The Reforging of the Key Chapter 4: Snapshots - Part One, a buffy: the vampire slayer fanfic

The Reforging of the Key

Chapter Four: Snapshots – Part One

Author's Note: At the beginning of each section change – as opposed to PoV change – how long they've been in the dream world will be shown. I was going to try to write Snapshots as just one long chapter, but fourteen years worth of highlights just won't work as one chapter. Next chapter we'll actually get some Dawn PoV once she's old enough to have a point of view.

…

:Ten Minutes:

Once the baby's diaper had been changed, Tara got to work getting herself and Dawn dressed for the day. Her mind was occupied with troubled thoughts as she pulled off her nightgown and replaced it with a blouse and flowing skirt. It wasn't the fact that she was in a dream world – she remembered everything she'd been told, though not the identity of the heavenly being she'd interacted with – that had her uneasy. It was the way Spike's aura had looked when he'd come to wake her up.

She'd known to expect some of the changes. She'd been told that his grief and feelings of guilt over Buffy's death would be muted. There was more to it, though. For as long as she had known the vampire, he'd been a prickly ball of depression, anger, and defensiveness with a layer of fear that he tried to keep hidden away.

When he'd brought Dawn to her to be changed, he'd been… happy, his aura brighter than she'd ever seen it. That in and of itself wasn't a bad thing, but it made her wonder if his memories of the real world had been tampered with. She didn't think a change like that would be possible if he still remembered all the nasty words and treatment that had been heaped on him by the Scoobies.

He brought a lot of it on himself, she reminded herself, as she always had whenever the feelings of sympathy and kinship she felt for Spike surfaced. She knew what it was like to be told you were evil and worthless. But… but he actually is evil... And he was ungrateful and betrayed everyone after they took him in and helped him. Is it really fair to hold that against him, though? He's a vampire, and he's been trying so hard to be good….

Tara sighed and shook her head to clear it. While helping with Dawn was part of her task, the heavenly being had made it clear that her main reason for being here was to take care of Spike. Not to keep him from hurting anyone, but to provide emotional support and to be his friend. If someone in heaven wanted that, than obviously that struggle towards good had been noticed.

Okay, so, now to go downstairs, get Dawnie fed, and then poke at the emotional wounds of an emotionally unstable vampire who I'm supposed to end up close friends with. I just hope he doesn't get mad enough at me to fall off the no homicide wagon. Her lips twitched wryly at the thought that conjured. I don't think they have a twelve step program for recovering homicidal maniacs.

She took a deep breath, gathered the baby in her arms, and headed down the stairs. In the kitchen, Dawn's bottle – the white formula now tinted pink – sat on the table. Spike was leaning against the counter, gulping down a mug of blood before licking the cut across his right palm with considerably more enthusiasm. He looked disturbingly like a kid getting their favorite dessert after having to eat a particularly icky vegetable.

A defensive look crossed his face when he noticed Tara staring at him. "What, never seen a vampire sink to drinking their own blood before? Tastes a damn sight better 'n vile dead pig."

She glanced away nervously and picked up Dawn's bottle. The little girl latched onto the nipple as soon as it was in her mouth, suckling hungrily. She seemed to agree with her father on the tastiness of his blood.

"W-well, Dawn s-se-seems to like it too, so…." Tara was quiet for a few seconds, then continued. "Y-you're a vampire, I d-don't think it's weird to like your own blood. Pro-probably doesn't work as an actual food source, but…." She shrugged and trailed off again.

Spike blinked and tilted his head slightly as he studied her. Then he gave the cut one last lick and asked, "You want some breakfast?"

"I… um, yes, please."

He pushed away from the counter and went to the refrigerator, pulling out what he needed to make scrambled eggs. Tara watched him as she settled Dawn against her shoulder and gently patted the baby's back. The vampire's confident movements as he chopped up mushrooms and green peppers and whisked eggs spoke of a long familiarity with cooking. She'd suspected for a while now that he knew his way around a kitchen. There was no way the cookies he made in the waking world for Dawn weren't from scratch.

"H-how do you know how to cook?"

She winced as the words popped out, expecting him to take offense at the suggestion that him knowing how to cook was bizarre. Instead, Spike turned to look at her and grinned, the expression making his eyes light up.

