NOTE: Speech in italics between Buffy and Spike is telepathy.
Spike was mesmerised.
He couldn't take his eyes off her as she lay on her back, the heavy drill resting slightly against her slight frame and the vibrations causing her breasts to wobble. He raised his brows and stared at them. They were slowly being covered by a layer of small rocks and dust but each time she shifted, the covering fell away and revealed them again.
He smiled.
She seemed to have everything in the palm of her hands-strength, agility, grace, beauty, perfection and most of all, him.
He continued to stare at her, unable to tear his eyes away from her chest. He didn't even realise she'd broken through the rock above her until she was on her feet and putting the drill down. She lifted her visor up and peered into the hole.
Spike shook his head to clear it and grabbed the torch that rested on the platform nearby. Walking over to her, he clicked the button in and shone the light up into the rough entrance.
In the darkness, he could make out a vaulted ceiling; old frescos adorned it along with some form of decorative stone relief.
Buffy pulled the helmet off and looked to Spike.
"Wait here. There should be some lanterns in this room somewhere. I'll go find them. Just keep an eye out for trouble." He slid into vampire guise and handed her the torch before dropping to the floor.
Buffy shone the beam around the room, trying to scout for potential danger in the dark recesses where the lamp couldn't reach. Reaching out with her senses she could only feel Spike in the vicinity, no other dangers registered on her Slayer radar. She listened to him as he moved around the tunnels nearby, his boots making a quiet scraping sound in the dirt as he used his heightened vampire sight to find the lamps.
He held his arm up to cover his eyes as he reappeared directly in the spotlight of her torch.
"Jesus…Slayer…blind a man, why don't you." He growled and slid out of vampire guise, his eyes hurting from the intensity of the light.
"Sorry." Buffy smiled awkwardly at him as he ascended the scaffolding.
He handed a lantern to her with a flourish and gave her a smile.
Buffy turned the torch off and turned on the battery-powered lamp. It glowed eerily white in the darkness, casting strange shadows in the chamber.
Placing it inside the room above them, she hauled herself through the makeshift entrance and then stood up slowly, taking the lamp with her. She held it up high and looked around the room as she waited for Spike to follow her.
There was row upon row of dead men, nothing more than remnants of skin and bones now. She surmised they had been there for a long time, as long as Giles had predicted when he'd told them before they'd left about the last known sighting of the Gem of Amara.
Spike of course had felt the need to add more detail to everything Giles said.
It was all she could do to keep from laughing even now. The look on Giles' face had been priceless, his brows knitting indignantly each time Spike had added his titbit of information in a sardonic tone of voice.
Buffy turned to look at the vampire in question as he looked around the room, a frown etched on his features and his lips slightly parted in concentration.
"So what exactly are we looking for…ring, bracelet, necklace?"
Spike shrugged. "Haven't the foggiest. Weren't exactly any pictures of it in the research I did."
Buffy giggled. Spike arched a brow at her.
"Sorry…just…never pictured you as research guy. You and Giles would get along so well…if you don't count the bickering you guys did over the Gem yesterday." She started moving around the room in the hopes of avoiding the way he was looking at her-like she was proposing he should don angel's wings and sing at the Christmas pageant.
"I know it's green. Gem like. That's all."
"So how are we supposed to find it?" She ran her fingers over the end of one of the tombs and then pulled a face as she saw all the dust on her fingers. She wiped them hurriedly on her jeans. "I mean, I hate to say this, but it's a needle in a haystack kinda scenario."
Spike pulled a switchblade out of his pocket and held it out with the handle pointing towards her. Buffy stared at it but didn't take it.
"It's easy, love. I try something on, you cut me. Process of elimination."
Buffy didn't like the sound of that; the thought of cutting him each time he put something on made her stomach turn. She looked around the room at the hundreds of pieces of jewellery and artefacts that had gems on them. By the time they found what they were looking for, he could be as weakened as when she'd rescued him.
"No." She said flatly and saw his brows knit into a frown.
"No?" He sounded incredulous, as if no one had ever said it to him before.
"No." Buffy shook her head vehemently. "I don't want to hurt you anymore than you are already."
Spike stepped towards her and tilted his head to one side. "I'll be fine. We get the Gem and it will heal me…so, no harm done, right?"
He felt his free hand twitching by his side as she furrowed her brows. He desperately wanted to stroke her cheek and reassure her more than he was allowing himself to, but the closer they got to mounting the attempt to rescue Angel, the less inclined he was to lay his heart out on a silver platter. He mused that what was left of his heart may be dead but it still hurt like hell when it got trampled on.
"If we find the Gem." Buffy gave him a stern look.
"It's here, just got to find it." He looked around the room and then down at the knife in his hand. "If you don't want to do it…"
Buffy watched in horror as he grinned wide and drew the blade down the length of his forearm, cutting himself deep enough to make her want to be sick at the sight of the wound. As his blood started to spill out, she found the sickened feeling in her stomach growing worse as it was joined by blind panic.
"You…there are no words for how stupid you are." She growled and looked up at him with a frantic expression, then froze as she realised that he'd turned the tables on her. Where she had cut herself in order to get him to do something to her, he was now cutting himself to get her to find the Gem. Buffy mumbled. "Idiot vampire."
Spike held his arm out to her and watched her face blanch of colour as the frantic edge returned to her eyes. "Clock's ticking, pet."
He smiled as he watched her start to move around the room searching for anything with a green gem in it. Spike casually walked around the tombs trying on everything from necklaces to bracelets to rings in the hope of finding something that would heal him.
