Crossing into unchipped country (9/?) by dutchbuffy2305

Rating: R

Timeline: Around AtS 5.09 or 5.10

Author's note: Big hugs to my wonderful betas!

Author's website:

Feedback: Yes, please, to dutchbuffy2305@yahoo.co.uk

Spike's post-coital driving style is so laid back that he rolls into corners at the very last moment while Buffy hangs on grimly to the little handle above the door of the old pick-up. She doesn't want to slide into him when he takes one of these liquid turns, which probably feel cool and speedy to him but are really very uncomfortable if you're a passenger. She doesn't want to slide into him because she can still feel him inside her, and she's feeling odd all over, trembly and hot, about to burst into tears. She can't believe she did this, made him do this, because it's just wrong. She doesn't love him and he doesn't love her and they're the wrong people in the wrong place.

Tactile memory and muscle memory have both betrayed her tonight. In fact every sense she possesses has conspired to make her feel for precious moments that he was the right person. The padded silk of his luminescent cream skin, his scent, tobacco and hot metal before the shower washed it off, later like musk and an echo of the way of her own bed smells in the morning. His eyes grey and stormy, but bluer than the sky if the light catches them, tiny pink nipples and lush reddened lips. The sound of his voice, just a tremor between her thighs or cooling butterscotch chocolate poured down her neck, whispers against her skin to make the goose bumps race up and down her spine. The way he tastes, for which there is no comparison, uniquely Spike. When their tongues shiver against each other delicately she closes her eyes and she's no longer Buffy, no longer anchored to the world by duty and gravity and stuff, but something floating free above it all.

And yet something so perfectly fitted the one moment often strikes a wrong the next. The fine malt voice caws out a harsh sentiment and she almost draws back, chilled, until she warms again by a velvet tongue lapping her nipples until they scream. She's exhausted, she has worn herself thin by rubbing the glass goblet to a fine sheen, but when she rings it the sound is dull and falters quickly. All the positions and orgasms in the world cannot make her forget a request for her blood.

She sighs. She can hear how tremulous it sounds and she throws a worried look at Spike, who sits there presenting his perfect high-nosed profile, cream and silver against the backdrop of the night and smokes non-stop while he drives. She doesn't have the energy to hassle him about it. He flicks her a quick smile and pats her thigh. He always gets her moods, and his touch goes straight through her jeans to her deepest innermost places. She needs to think of something else. She'd better ask him some questions about this contact of his they're on their way to see, to stop thinking about that thing they did, although actually it was more like seven things. Oh boy. This shouldn't be so bad, it's no different from what all the Lorenzos and Jean-Pierres failed to do for her in Europe, just two lonely people comforting each other. No reason to be so angry with herself, she could just forgive her little mistake.

The thing is, she knows exactly the moment she decided to give in to it. It was when he said he wouldn't kill anyone, though not in so many words, when he surrendered to her. Is that what she likes in a guy, to be top bitch to him? Or is it just Spike? Her self-esteem is like a yoyo these days, up and down all the time. She remembers what used to happened to yoyos, the string would get slack and rough and Mom would throw them away.

Spike was all touchy, cuddly guy afterwards, insisting on keeping his hand on her neck all the time in the butcher shop, which was so embarrassing. His finger rested lightly on her artery, and she had no idea anymore what message he was sending. Buffy works death magic and enslaves second vampire? Vampire holds Slayer in thrall? She sits up straighter and shakes her head. Go away, deep thoughts. Not now.

"So, tell me about that contact of yours. You're still sure he'll be able to provide us with the magic we need to operate the portal?

Spike sits up straighter and his face tenses. To Buffy's surprise he steers the truck to the side and parks it.

He turns to Buffy and takes her hand. He clears his throat. "See, there's this really ancient and powerful vampire who holds court in Cleveland. Maybe he's even the oldest living vampire. Him and me did a deal before, so I guess we could make it work."

"He owes you a favor?"

Spike scratches his head and doesn't meet her eyes. "Not exactly. I thought I'd offer him a trade, but now I have to think of something else to persuade him with."

"What trade were you gonna offer...."  Buffy's voice trails off when she realizes who was gonna be offered in exchange for the magic.

"Oh. Oh! You sneaky bastard! You two timing...You were gonna offer me to this creepy old vamp?"

The words stick in her throat. She shouldn't be so surprised, he's just an unsouled vamp, but she's been fooling herself again that he's different. The yoyo shoots sideways and does a back flip. Not evil temptress Buffy, luring men to their death, just delusional Buffy, who thinks she just needs to have sex with vampires to reform them.