"Answered an ad in the paper a couple decades back. Bloke wanted to teach a vampire all his recipes and techniques so they'd last past his lifetime. Never did lose the taste for human food, and I was bored at the time, so…." He shrugged and got out a skillet. "Picked up a bit of a knack for interior decorating the same way."

They fell into an oddly companionable silence as he cooked up enough eggs for two. Tara put Dawn down in her bassinet for an after bottle nap, then got out plates and forks just as Spike finished up at the stove.

"You… um… s-seem to have picked up a l-lot before you ate him," Tara said once they were both sitting at the table together. She hoped her stutter didn't make her sound judgmental. She didn't exactly approve of eating people, but she recognized that vampires were predators specifically designed to hunt and eat humans. It would be like judging Miss Kitty Fantastico for eating mice.

"Didn't eat him, pet. Treated me all decent like, so by the time I learned all he had to teach, he'd become a person."

She frowned in confusion. "Became a person? What was he before?"

Spike looked at her and, while he stayed looking human, the sense of actual humanity faded away, leaving her staring into the cold eyes of a predator. "Food," he said simply. Then the predator that was Spike retreated, bringing back the person that was also Spike as he continued talking.

"Haven't personally met any other vampires this is true of, love, but for me, if I get to know a human well enough, they turn into people. I eat humans, not people." He tilted his head and admitted, "Still kill people if there's a need, but won't eat 'em. And won't do either to humans or people in this world unless there's no choice."

"S-so you know?"

"That this is a dream world?" Spike nodded. "Yeah. Don't know much about it, 'cept that I'm free of that bloody chip and apparently work for the Sunnydale city council as the official protector of the Hellmouth. Few other things, too, but those are the two major bits of knowledge."

"I-I'm a student at UC Sunnydale, j-just like when awake. But it's spring semester instead of summer right now. And… and I know that the-the people here are based on other re-reality people of Sunnydale, with their thought and behavior patterns. Bu-but none of the Scoobies."

Tara felt a muffled pang of loneliness at the thought of Willow. Like with Spike, her feelings about the one she loved had been muted, but not completely suppressed. She missed her girlfriend, but it wouldn't leave her crying in the night on a regular basis, since she knew Willow would be there when she woke up.

But Buffy won't be there when Spike wakes up, she thought sadly.

They were both silent for a moment before the witch started talking again. She still needed to find out about Spike's waking world memories. "I… um… your aura… it's different. Here in the dream world. Do you… remember….." She trailed off, unsure of how to ask the question. Hey there, person who is trying really hard not to kill my species, I noticed you aren't a prickly ball of pain and misery. What's up with that?

Spike looked at her again. "Do I remember what? Getting paralyzed by the slayer, Angelus coming back to make my unlife a living hell while I was still weak and helpless from that, the poof shagging my girlfriend, said girlfriend dumping my sorry arse for not being a sadistic psychopath who wanted to end the world, being so pathetically desperate to be in a relationship that I dated Harmony, the government shoving that chip in my noggin, being tied up and left to starve while your precious Scoobies ate bloody thanksgiving dinner in front of me, being chained up and still starved in the watcher's bathtub, falling in love with my mortal enemy, promising her that I'd protect her sister, and then failing so miserably at it that she had to jump to her death? Nope, don't remember a bit of it. Thanks for asking."

Tara's eyes widened at the recitation, then narrowed in a troubled frown when he mentioned the actions of the others after he'd been chipped. "They-they chained you up in a bathtub and st-starved you?"

He raised a brow at that, surprised that that was what had caught her attention. "Told you something else about that, did they, love?"

"I… uh… I was t-told that… that they h-helped you, and y-you were ungrateful and be-betrayed them." Anger made her stutter worse. She took a deep breath and forced herself to slow down. "What they did, that wasn't right. And they must know it, if they lied to me about it."

"They prob'ly weren't lying from their point of view, pet. I am an evil, soulless vampire, after all, and they didn't stake me or leave me out in the sun to get all extra crispy-like." He shrugged and stabbed at a chunk of scrambled egg with his fork. "Nothing to be done about any of it, and none of that bothers me much right now. It's all sort of… fuzzy. All the jangly edges softened."

