had only stopped when she couldn't take it anymore. Why had she been resisting? Buffy had never felt this wonderful. Never. She was limp with pleasure.
"Always," Angel promised, the love in his voice so pure and deep she felt like she could dive into it, like it was a sparkling pool of perfect turquoise water, a smooth, Caribbean sea of love, all of it for her. She was swimming in his love, bathing in it. She stretched a hand out, twined her fingers with his.
"As long as you want," Spike agreed and the love in his voice was no less, but it was fire, not water, flickering against her skin, warming her. They completed each other, her lovers did, light and dark, fire and water. How could she have even thought about choosing one over the other? It was only together that their true perfection showed.
"I thought I would feel... bad." Guilty. Dirty. Not washed clean, not purified by their love.
"Do you love us?" That was Spike, and she rolled to face him, in awe as always by his sheer beauty, the lines of his jaw, the blaze in his eyes. Her love for him was always a shock to her. Half the time, she couldn't understand how she had come to love Spike, when they had started off so firmly on opposite sides. There was no moment she could point to where she could say, here, this was the time, this was when I fell in love with him. All she knew was that by the time he had left that second time, she could no longer stand being away from him. She could tell herself that her visit to the crypt had been good-bye, but she knew it to be a lie. If Spike was near, she would be with him. He filled something in her, a spot she didn't know was there until he had left it empty. She smiled at him, tried to let all the love and joy she felt in his presence pour through her eyes. She was alive with him, alive, awake, and aware in a way she could never be without him.
"Duh. You think I do that with just every pair of incredibly hot guys who show up in my hotel room?"
"God, hope not," said Angel behind her and she shoved a gentle elbow into his sternum. He laughed and closed teeth gently on her neck. She couldn't believe how good it had felt with him. She had been a child the one and only time they had made love in the past. She was a woman now, and things were different. She knew things, and could appreciate what Angel knew in a way she couldn't before. And with Spike... whoa! He had been amazing enough all on his lonesome. Tag-teamed with Angel and, god... they must have broken at least a dozen state laws. Heck, they must have broken the laws of physics; she hadn't known three people could do the things they did.
"See, that's why you don't feel all hinky," Spike went on. "Love, real love, whatever you do feels right. It's when you don't love someone and you do it anyway that it feels wrong. With us, you can try whatever nasty little idea that takes your mind and you won't ever feel dirty, because it's love." He sounded pretty pleased with himself. She couldn't say that she blamed him. She was pretty pleased with him as well. And Angel.
"Why'd he lie?" she asked Spike, rolling her eyes back towards Angel, who was still kissing her neck.
"'Cause he's a nambypants Nancy-boy," Spike said, "and was all afraid you wouldn't love 'im if he wasn't broody and cryptic. Git."
"Idiot," she agreed.
"I resent this," said Angel mildly, taking a break from his concentration on her neck. Spike and Buffy both ignored him.
"Completely," Spike agreed seriously. "You gonna forgive the man? He's been hell to live with these three days."
"Stressed," agreed Angel, still in that mild tone, still with the kissing.
She rolled over again and when Angel moved to kiss her lips again, she stopped him, made him meet her eyes. "Angel, is he right? Did you lie because you were scared?"
A long moment of Angel looking ashamed with himself. "Yeah. I wanted to tell you the truth so many times, and I always took the coward's way out. Things were going so well, I didn't want to mess them up. I'm sorry."
"Forgive him," came Spike's singsong tone behind her. "Forgive him."
Angel made big eyes at her. He looked sincere. He sounded sincere. His eyes were beautiful, deep pools of shadow. She loved him. She had loved him since she was fifteen. He was her partner, the other half of her heart and soul, her husband in every way but the legal. She could not recall a time when he was not there to catch her when she fell. Their lives were so twined together by now that there was no telling where the one began and the other ended. The lie was bad, but she had kept things back as well. He loved Spike. Okay, that would take awhile to get used to, but she figured he was in the same boat, thinking about her and Spike. At least he and Spike had come up with this plan, the plan where they wore down all her objections through incredibly good sex. She wanted to be pissed. She ought to be pissed. Ah, screw it. She loved him too much to be mad at him. "I forgive you," she whispered and Angel kissed her, hard and deep as Spike made some kind of a happy, whooping sound behind her.
When Buffy finally broke free from Angel's kiss to watch him kiss Spike (and there was a sight she was never going to get bored with) she said in a thoughtful tone of voice, "We're going to need a bigger bed."