"'Course I would! You're my enemy! 'S only reasonable, Slayer." He sighs and tries to placate her. "Now we're partners, okay, we fought together. Wouldn't sell you now, you know that."

No, she doesn't. In fact this earnest avowal of partnership is as surprising and unsettling as his confession just now.

A slight headache is starting behind her eyes and she tries to rub it away by pinching the skin between her eyebrows. "Okay. Rewind. Ancient vampire. Powerful, but willing to negotiate."

"Yeah, well, maybe." His voice sounds doubtful. "I delivered something he really wanted when he came to Sunnydale a couple of years ago, hunting. Scary looking bloke, he's so old that his hands are cloven like hooves."

Something tickles in the back of her brain. "Sunnydale? Ancient vampire? Name of Kakistos by any chance?"

Spike nods, surprised. "You know him?

Buffy throws her hands to heaven, exasperated. "We killed him, you idiot. That creep is your contact? I didn't exactly get friendly vibes from him when he was trying to kill me and Faith."

"Right, that was her name."

Buffy screeches. "You traded him Faith? That is so inhuman! Didn't you know what he'd do to her?"

"Well, yeah. So? Didn't know the girl. And besides, Slayer, risk of the trade and all."

Yes, Buffy, do try to have a pointless conversation about morality with an unsouled vampire. Rewind again. Forward.

"So we're going to talk to this very powerful, unfriendly, ancient vampire...

"Oldest in the world," Spike adds helpfully.

"Oldest in the world, who looks like something we'd rather see in neat cutlets on the barbecue than have a chat with. What's the plan now?"

Spike assumes that raised eyebrows, innocent face he uses when he's bluffing. "We'll have to improvise."

"He'll just welcome you, a strange vampire on his territory? You have rules of hospitality?"

"Not exactly, pet. We'd have to have a bloody good story to convince his perimeter guards to let us in."

"And our cover story is...?"

Spike shrugs. "Something will occur to me. We can always fight our way in if need be."

Buffy shakes her head. "No. No, no no no. We make a plan first. Not a vague harebrained plan like yours but a serious plan with research and deployment and stuff."

Spike snorts. "Right. And where's the legion of Watchers who's gonna do that for us? Waiting for us at the school library, no doubt?"

"We'll make the plan ourselves. You're a Master Vampire, I'm the oldest surviving Slayer. We can so do it, we don't need Watchers."

Fifteen minutes or so later they agree on a plan. "I pretend to be a captive Slayer – and you do understand the concept of pretend, don't you Spike? You won't forget in the heat of battle and trade me off for real?"

"Hey! Who do you think you're talking to? Have I ever reneged on my word as a ...vampire?"

"Not in the past three days, no. With me and my stake to persuade you every inch of the way." Buffy ticks off the points on her fingers. "You pretend to trade me off, we capture the tame magician you say Kakistos always has with him, and then we leave. We leave. Together. Or we fight. Agreed?"

"Sound plan, love. Spoken like a true general. Go in, kick ass and leave. Perfect. But you know, maybe you could change your looks a little? Look a bit more like a prize?"

Buffy blushes so hard her ears tingle. Her Spike would never ever have suggested that she looked less than perfect. Guys. But he's right, they're gonna deliver a performance, and looks matter.

"Are we talking lipstick and a comb through my hair here, or are we talking Xena costume? Last thing, not gonna happen. Ever."

Spike backs off. "Fine, pet, fine. Not that you need a Xena costume to look very, em, appetizing."

Buffy glowers in his general direction of his grinning face and proceeds with the combing and lipsticking. Motel quality, alas, but better than nothing. Spike starts the car again and they cruise on through one of Cleveland's industrial areas, where, according to Spike, Kakistos reigns in an enormous derelict factory building.

"What's with you guys and abandoned factories? Why not go for, say, a mansion? A nice hotel? Factories tend not to have much in the way of modern comforts."

Spike shrugs. "Kakistos is three thousand years old, doesn't need to eat or shit, doesn't need sunlight or a nice view, and heating and electricity are concepts he's probably never got the hang of."

The car approaches a brightly lit chain fence which surround a giant brick structure, some kind of nineteenth century tycoon's dream of the ideal work place.

"See? Buffy says. "Someone loves electricity."

Spike scowls. He slows the car and they drive up to the gate at a crawl. A couple of big hulking vampire goons step out of the shadows and bend down to Spike's window.