"Willow's spell, after the… um… Xander L-licking Incident, it was wrong. I un-understand why you were angry about it. Why aren't you mad about this too?"

She still couldn't believe Willow had done that to him. I thought she understood, when I told her Dawnie needed to get past her grief over her mother naturally. Of course, to be fair, Dawn's grief had never led to a hunger crazed vampire being cuddled up against Willow's oldest friend, lapping blood from a nasty, demon-inflicted shoulder wound that was scarily close to his neck. He could have easily ripped Xander's throat out before the chip could fire.

Spike growled softly, his lip curling in disgust. "Red's little happy spell imposed something on me. She just shoved an emotion in there, like those soddin' soldier boys shoved the chip in my brain. This though…." he gestured vaguely and shrugged, "isn't taking anything away or putting anything in. It's just all fuzzed up. Been trying to do that myself for the past few years with enough alcohol to drown an entire herd of elephants. Be a mite bit hypocritical to complain because someone managed to do it for me. And, hey, no hangover to worry about, yeah?"

They settled into silence again, this one awkward as Tara guiltily noticed the darker cast to Spike's aura. She had needed to know what he knew and what he remembered, but she still felt badly about poking at things best left "fuzzed." She tried to think of some way to distract him from the metaphorical hornets' nest she'd jostled and ended up blurting out something she'd often wondered about over the summer in the waking world.

"What…what happens to the human food you eat? I mean, you don't…."

Spike blinked at her, glanced down at the forkful of eggs halfway between his plate and his mouth, and blinked again.

"Oh, well… huh… actually…." He frowned slightly in confusion, as if looking for what should have been an obvious answer to something he'd never bothered to wonder about. Then he just shrugged and grinned at her, his good mood restored. "Haven't the foggiest, pet."

…

:Two Days:

Snap

Whfft

Pop

The tiniest clench of her hand around her pen was the only outward sign of annoyance Tara allowed herself to show. Just ignore it. You can do it. Ignore it and work on your homework. He doesn't even like magic, so it's for his own good that you're refusing to do this. Also, he needs to cut back. Addiction isn't good for anyone.

Snap

Whfft

Pop

Snap

Whfft

Pop

"Will you stop that?" she hissed, glaring at the vampire sitting across from her at the kitchen table. Her glare was met with a sweet smile and a slight widening of deceptively innocent looking blue eyes.

"But, Tara love, you were the one who said I shouldn't smoke even in the basement with Li'l Bit being at her bittiest. You were the one who suggested I just chew gum instead during the day. Course, if it bothers you so much… well, I trust your magic. You're a good girl. You respect the magic and its consequences."

Exactly three loud, obnoxious chews of gum. A bubble blown. The bubble drawn back into the mouth and popped before the cycle started all over again.

Snap

Whfft

Pop

"You are evil," Tara accused. That, of course, just earned her one of those grins that lit up his face with gleeful joy, followed by more malicious gum chewing.

Snap

Whfft

Pop

"Fine, I'll do the air purifier spell so you can smoke in the house!" she finally shouted. Then she clamped her hands over her mouth, appalled that she'd actually shouted at someone.

Instead of the anger she would have gotten from her relatives for daring to raise her voice, Spike looked proud. Of her.

…

:Four Months:

The instant the sun set, Spike was out the door to do his nightly patrol. The instant after that, Tara was getting together all of the supplies she'd hidden away for the disinvite spell. He was going to be so hurt and angry when he found out, but it was the only way to keep him out of the house for the night.

It's for his own good, she reminded herself grimly as she got everything ready. Over the past four months, Spike had become increasingly more hyper-focused on Dawn and, to a lesser extent, Tara herself. He was so intent on taking care of them that he hadn't been taking care of himself. She'd lost count of the number of times he'd passed out on the couch from sheer exhaustion after staying awake for days at a time, and she was constantly having to remind him to eat.

The fact that pig's blood is apparently really disgusting isn't helping with that last part, she thought with a slight frown. She'd caught him "seasoning" the blood with a couple of drops of holy water just the day before in the hopes that it would burn out his taste buds long enough to down it. Luckily, she'd been able to grab it from him and dump it down the sink before he could actually drink it. I can work on something tonight to make it less nasty. If she managed it, maybe he'd forgive her faster for the disinvite.

