Crossing into unchipped country (18/22) by dutchbuffy2305
Rating: R
Timeline: At the start, around AtS 5.09 or 5.10
Author's note: Thanks to my dear betas.
Author's website:
Feedback: Yes, please, to dutchbuffy2305yahoo.co.uk
"Sorry, love," the other Spike says with a very unrepentant smirk and gives her little pat on her butt, "Didn't have a choice."
Buffy's feeling too disoriented to call him on it. They're standing in a kind of bright arena-like space, with a circular field in the middle and tier upon tier of white seating rising to the ceiling. No, scratch that, no ceiling that she can see. It stretches away into infinity; she gets dizzy when she tries to follow the endless succession of seats upwards. She stumbles and Spike grips her middle more securely for a second but then hastily steps away from her, keeping a steely hold on her forearm.
"Dru won't like it if your scent is all over me," he says by way of explanation.
Dire circumstances or not, Buffy can't suppress a snigger. "Glad to see you're still you, Spike," she says, strangely relieved to discover this. "Pussy-whipped."
He extends a threatening finger to her but doesn't deliver on it. She's clearly lost her power to enrage him. Good on him, he should focus on his true love.
"Hey, and thanks for your gift. That was really very thoughtful and kind of you."
She's said it, and that should discharge any obligations in that direction, in case she has to stake him or something in the future.
Spike shrugs it off. "Couldn't resist making use of a perfectly good opportunity. 'Sides, Dru was taking a bit too much of an interest in him. Thought she could torture the soul out of him or some such rot."
He yanks her around by her arm, which is really getting sore now, and not in the good kind of way.
"Here she is," he says to someone.
Buffy has to shade her eyes against the white glare to see who he's talking to. It's an old scraggly-bearded man sitting in a low chair on the first row. His twisted hands shake where they rest on a cane. He catches her glance and shoots her a venomous glare in return before he resumes his business with Spike.
"Your lady will be released, Mr. The Bloody. Your debt to me is cancelled."
"Not my debt," Spike grinds out with a vicious twist on Buffy's arm. "His debt."
"Never mind," the man says and bares nearly empty gums. "There's a bond across dimensions, don't you think?"
He can't help that he's that old and ugly, but he could at least wash regularly and get dentures, Buffy thinks with a shiver of disgust.
"Yeah, right," Spike says. "Just don't think I'm ever doing the wanker a good turn again."
He releases Buffy and steps up to the old man. "Well? Where's Drusilla?"
More pink oozing gums. "You're released from my obligation, but I'm afraid our hosts may have a bone or two to pick with you."
Faster than the eye can track an enormous blobby black shape descends between her and Spike and he's whisked away by three thick tentacles. His surprised shout lingers while he becomes smaller and smaller in the hazy distance until even the last little black speck disappears. There's a smell in the air like a black top road broiling in hot summer sun, and if the tentacles weren't so gigantic she'd be reminded of the Gatekeeper in Idaho.
The old man steeples his hands and directs his attention to Buffy.
"Well, Miss Summers, we meet again. I bet you never gave a thought to my plight after your soldier boy took me away, did you?"
Buffy gapes. Riley? Riley took away who? Oh my God. Can this wreck of a man really be Ethan? He was already old, like fifty maybe, but this shaking wreck looks more like seventy-five, and not a healthy seventy-five either.
The old man cackles. Buffy tries to recognize his voice, but that too has changed, it's become cracked and wavery.
"Yes, Miss oblivious little Girl Scout, this is what the US soldiers did to me. They called it interrogation. I call it torture. How about that, Miss Summers? Is this what you had in mind for me?"
Buffy can honestly say that she didn't. Ethan locked up and watched over by the army seemed safe and neat, and not at all morally ambiguous. She does plead guilty to completely forgetting about the man from that moment on, she'd been only too happy to be relieved of a difficult problem. She wouldn't have killed him, simply because he was human and so not in her jurisdiction.
"I'm sorry," she says. "I never meant for this to happen."
"I believe you, but that goes to show that you should devote a little more thought to your decisions, shouldn't you? Killing on sight is simplistic but works for vampires, although you seem strangely reluctant to kill William the Bloody in any of his incarnations. You and my old friend Ripper should have thought a little further ahead than that."
It's not pleasant to admit this to the old rogue, but he's probably right. She didn't even like what the Initiative did to the demons, and she'd have had no qualms about killing them if she met them in natural conditions. And what's more, Riley has once again threatened to mess up her relationship with Spike, even if indirectly.