It wasn't that the wound on his arm was life threatening, not like Buffy was treating it as. It stung a little, but it was nothing when compared to what he'd suffered at the hands of the vigilantes. It was more irritating than anything, a hard throbbing that he knew she could feel as keenly as he could. The sight of her so panic-stricken had made him instantly regret his decision to cut himself. He'd done it to spite her. To see just how much she cared about him so that later in LA-when they had found Angel-he could compare the panic she felt for him to how panicked she got about Angel.
He toyed with a small bracelet, a delicate weave of gold and diamonds.
It would be perfect for her little wrist.
Buffy raised her head to look at Spike as she walked towards him with an armful of jewellery. He was staring down at something with a soft but distant smile on his face and she wondered what he was looking at. As she reached him, he moved his hand so the object he'd been so fascinated with was hidden from her.
"Try these." Buffy dumped them down on the tomb next to him and started handing him them one by one.
As he tried on and discarded the last one, she started to lose hope that they would find the Gem of Amara in amongst the masses of jewellery surrounding them. Buffy slipped her fingers under his hand and raised it up slightly, furrowing her brows as she noticed that it was covered in blood.
Spike swallowed hard as he felt what she was feeling inside.
Hurt.
Pain.
Fear.
All too reminiscent of the feelings he'd sensed in her that night in these very caves.
Grabbing a rag off the tomb, he let go of her hand and wiped his own clean with it before raising his arm up and licking along the length of his wound. It wouldn't heal it but it would alleviate some of her distress.
Spike took a deep breath to steady himself.
"I'm sorry."
Buffy's eyes shot up to meet his, a questioning frown etched on her features over the sincere way he'd said those two words. She closed her eyes as the backs of his fingers brushed against her cheek, sapping the warmth from her but replacing it with its own kind of heat.
"We'll find this Gem, Buffy…and we'll be in LA before you know it." Spike let go of her cheek and started to walk towards the table at the end of the room.
Buffy remained with her eyes closed for a few seconds as she absorbed the warmth of the touch and the way his words reassured her deeper than he could have possibly known. Turning around, she followed him to the other end of the room and silently began to look through the piles of artefacts and jewellery there.
Picking idly at the lockets and rings and other trinkets gathered on the table she let a smile creep across her face as she held up a tiara. She turned to Spike with a mischievous look and showed it to him.
Spike rolled his eyes in a way that said he was clearly unimpressed.
"Would be funny, though." She grinned as she tossed it to one side, thankful that the mood between them was starting to lighten up.
Her fingers grasped a small ring. Holding it up for inspection, she frowned at the green stone that resembled a scarab beetle. It felt different to all the things she picked up so far. She could almost feel power in this one.
Her stomach flipped with nerves.
As she stared at it, the atmosphere around her suddenly felt heavy, full of tension as she mused how such a small thing could bring so much power to Spike.
More power than even she had.
Her stomach bubbled again and she swore her hands were trembling. In the back of her mind doubt surfaced. She wasn't wholly sure what to expect from Spike once he had the Gem of Amara. How was he going to react to commanding all that power? Would he kill her?
As Spike turned to look at her, she jumped slightly, betraying the fact that she was nervous about something. He looked down at her hand and arched a brow at the gold ring she held in it.
Spike reached his hand out to her. He could sense how anxious she was and he knew she had found something of interest.
Buffy slowly placed the ring on his finger, her hands shaking even though she was trying her hardest to stop them. She watched him sniff and then frown as he waited for something to happen.
Her eyes widened as the remnants of cuts and bruises on his face disappeared, leaving behind his usual smooth pale skin. Looking down at his arm, she blinked as the long cut there healed itself.
Spike let a grin stretch across his face as he felt the power flood his system, his cracked ribs and wounds all healing rapidly. Picking a cross up off the table, he slid into game face and let his smile widen as he chuckled.
Buffy took a step backwards and away from him as the nerves in her stomach escalated. In front of her was the Spike she'd thought had long gone, the sociopath killer she'd known two years ago.
She gasped as he grabbed hold of her wrist tightly and pulled her flush against him. His arm snaking around her waist, he grinned down at her and held her firm as she wriggled.
Buffy went still as he brushed his lips against her neck. Her eyes rolled backwards and her heart raced. The intensity of his signature in her abdomen made her feel sick, the strength of it seemed to have increased a hundred fold and it made her head spin.
"Spike…" Buffy breathed into his ear and listened to him growl against her neck. "…We really need to move…"
"Not yet…" Spike purred. "Something I need to do first."
Buffy whimpered as he held her painfully tight and bit down hard on the left side of her neck. As the initial shock and pain faded away, she found herself clinging to his shoulders as he pressed her backside into the table. His hips rubbing against hers.
Threading her fingers into his hair, she let them tease it into intricate swirls and listened to him growl low. She knew it wasn't a threatening growl or a commanding one, this one rang of appreciation-he liked what she was doing.
As he pulled harder on her blood, she realised it wasn't just his signature that felt different. His bite felt stronger, more intense. It was more like death but at the same time, she felt safe.
Spike released her neck and licked it clean. He frowned at how deep he'd bitten her when he saw the wound. It had been a moment of need on his part, an undeniable desire to leave his mark on her and ensure that she was his. He knew that the moment he pulled back he'd find a questioning look in her eyes.
So he didn't move.
"I needed to…I felt…I just needed to do it." He pressed a soft kiss against her throat before turning sharply and walking towards the hole in the floor.
Buffy was stunned. Reaching her hand up she pressed it against the marks on her neck. Her eyes widened.
He'd bitten the opposite side of her neck.
The unmarked side.
Watching him climb through the hole and back into the chamber below, she realised why he'd done it. It hadn't been unmotivated or just something he needed to do. He'd intentionally marked both sides of her neck so no matter what she did, Angel would see.
Her stomach flipped.
She was well and truly his now.