…

Spike hurried home after six hours of keeping Sunnydale safe from demons and his own kind. He loved the fighting, but he didn't really like leaving his girls home by themselves. He was the only vampire who could get in since the house was in Tara's name, but there were other dangers.

Most demons didn't actually need an invitation, plus there were the more mundane dangers. What if Dawn just stopped breathing, or something? Babies did that sometimes. He shuddered at the thought. He hated not being able to breathe, and he didn't even need to. How much worse would that be for a tiny little baby who did need to?

Or what if Tara had made herself some dinner and accidentally chopped off her hand and bled to death, or something? Okay, so that one wasn't very likely, but what if she'd decided on a bath, slipped, and had broken her head open like a melon? There could be Tara brains all over the bathroom, and no one would be watching the Nibblet, and she'd start crying, and no one would be there for her, and she'd drown in her own snot, which was probably the most disgusting way ever to die, and…

Okay, that is enough of enough, mate. They're not going to spontaneously combust just because you aren't there…. Oh god, do babies spontaneously combust? Why don't they put these things in the bloody manuals? Go on and on about developmental milestones and whatnot, but not one bleedin' word about infant combustion rates.

He ran the rest of the way home, nearly smacking into the door before he could stop his forward momentum. Before he could get his keys out, Tara opened the door from inside.

"Spike, listen, I-"

As soon as the door had opened, Spike tried to go inside... and couldn't. His mind went completely blank for a couple of seconds. He vaguely noticed Tara's lips starting to move, but he couldn't comprehend what she was saying. What was this? Had the witch set up some sort of anti-demon barrier that she didn't realize kept out vampires as well? Even as he wondered, he knew that wasn't the case. He knew the difference in feel between a barrier spell and a threshold where he wasn't invited.

He took a step back and looked down, staring at his hand as if it belonged to someone else as he slowly reached out to touch the invisible barrier. He swallowed hard, remembering the last time he'd been barred from this house. Or rather, from the waking world version.

He would have understood Buffy doing it after he'd chained her up, but the timing hadn't been right. She had left his invitation unrevoked during a time when he had had both the means and desire to kill her, but had taken it away when she'd discovered something like him had dared to fall in love with her.

He loved Dawn and thought of Tara as a friend. Had that frightened her? Did she think he was a danger to them both? What human rule had he broken that was so terrible that she'd do this to him?

"Why?" he whispered hoarsely. "Why did you? What… what did I…?"

Tara sighed softly, and he looked up at her, confused by the mingled looks of compassion, guilt, and determination on her face.

"You didn't hear a word I said, did you?"

He just stared at her, wide-eyed. He remembered her lips moving, but nothing of what she had actually said.

"At five a.m., you're officially invited back into this house," Tara said. "Until then, you are going to go do something that doesn't involve me and Dawn or killing things."

Spike blinked at her, trying to process what she was saying. The delayed invitation would work. At exactly five in the morning, he'd be able to get into the house again. That calmed him down a little. He wasn't being permanently banished. Did she have some weird, witchy thing going on that would be ruined by his presence? She could have just told him that, and he would have stayed outside. Despite the way he sometimes acted – usually out of sheer boredom – he was not a child and didn't really appreciate being treated like one in this particular situation. Then the second part of what she'd said registered.

"I'm s'posed to be doing what now?"

"Whatever you want, as long as it doesn't involve us or work," Tara insisted calmly. She'd been around the vampire long enough now that – with him at least – her stutter was almost gone. "Spike, in the past four months, you haven't set foot outside of this house except to patrol and to smoke a few times before I did the air filter spell. That isn't healthy for anyone and especially not for someone with serious codependent tendencies."

"I am not bloody codependent!" Spike snapped, feeling a weird sense of déjà vu at the denial. He didn't know why, but he almost expected Tara to launch into a list of all of the symptoms that pretty much fit him to a T.

Instead, she just gave him a look that clearly said she knew they both knew better. He glanced down at his feet and mumbled, "Okay, maybe just a little bit. There's nothing wrong with that."