"I apologize," Buffy says. "My faith in the government was childish and naïve. Shall we leave it at that? And by the way, how did you manage to get out?"
Ancient Ethan grins his wide unappealing grin again. He waves his arm and from somewhere another man steps forward. It's Ethan, looking much the same as the one she met in Kakistos' great Hall.
"While you and your undead paramour were making googly eyes at each other, it was quite easy to follow you and obtain the transdimensional device, which you left behind on a piece of Cleveland pavement. You'd intrigued me with the mention of my alter ego's fate and it wasn't hard to track him down and spring him from his detention," the younger Ethan says.
Oops.
"I still don't see what you want from me."
Does he want her to bring in Giles or something? What did he want all those other times? Looking back, she can hardly call him really evil, not compared to Glory or the First. He just seemed to like making mischief on a small scale, creating chaos. How her worldview has changed in these past years.
"Not so much from you as through you. Power. You were silly enough to tell me the tale of killing a Gatekeeper."
Buffy ducks involuntarily and wishes she could shush Ethan. There's not a tentacle in sight, although there's that faint tarry tang in the air.
"I knew they'd be interested in acquiring your body and soul," the second Ethan says.
Buffy doesn't like the way he separates the words 'body' and 'soul'. Like hers could be separated from each other.
"And what about Spike?"
"Once I alerted the Gatekeepers, it was quite easy to nab him and Drusilla whilst they traveled home from your dimension."
"Okay, now you have us both, or the Gatekeepers have us both. What are your plans?"
The elder Ethan sinks gingerly back in his chair. "That, Miss Summers, is the luxury of this position. I have plenty of power at my beck and call, and there are so many opportunities for mayhem and destruction that I haven't been able to settle on any one of them yet. But frankly, my dear, the idea is to mess around with a certain government agency on a serious scale. You can probably imagine that I'll want a little more out of you than just that grudging little apology. How does pain sound to you? And as to the vampire – what better punishment than to part him from his recently regained beloved?"
Buffy stops paying close attention to his ranting when she hears there are no apocalypses in the offing. Not Ethan's modus operandi at all; he's just off to one of his usual brilliant starts and won't stick it out until the end. She ponders what her next step should be. Obviously Spike must be made into her ally again. They'll have a better chance together, or with the three of them if Drusilla can be found. She's rock solid certain that her Spike will come to the rescue, no matter what he thinks of her at the moment. And maybe even Angel and Wesley with their evil company will chip in. She doesn't know, however, if they have enough info to even start. It's not as if she gave Spike a detailed account of her adventures. Not as if he was willing to listen to her either.
A third Ethan comes up and says something in an undertone to the others. This one's wearing eyeliner and a lot of flashing silver rings. Ethan two says something in a strange language, waving his arms around at the same time and a length of thick smelly fire hose wraps around Buffy's chest and lifts her easily into the air.
Some time later, she's aware of staring into yellow eyes bigger than a skating rink, attached to a mind with depths she can't fathom at all. She wishes she was wearing her skates so she could kick a nice big crack in the evil pupil. Everything goes black.
Buffy comes to during the last part of a fall from a considerable height and smacks down hard on a metal surface, making it reverberate and ring. The white circle which hovers above her is slowly being covered by a black bulge, devouring it as the moon eats away the sun during a lunar eclipse. The disappearing light makes her see she's in a curved closed space that gets smaller and smaller near the top, where the opening is, like a bottle.
Snick. The lid closes and Buffy is left in utter darkness. It's so dark that her body immediately loses its sense of balance and she sinks to her knees so she can touch the floor and not fall over. It's hard to tell which is up and which is down, especially since the floor doesn't seem to be level but curved like the walls. She can crawl a few yards either way, making it, at a guess, less than twenty feet in diameter, and it was about forty feet up. The metallic sounding surface feels like rough cast iron. There is an oily tang of Gatekeeper in the air, which mixes oddly with the blood smell of the iron.
She shouts 'hello' but the sound falls dead and the lack of any echo makes the space feel smaller. She starts worrying about air. What if there is no supply of oxygen? Maybe Ethan's watching her on a closed video system and is enjoying seeing her slowly suffocate.
What is wrong with her anyway? She could have dealt with those Ethans easily, but she just stood around moving her mouth. No wonder Spike declined to be her boyfriend, she's lost it. She's not a Slayer anymore but a damsel, and who'd want one of those after the real thing? She's got to get her act together, stop moping and start kicking ass. Buffy decides starting with the belly of the bottle would be a very good idea. Again, high heeled sandals prove to be a bad choice in footwear. Not that she minds destroying them, since they've been thoroughly baptized in an LA sewer, but some nice hob-nailed boots would have been more sensible.
