CrossingShadowRiver 17, by dutchbuffy2305
Rating: R
Timeline: About ten years after season 5 of AtS; sequel of sorts to Crossing into UnchippedTerritory
Author's note: As ever, thanks to my dear betas, meko00, ayinhara, LadyAnne & mommanerd.
Author's website: http:home.planet.nl/dutchbuffy2305
Feedback: Yes, please, to
Spike wakes with a start from a fitful sleep on Dawn's short lumpy couch. For a few moments, he doesn't know what has awakened him, but then his blood leaps gladly at the sight that greets him. It's Buffy. She sits on the armrest at the opposite end of the couch. His sleeping brain is simply happy to see her and refuses to pay heed to the vague misgivings that bubble up from his gut.
"Buffy," he says stupidly. How can this be? Buffy gets up to approach him and his eyes do flip flops to accommodate the height he expects and the height he sees. Spike realizes the significance of the tallness, the water-like fall of the straight golden hair and wakes up completely. He might have known a third night spent under Dawn's roof would bring nothing good.
"Get back to bed, Dawn," he says, and twinges with guilt at the weary annoyance in his voice. "Not again, okay."
Buffy's face falls, Buffy's lips wobble, and Buffy's voice says, hushed, "But baby, it's me. Aren't you happy I'm back?"
Spike clenches his teeth and prays for patience. She's not even pretending to be pregnant for God's sake, and he's supposed to fall for that? He sits up, grateful that he's wearing his jeans, an absolute fucking necessity in Dawn's vicinity of late, and grabs her arm.
"Don't I get a kiss?" Buffy pouts.
"Dawn, please cut it out. This is not the sodding time for sodding games like this!"
A faint frown mars the golden forehead. "What are you talking about? Why are you calling me Dawn?"
The way she tosses her head is so Buffy that Spike hesitates for a second. Does she really think he's Buffy? Is this a byproduct of the spell?
Dawn as Buffy uses his hesitation to throw herself upon him, which at 6 inches and 30 pounds more than Buffy is no small matter. She wrestles his arms behind his head and grabs his chin in her other hand. It's only a faint shadow of the force Buffy could use for the same maneuver, but it still stirs him more than he'd like.
The door to the guestroom opens and Spike sighs with relief.
"Tara!" he says. "We need your help here. Dawn is under the illusion that she really is Buffy."
Tara clutches a towel around her borrowed pajamas and looks at Dawn closely. The Buffy face frowns and tries to twist away from the scrutiny in those mild calm eyes, as merciless as it's gentle. Tara's lip curls. Spike has never seen that face look upon Dawn with anything but sweetness and it hurts him to see it so noticeably absent now. Poor Dawn. Who loves her?
"She's faking it. The spell does no more than cloak her in Buffy's likeness, it doesn't addle her brains. Of course, one could say her brain is addled enough with her silly crush on you."
Spike's moved in spite of himself and puts his arm around Dawn's thinly covered shoulder.
"Let's get you back to bed, Dawnie," he says roughly but not unkindly.
She leans into him, sniffling, but very warm and almost Buffy-shaped.
"Are you sure you're the right person to tuck her in?" Tara's voice sounds behind him.
There's no judgment in it, just a cool stating of probabilities.
Spike wants to lash out to defend Dawn and himself, but he reins in his temper and thinks about what she says. He nods at her and disentangles himself from Dawn. The Buffy shape is still disconcerting, and for a moment, as Tara leads Dawn to her bedroom, he wishes he'd just gone along with the make-believe, so he could pretend to sleep in Buffy's arms. It's not just the knowing she's hurt and suffering, it's that he misses her physical presence at his side. She's always there, warm and sweet, or sometimes warm and bitchy, but that doesn't matter. It's the rhythms of her body that soothe him, the rushing of her blood, the slow steady drum of her heart, her small sighs and movements. They've hardly slept a night apart for all these years, and he can't find sleep on his own anymore. She's his and he needs her right now, wants to bury is face between her breasts and his cock in her pussy and forget all the misery. He uses the couch and the pillow as substitutes, but they make a poor job of it. It's nearly half past three, but he doesn't expect to get any more sleep that night. He needs to succeed so badly tomorrow. He needs Buffy, real Buffy.
When they leave for Buffy and Spike's flat, some hours later, Dawn is silent but cooperates well enough. Her Buffy looks are less disturbing now that she's not trying to pretend to be really her. She's far too tall and too bosomy, too not-pregnant to deceive anyone for a single moment. and Spike feels some belated guilt for those gullible seconds last night.
The door is locked again.
"Bugger, bugger, bugger. She changed the lock. I forgot, fuckity fuckity fuck."
"Tsk."
Tara grins and lifts one eyebrow. With he biggest smile Spike's seen on her face so far, a flourish of her plump hand, a few whispered words, the door opens soundlessly. Very impressive.
Spike's anger reluctantly dribbles out of him. Not for the first time he wishes he could do this alone, save his lady like a man should, kick the door in with a great big shout and fight his rival to the death. Instead he has to rely on a woman who loves him a little too well, and one who loves him not at all.