"No, there's nothing wrong with needing to take care of people," the witch agreed gently. "But you can't do that if you don't take care of yourself, too. So, from now on, you aren't allowed in this house on Friday nights. You need to go out and have some you time. Maybe make some male friends, or something."

"Don't particularly want any male friends, love."

There were a few exceptions, but, by and large, Spike didn't really much care for the other members of his gender. Fathers beat sons for daring to prefer playing dollies with their sisters to sporting with other boys, and then died from the same sickness that killed those sisters, leaving their grieving widows with no one but an eight-year-old boy to pick up the pieces. Boys picked on smaller-statured dreamers. Men mocked terrible poets and made up nasty little nicknames.

And if you were ever stupid enough to idolize – to nearly worship – another man, he would betray you the instant he realized he wasn't the only sun your little world revolved around. He would especially hate that the other sun was brighter in your eyes, and he would take it away from you, all because he couldn't stand not being the center of attention. And when you tried to fight to get her back, he would prove that nothing was yours. Everything belonged to him. Even her. Even you.

And then the poncy git would have a soul shoved right up his arse and abandon you.

"Spike?" Tara's soft voice and gentle grip on his shoulder pulled him from his thoughts of the past. "Are you okay?"

"Just peachy, pet, thanks ever so for asking," he responded sarcastically. "Of course I'm not soddin' okay. I've been disinvited from my home, for my 'own bloody good' apparently, and can't even pop in for half a tick to make sure my sprog hasn't spontaneously combusted."

"'Sponta'…? Why would you think Dawn would-"

"Well, why wouldn't she? It's all spontaneous like and all, in'nit? I mean, it's right there in the bloody name!" he pointed out defensively. Okay, it was a really stupid worry, and he knew that, but that didn't keep it from floating around in his mind. He blamed his own fairly combustible nature for it.

"Yeah…. I think that kind of proves my point. You're kind of going a little bit crazy." Tara's voice was soft and soothing, the tone the same he himself had used so many times when Dru was at her looniest. She took a deep breath, the guilt and determination from earlier showing in her face once more. "I need you to do this for me, Spike. I won't do the disinvite spell anymore, but I need you to take Friday nights off from taking care of me and Dawn. Okay?"

He sighed heavily, his shoulders slumping in defeat. After four months of living together, she'd managed to suss out one of his biggest weaknesses. Unless it would impact their safety in a negative way, he never had been able to say no when a female he cared about needed something.

…

Fifteen minutes later, Spike was stomping angrily through the nearest cemetery, muttering to himself and gesturing wildly.

"Stupid bint, trying to 'fix' me or something. Nothing bloody wrong with me."

Lyin' to yourself now, mate? All sorts of things wrong with you, and you know it. 'S why no one ever really wants you around. Not even Mu- He shied away from that thought, both mentally and physically. A move which sent him sprawling backwards over a headstone. He landed with his back on the grave, his butt against the headstone and his legs draped over it.

"Oh, brilliant. That was dignified."

He snorted in disgust and shook his head. He and whatever shreds of dignity he had once had had long since parted company.

He sighed and just stared up at the stars. He missed Dawn, both the baby version and the teenager back in the waking world. He just wanted to be with her, to watch her grow up. Only chance I'll ever have of really having a sprog of my own. She'll still be mine when we wake up, but no one but the three of us will know it. They won't let me be around her any more than they already tolerate.

He sighed again and put his hands over his face. He was tired and stressed out and, bugger it, hungry. He could just nip on over to a bar, strut about, flirt with some sweet young honey and lead her off to an alley. Then he'd drain her dry, fresh human, straight from the tap. Coppery and rich and full of life and the very essence of the girl.

Said I wouldn't. But, god, he wanted to. That was part of the reason he'd been staying around the house all the time. Mostly it was because of what Tara had said, but in part it was to keep himself away from the humans. Tasty little happy meals running all about, kept safe and whole only because he knew Dawn would hate him if he went back to feeding on them.

She wouldn't even know, the traitorous little thought flitted through his mind. And it wasn't even like he'd be killing a real person. Not even a real human. They were just dream creations based on templates of people from other realities.

But they still have the thoughts, feelings, and mem'ries of being those people. Kinda like being a vampire only, you know, without the chewy demon center. Well, 'cept for the actual vampires in this dream world….