Spike stares straight ahead. "Tell Kakistos that the Master of Sunnydale is here and has an object that will interest him."

The goons confer rapidly in a strange language.

"Is that Ancient Greek?" Buffy whispers to Spike.

"Huh. No, Chechen. They're all the fashion in goons."

"Oh."

Spike leans towards her and yanks on the zipper of her down coat.

"Hey! Hands off."

"Don't be so prudish. We've got to show off some goodies, don't we?"

"I thought we were selling the fact that I'm a Slayer, never mind the size of my boobs?"

"Always helps to add a bit of sex into the mix, Slayer, you ought to know that."

Buffy feels her cheeks heat and Spike chuckles and squeezes her thigh, moving his hand upward to her groin in a kneading motion. Buffy slaps his hand sharply, excited and irritated at the same time at the involuntary clenching and flooding her pussy is doing. "Spike! Knock it off! They'll be able to smell..."

Spike smirks his nastiest, most irritating smirk at her. "Exactly, Slayer."

Great. Buffy scoots away from him and sits fuming in silence while they wait for Goon 1 to return. She checks out Goon 2, who's standing with crossed arms on her side of the car. He bares his pointy teeth at her and scratches his crotch ostentatiously. Ew. She moves a couple of inches back in Spike's direction. There are nuances in evilness, that is very clear right now, and Spike must be almost at the good end of the scale if these guys are any indication. Jeez, what a creep.

Goon 1 returns and confers with Goon 2. If they are newish vamps, why can't they use cell phones? At this rate, half the night will be used up in waiting. Goon 1 motions the car through the gates and two other, almost identical goons fall into step beside it. Spike drives so slowly that the vamps can keep up with him while going no faster than a dignified parade walk, as if he is the President. Buffy groans and tries to think of something to make the time go faster. The suspense is killing her.

Spike's finger hooks behind the waistband of her jeans. "If you're bored, Slayer..." he offers sotto voce.

It's pretty hard to say no, even with Goon 4 walking not four feet away from her window. "That is gross, Spike, with people looking on. That means no."

He sighs. "Thought you wouldn't. Look, there's the gate."

As the car rounds the corner to the north wall of the giant building Buffy can see there's a tall broad gate in the factory wall. She can hardly believe it was original, but it's very impressive. Big doors flank the opening and she can see torches flickering in the interior. On the other end of the gate a neat row of a dozen or so XXL black stretch limousines are parked. Maybe Kakistos runs a funeral home on the side.

Spike stops the car when Goon 4 gives him a hand signal. He steps out and bends in to grip Buffy's arm hard. "One step behind me, Slayer and not a word!"

Buffy nods. He yanks her out roughly and doesn't help her when she almost falls on the concrete. This must be so much fun to him, she thinks. Or maybe he's already been there, done that with her alter ego. He stands as tall as he can and struts forward into the big hall, duster flaring out behind him. He still looks pretty short next to the goons 3 and 4, Buffy notes with a strange kind of sad, sweet feeling she has no name for.

She follows behind him, keeping her eyes downcast but letting them rove around the dark echoing space she enters. It's so big she can't see the ceiling and mostly empty, with some movement she can't yet see at the edges, and glimpses of people moving in torch light at the far end. She wonders what they made in here when it was still a factory, why it had to be so big. Workers would need so much time to move from one side to the other; also she thinks people didn't have roller blades back then. She can make out a small throne with a little figure on it. She walks on behind Spike, and it takes a long time before they finally approach the throne. It has grown in their long trek down the aisle. There is no wedding march, only low key wailing and murmuring. She can't pinpoint the source of the sounds, but as her vision adjusts she can see more clearly.

The throne is enormous, and so is the bulky ancient vamp sitting on it, sipping leisurely from a drooping naked white-skinned form. He lifts his ruined swine face as Spike approaches and smiles a blood spattered yellow-tusked smile. He drops the neck he was drinking from and the red headed girl slides down without a sound into a small heap at his feet. She can't be more than fourteen or fifteen. Her little white breasts are covered with purple bruises and bite marks. Buffy has to look away; the girl's white skin reminds her painfully of Dawn. She doesn't want to look Kakistos in the eyes either; afraid he might sense her anger.