Tara nods at Dawn. Dawn breathes in deeply and squares he shoulders. She doesn't look so much like Buffy right now, except for the coloring; but when Tara takes her hands and they murmur some chant or spell together, Spike sees something indefinable in her posture change, She lifts her head in a very Buffy gesture and Spike swallows a way a rush of feelings. He doesn't know for which sister exactly.
Dawn flicks him a look, raw with anger, he guesses, but it could also be fear or love. Her natural reactions are masked to him because of the spell, and he has to rely on facial expression alone, like an ordinary man. She steps inside and immediately turns back to face them.
"Come in, Spike," she says softly.
Spike hesitates, looks at Tara for confirmation. Can it be this easy? Tara waves him over the threshold and he steps inside his own home for the first time in weeks. There are subtle signs of dilapidation. Clots of dirt in the corners, a shriveled apple core on the floor, a vague musky smell like a dog kennel.
The hot flood of anger that courses through him suddenly is welcome; at least he can act. He tightens his hand around his stake, and softly and swiftly as only a vampire can, he goes where his nose and ears are leading him and heads for the bedroom. Unwashed woman and rotting flesh, two heartbeats; a tiny, very fast one and a slower, more powerful beat.
Relief clouds Spike's eyes and makes his hands tremble. He leans his forehead against the doorpost for precious seconds. They're both alive. He straightens and kicks the door in with relish. This is the kind of action he's been pining for. He hurls himself into the room, calculating where the vampire should be by Buffy's heartbeat. There the monster is, awakening from his undeserved sleep, and even more deteriorated than two days ago, if the moldy patches are anything to go by.
The whole left side of Spike's body clenches in preparation for the strike, right into the heart of his enemy, who has one foul hand on Buffy's head. Then he can't let go of the stake and stands in agonizing imbalance, caught bye the iron gaze of those pale blue, nearly white eyes.
He chokes from the failure, throws his will against the barriers imposed on it, but he's helpless as he watches his out flung hand with the stake in it slowly sink down. He can't even shout or growl or gnash his teeth, he must watch while the awful thing that once was Spike shuffles towards him with its uneven gait.
The look from the rheumy eyes pins Spike down like a bug under a magnifying glass, his wings about to be ripped off and his sex organs mounted separately on a little display. This is not how he imagined the rescue. He hears shocked gasps and thundering heartbeats behind him, stupid bitches coming in after him instead of sensibly staying out of the fray, movement on the farthest reach of his peripheral vision, he can't bloody move his eyes, damn the fucker to hell.
The stench and the snaggle-toothed grin come so close to his face that for one terrifyingly insane moment Spike thinks the monster is going to kiss him. But no, the stake is plucked from his grasp and moves to the left of his breastbone.
"You thought to kill me and take my woman? Betrayer! Now you'll be the one who's killed," the liquid voice lisps, almost unintelligibly.
Betrayer? Who the hell is he calling a Betrayer? He had Buffy first, he won her back fair and square, or she him, that doesn't matter now. The other Spike should have stayed with Dru, not caught this filthy disease or whatever it is, and come after his Buffy.
"It's my child, the child of my body!" the thing goes on, spraying spittle in Spikes face while he puts pressure on the stake. It's about as uncomfortable as an angry finger poking him, but in the end, perseverance will win out. Spike's not going anywhere, try as he might.
Buffy's voice cuts through his hopelessly circling thoughts, clear and cold.
"Look at me Spike,'" she says. "I'm the one who will kill you."
Her last word ends in a grunt, and she enters Spike's vision, hunching over like someone in pain. She gasps rhythmically and Spike's too stunned to give meaning to her words and actions. Which Spike does she want to kill? He can't be sure of anything anymore. The girls behind him are breathing so loudly that he's afraid of missing the Buffy-monster exchange.
The stake against his chest clatters to the floor and zombie Spikes turns around with an agonized mewl.
"No!" he shouts, gurgling up maroon parts of throat lining. "I'm going to kill him, I…"
Buffy straightens up again and her eyes are not on Spike but on his rival.
"I'm going to kill you," she says, and her voice is soft and regretful now. "Look at me, Spike. Don't fight it. You're mine to kill."
The creature nods and slowly sinks to his knees. Spike can't see its face, but the misshapen hands with the missing, rotting or skeletal fingers come up and scrabble at Buffy's belly.
The evil disgusting monster will kill her, Spike thinks wildly, and he won't be able to prevent it. At least he'll rip its head off afterwards. He still can't move a muscle. Buffy's eyes shine with dark compassion in her wasted face. She looks like a woman who knows exactly what she's doing.
Spike wishes he understood what's passing between Buffy and the kneeling Spike at her feet. Whatever it is, the other Spike bows his head to the side and theatrically rips his shirt from his chest, a clear signal that Buffy is free to kill him. Spike cringes at the memory of having acted exactly like this, long ago. How dramatic, how exaggerated. A wonder Buffy hadn't staked him for overacting, but he'd meant every syllable and every gesture with his whole heart.
"Kill me, Buffy," the Spike says, sounding almost normal. "Because you love me."
Buffy bends over and kisses the rotting brow. For one moment longer, her lips rest there and then the Spike at her feet falls silently into dust.
TBC