He took in and exhaled several slow, deep breaths, the feeling of air filling and then leaving his lungs oddly comforting. He wondered, not for the first time, if his obsession with breathing was just one of the strange human behaviors he'd never been able to shake off, or if it was related in some way to the claustrophobia he'd ended up with after starting his unlife face down in an already occupied coffin six feet in the ground.

Even after more than a century, he still had nightmares about that. Poor mad, darling Dru. She'd been so obsessed with doing things right. She'd gone through the trouble of digging up a grave, but had forgotten to take out the original occupant before tossing him in the coffin and burying it again.

He sighed yet again and forced his thoughts away from that long ago night. He had said he wouldn't kill any humans in this world unless he had to in order to keep Dawn and Tara safe. Being reckless and impulsive had pretty much been his MO since the night he first caught Angelus with Drusilla, but he had excellent self-control when he actually gave enough of a damn to exercise it. Dawn was worth the effort.

Well, now that that's all sorted, time to figure out what to do with myself. Doubt moping about in a cemetery and traipsing down the more traumatic part of memory lane is what the witch had in mind with all of this.

A sudden thought occurred to him, and his eyes widened, a tiny ember of hope flaring in his unbeating heart. This was a dream world. It was different from the Sunnydale of waking reality. What if…? Did he dare let that tiny hope grow into something larger?

He took a deep breath, gathering his resolve, and got to his feet. He had to know. He would go to the Bronze and find out if this version still had those fantastic onion flower things.

…

The next morning, Tara wasn't surprised when she went to Dawn's room and found the crib empty. Normally she took care of the morning feeding and diaper change, but she'd been pretty sure that, after the enforced all night separation, Spike would immediately go to his daughter as soon as he could get back in the house.

That belief was confirmed when she went downstairs and found Spike curled up asleep on the couch with the baby gently cradled against his chest. An empty bottle sat on the coffee table next to a mug that smelled of the remnants of hot chocolate rather than blood. A nearly empty bag of marshmallows had been closed with a twist tie and left on the floor beside the couch.

Tara winced at the sight of it since it had been unopened as of last night. He had to have been feeling pretty badly to indulge in that much of a marshmallow binge. At least it wasn't a whiskey binge… though it's entirely possible that was what he was up to last night.

She was pulled from her thoughts by Dawn's soft fusing. She quietly went to the couch, but when she tried to pick her up, Spike growled in his sleep and held his little girl tighter.

"Mine," he mumbled.

Tara smiled softly and gently shook his shoulder. "Spike? Wake up. I think Dawnie needs a diaper change."

"Huh, wha?" Spike blinked his eyes open and stared at her blankly for a few seconds before wrinkling his nose in disgust. "Euck. Yeah, she needs a fresh nappy right quick."

"I've got it."

This time, the vampire allowed her to pick Dawn up. She took her upstairs to the changing table and quickly and efficiently got the infant taken care of. By the time she got back downstairs, Spike was up and about and pouring blood into a mug. She was just fast enough to get Dawn into her bassinet and snag the mug before he could put it into the microwave.

"Oi, give it! I didn't put anything weird in this time," Spike said indignantly, trying to get the mug back from her.

She dodged out of his way and quickly pulled a small vial of red liquid out of her pocket. "Just give me a second. You'll like this, I promise."

He eyed her suspiciously but didn't try to liberate his breakfast as she set it on the counter. She opened the dropper lid on the vial and very carefully put a single drop of the liquid into the pig's blood. She sealed the vial again, then held out both it and the mug to Spike. The look of stunned disbelief on his face made it clear he'd already smelled the difference.

"What… what did you…?"

"I put a spell using the laws of contagion on this vial. If you put a drop of what's in it into another liquid – preferably blood, otherwise the effects are diluted – it will change that liquid to match what's in the vial. And it will be identical to the state it was in when the vial was filled. So, in this case, Tara blood, still warm and fresh."

Spike slowly took the two items from her, immediately pocketing the vial. He stared into the mug, looked up at her, then back down at the mug. She expected some kind of snarky comment along the lines of it being about time or that she owed him after last night.