Now that her eyes are more used to the dark, she can see chained up vampires dotting the walls at regular intervals like statues in a church. They are all female, mostly naked or randomly hung with rotted scraps of cloth, frighteningly skinny like concentration camp victims, showing every bone in their humanoid bodies. Their hair is long and matted and their nails grown long and curved. One of them pokes out her own eye when she walks past her. They gnash their teeth and shriek at her with broken voices. She almost feels sorry for them, and is glad she can't understand a word they say, if they are saying words.

She looks away from the beseeching eyes and black stump of tongue of the crazy vamp on the left and concentrates on what's in front of her. Row upon row of vamps in all shapes and forms line the back wall of the factory interior. Some of them look a bit like the Master, bat-like with their mouths stained red, others like younger versions of Kakistos, and some wear their human faces.

"William the Bloody!" Kakistos' voice booms. She remembers that voice. On his left there is another vamp she remembers, Mr. Treat or something.

"Hail to Kakistos, Prince of Cleveland," Spike says, and Buffy has to bite her lip at the Prince moniker. So un-American.

"I ask a boon from you, Kakistos. I want your magician's services."

Spike's being very direct. Maybe that's the way to go in vamp society. No, an elaborate ritual starts, and her attention wanders away from the conversation to take in potential opponents and exit routes. Her conclusions are chilling; anyone here could kill her, and there is no way out. Great. Spike and Kakistos are still boasting of their prowess and past deeds. Buffy takes another sweep of the pack around the throne. The dense mass of vampires shifts a bit and she sees a cage quite close to her at the foot of the throne. In it is another of the emaciated female vamps, not chained, but huddled down in a pitiful heap of bones, and is she seeing that right? Actually gnawing on her own thin olive skinned arm. Ew. The vamp acts as if she's heard the mental exclamation and lifts her head. Dark eyes stare at her from under matted black hair and she bares her teeth at Buffy. She hisses something at her. Buffy strains to hear it and inches closer to the cage.

"Bee…" the vamp whines. "Kill Bee…."

Buffy steps back hastily, every muscle in her body clenched to smother the sounds her mouth wants to make. She stuffs her fist between her teeth and drives the nails of her other hand in her palm. It's Faith. She takes a deep shuddery breath and blinks furiously to keep the tears away. Faith vamped, killed by the only vampire, the only being she'd ever been afraid of. Killed horribly, no doubt, and now kept in a cage like a psycho dog, starving and insane. Oh God. She has to find some way to kill this poor creature, put it out of its misery. Poor Faith. The thought that she was rutting away with a vampire just hours ago now makes her sick. This is what vampires do to Slayers, what Spike perhaps did to the Buffy from his universe, and she's been entertaining the thought of not killing him?

She feels cold through and through, her face freezes and she's biting down hard on her own teeth. She has to get out of here, torch this whole filthy place, kill them all.

Spike and Kakistos seem to have reached some kind of agreement.

"You brought me another Slayer?" Kakistos rumbled. "She smells familiar. Smells like your bitch."

Buffy is unprepared for the vicious yank on her hair Spike uses to bring her closer to Kakistos' murky gaze. She suppresses an indignant squeal and keeps her gaze below Kakistos'. The old vampire leans forward to get a better look or maybe sniff at her. One of his cloven fore hooves digs absentmindedly into the still white body puddled at his feet and he brings the hoof to his mouth and licks it off with relish. Buffy remembers seeing him killed and wishes she could do it right now. She owes it to Faith.

Kakistos wants to take possession of Buffy immediately, but Spike bluffs and postures until he sighs wearily and waves to Mr. Trick or Treat to take them to the court magician. Mr. Trick walks them past a row of the gibbering shackled vamps, who start to writhe harder when Buffy comes closer and try to spit at her, throwing themselves at her. The chains abrade their cold flesh and sluggish blood creeps out.

"Is this the vamp equivalent of prison?" Buffy asks Spike.

He shrugs. "Dunno love. I usually just kill a minion that displeases me. Of course, if you're into torture…They say Kakistos brought these vamps with him when he removed his court from Athens and moved here in the eighteenth century."

Creepier and creepier. Mr. Trick depresses a brick in what appears to be a completely unmarked wall and a door opens outward. Buffy meekly follows the henchvamp and Spike through, but a gob of spittle lands at her feet just when she wants to step over the threshold.

The vampire who spat glares at her in human face. She was a tall girl once, and is even now less emaciated and damaged than most of the other prisoners.

"One girl," she says in a low monotonous voice. "One girl in all the world…" She spits again.

Ew. These vampires know she is the Slayer. That explains the extra writhing and cursing efforts they've been putting in for her benefit. Buffy turns away and steps through the door.

TBC