Standing up proves difficult and kicking the wall is like missing a corner ball and she tumbles backwards on her ass. She fails to brace herself in time and her head slams into the floor with a dull thud. It hurts, but the floor pressing up against her back gives a sense of safety. She's afraid of disappearing if there is no one to see her, if no sound to testifies to her presence. She pushes her hands flat on the rough iron surface and scrapes the tops of her fingers until they bleed. She bleeds, therefore she exists.
Buffy wakes up when the whole interior of the bottle rings with sound. She can't believe she's actually fallen asleep, not when there isn't a flat space to be found in the whole damn thing, a torture she couldn't have imagined when she first lay down. Her spine feels like a hoop. It's still completely dark, but she has the feeling there was some light in here a moment ago. The afterimage of it still exists where it had fallen on her sleeping face. When she closes her eyes there is bright orange superimposed on the back of the lids instead of womb red and green.
Suddenly she knows something. There is someone else in here. The tingle at the back of her neck tells her it's a vampire and the twitch in her lower belly makes her think it may be Spike. She stands up swaying, her hands spread out to keep her balance. Her fingertips are raw and painful.
"Spike?"
Instead of an answer she gets a full body check from a cool solid vampire. He slams into her embrace, his hands splay out over her ass and her back and he kisses her hard and deep. It's difficult enough to stand up straight by herself on the curved floor in the bottle's pitch darkness, and the hard body and frantic lips against her make her lose all remaining sense of balance. They roll over, fall against the side of the bottle and slide down to the lowest place.
His body presses against hers just so, the way she remembers, his hipbone here and his knee between her legs, though she doesn't know when she opened them. She fits perfectly against his chest and only has to tilt her head a bit to get kissed some more. His hips grind into her with delicious force. He wrestles with her skirt and panties, and thrusts inside her impatiently. Buffy grunts with surprise, her mouth still full with tongue of Spike, realizing he hasn't even said a word to her yet. His hand burrows between them, searching for her breasts. If she could have forced her buttons to pop with her mind she would. This is so much like their first time in the derelict house and yet not, because instead of her punishment he's now her reward.
But he's so cold. She knows he's a vampire, of course, he's always been that, but she's gotten used to room temperature or tepid, but it's like a column of frozen soft drink rams inside her, ice, making her fizz and burn, because you can get burned by ice as easily as by fire. She writhes and steams, not knowing if she wants to escape the chill or embrace it. If she heats it up, will it evaporate or burst into its own flame? She wants to scream, cry out her frustration, but he claps his hand over her mouth and she bucks harder and harder without success and finally erupts into a geyser of hot and cold pleasure, a flame of white heat sparking through dark ice. She's a liquid creature, borne up by sweet fluids, not knowing who she is and where.
She returns to being Buffy, still helplessly speared on a shuddering Spike. He's not cold anymore, she doesn't know why she thought he was. The hand slips off her mouth and she captures a finger, biting down hard. Words come tumbling out.
"Spike, oh Spike, I'm so happy, I thought we were over, I thought you hated me, Spike…"
"Shhh…," he says. "You don't have to say anything. It's fine. C'mere."
"I can't be more here than I already am," Buffy points out reasonably, which is so much in contrast with being fucked into the ground that she can't stop giggling against his mouth.
It's ridiculous to be happy when you're imprisoned like a genie in a bottle within in a strange dimension, but the relief of having Spike here and knowing herself forgiven is just too great.
She tries to get his duster off, which doesn't work because Spike needs his arms to support himself above her. He's single mindedly applying himself to the task at hand and Buffy gives up on her desire to feel more skin and satisfies herself with rucking up his T-shirt. His hipbone bangs against her clit with terrifying force and regularity, and she floats off into that space where all sensation is concentrated in that one tiny point. He breathes harshly into her neck, gnawing at her tendons and she comes, contracting so violently that she can hear his bones creak when her legs clench around his hips.
"Oh God, Spike, I love you so much…"
"Unh," he snarls between clenched teeth, she can just envision his agonized I-don't-want-to-come-yet face and the urgency in his voice revs her up again. They know how to do this so well, they really match; they're two of a kind. He can let go with her, and she has no shame showing him all her moves, in a way she never dared to with Riley. He doesn't get overwhelmed, she doesn't break.
She feels him pulse inside her and lifts her hips with her heels to give him maximum counterpressure and he groans his release against her throat.
She'd like to lie there and bask, or anyway she thinks she'd like that, but he leaves her with a wet plop and turns her over, yanking her hips up to his and thrusting right in again. More sex is good, too. It's not the sweet and gentle make-up sex she imagined, and it's weird and also strangely hot just grinding into each other in the darkness. She really wants to see his face, not that she could in this position, but she'd like to see how he looks at her with his sweet boyish eyes all wicked and dancing. He's not as talky as she remembers either. Maybe because he can't see her, he can't praise her beauty when it's dark, after all. She always wanted him to shut up and now she misses the words, isn't that silly?
Spike roughly pulls her closer and higher, she's standing now, bent double like a calzone, and he's putting in the stuffing, still thrusting into her like a maniac. She's come like a zillion times already. This angle hits her sweet spot even harder and when he stuffs a thumb in her ass she cries out in surprise. It's unbelievable, and it just goes on and on and on. She falls over again, she has no balance in this damn curved prison, but Spike catches her and folds her in another position, her legs on his shoulders and it feels as if he's gonna split her apart.
It's wonderful, really, but she'd like them to talk, the make up sex won't be real unless there is some spoken confirmation of their feelings. Actually, she's even getting a little wigged by all this wordless grunting and heaving. Sex is good but words are important too.
"Spike…" she manages to say between orgasms. "Let's just lie still for a moment, just hold me, baby."
Spike is silent for a moment. "Just a sec," he says.
He scrabbles around somewhere and when she lies down it's on his duster, which is so very romantic. All they need is candles.
"Your lighter?"
"Haven't got it with me," he says.
He slides his arm under hers and she snuggles up against him. She's perfectly happy. There's nothing in the world but her and Spike. They are the only lovers and life couldn't be better. Except that the hard surface of the prison is digging into her hipbones; the duster is a sweet thought but doesn't have a lot of spring in it.
She wants to talk to Spike, tell him how clever he is to have found her, and how happy they'll be, but his hand has found her clit and she's not gonna be talking for a while.
She kisses him, slowly, sweetly, savoring his soft lips against hers, he tastes like heaven, and hey, she should know. The moment of sweet suspension doesn't last long. He brings her off and he's still hard, or again, and unerringly finds her pussy. His tongue dances over hers, keeping her on a simmer, occasionally boiling over violently as he presses her buttons over and over. Buffy loses all grip on time or purpose and she's carried along on the ride, for what length of time she doesn't know. Finally Spike rests his forehead against hers, his face and hair damp with her sweat.
"Baby…" she says uncertainly.
He's been fucking like a man possessed and she's not sure where his head is.
"You okay?"
His head moves slightly against hers and she takes that for a nod. She strokes the long quivering muscles of his back, trying to soothe him like she would a nervous animal, one that night break out and bite her if she isn't careful. He levers himself up slightly and grasps her hand in his. He brings it to his mouth and sucks hard on her grazed and still painful fingertips. The gesture goes straight to her pussy at first but he sucks a little longer and harder than is necessary.
"Ah, Slayer, your blood is like nectar…"
Buffy feels an unaccountable chill. Well, she is naked and the warm vampire lying heavily on top of her has sucked all the warmth and energy out of her. She shivers and he reacts immediately.
"Let's get you dressed and out of here. We're not out of the woods yet."
That seems sensible and she dons her flimsy summer dress, which still gives her a sense of safety when she puts it on. Strange. Safe from who?
"Gotta go. Come on, Slayer."
That's the second time he's called her Slayer, or is it the third? A chill grips Buffy from top to toe and immobilizes her. Who is this talking? She was so certain this was her Spike. What if he isn't? If she wasn't able to tell? Everything that's happened in the past hours has been joyful and right, but if this was the other Spike it was nothing more than rough sex. Granted, the best kind of hot and heavy tussling she could possible have, because they know how to do this so well and nothing squicks them, but if it's been another of her mistakes? She stands stock still, shocked to the core by this thought. How can she ever explain this to her Spike? Fucking the wrong vampire once might be forgivable, barely, but twice? Oh, God, no, why does she always do the wrong thing? Why?
Spike's hand finds hers in the dark and tugs her against his body. He grinds his hips against her in a token gesture of lewdness because he's clearly more about the urgency of leaving at the moment.
"Hold on tight, Slayer, gonna take a little trip."
Flash! They're standing outside in blinding brightness, and the prison does look like a big black bottle with its full belly and long neck. She stumbles because Spike isn't holding her up anymore and when she's regained her footing there are two Spikes standing there, looking almost identical with their black dusters and white gelled hair. Two pairs of blue eyes smirk at her and she gets two nods.
TBC