Instead, he quietly uttered, "Thanks, pet."

…

:Six Months:

It was just another Friday night, and Spike once again found himself hanging out at the Bronze, enjoying a beer and fried oniony magnificence. He still wasn't happy about having to be away from home for the entire night, but he had to admit it was fun, especially since he didn't have to worry as much anymore about slipping and eating anyone. He still felt the urge to hunt and kill, but it was a passive, predatory sort of thing like a cat wanting to chase mice even though it was being fed high quality canned food. Only he had more self-control than a cat and wouldn't chase and bat at the tasty humans.

He watched the young people dance and flirted shamelessly with the girls, though only with the ones who understood it was just a game and nothing serious. He didn't want anything more than that, not even a one off tumble. Even though his feelings had been nicely fuzzed and their relationship had been nothing more than him mooning pathetically over her, just finding another woman attractive felt like a betrayal of Buffy.

"Hey there, hot stuff," a voice purred from behind him.

He looked over his shoulder to see a woman with long, caramel brown hair, a heart-shaped face, and dark hazel eyes. She was looking at him like he was a piece of meat she wanted to devour and she smelt of magic. This one had more than just simple, harmless flirting in mind.

"Sorry, pet, not interested."

He turned away from her only to look back again when she grabbed his shoulder. Her expression was cruel and angry.

"I don't remember asking if you were or not. I'm a powerful witch working for the city council. You don't want to make me mad, vampire."

"Yeah, I work for them, too, so not much point in bringing them into things, is there? Don't think they'd appreciate you getting all handsy with the bloke who keeps the nasties at bay. So sod off."

Not that he'd actually mention any of this to them. The only part of his life that was any of their business was when he was working. He shrugged his shoulders, knocking her hand away, and took a long drink of his beer. He'd been enjoying the night for the most part, and now he just wanted to go home.

Refusing to accept his brush off, the woman pulled a chair over and sat next to him, resting her hand suggestively on his thigh. "Oh come on, we both know you want it. That little witch you're playing house with bats for the other team, so I know she's not putting out for you. The eyes are kind of girly, especially with those lashes, but that can't be enough to get her attention."

Her hand slid up his leg, stopping just shy of his groin. It took all of his self-control to keep from exploding with rage. Instead, he gently gripped her wrist and leaned in close, his breath cool and feathery against her ear as he spoke in a seductive whisper.

"Touch me again, and I'll break every single bone in your hand, you skanky, whorish bitch."

His soft hold on her wrist tightened suddenly, taking the bones to the breaking point without actually going over it. Then he shoved her away from him and got up, the ends of his coat flaring out behind him like the swishing tail of an angry cat as he stalked away.

…

Rachel Hill watched in seething fury as the council's tame vampire walked away from her. How dare he! He should have been begging for the chance to be her lover, not treating her like she was some kind of diseased thing. Maybe he was getting sex from the lesbian after all. The other witch wasn't amazingly powerful, but it couldn't take that much to turn the vampire into a pretty little girl whenever she wanted. No real man would have rejected her.

Before he could get out of her line of sight, Rachel murmured the words of a spell. As soon as he got close enough to that unnatural pervert, Tara Maclay, to smell her, the spell would activate, triggering an uncontrollable bloodlust. He'd slaughter her, and maybe even that brat he liked to pretend was his, even though it was impossible for vampires to have children.

…

Tara was jolted from sleep by the feel of foreign magic entering the house. She quickly threw back the blanket and got up, hurrying from her room and down the stairs as fast as she could. Spike was on his knees in front of the door, bent over with his forehead against the floor and his arms wrapped around himself.

"Grab the bit and get the hell out of here!" he growled, his voice deeper and harsher than normal. Because he had rarely ever vamped out around her, it took Tara a moment to understand the reason his voice sounded different.

That moment cost her. With a savage snarl, Spike rose up into a crouch and launched himself at her. Caught off guard, Tara cast a binding spell, cursing her own stupidity as the crazed vampire crashed into her, knocking them both to the ground. His hands were bound together between them, but he was still laying on top of her with his face pressed against her neck.

She squeezed her eyes shut only to snap them open again when the expected stab of sharp fangs into her vulnerable throat was instead a gentle nip from very human teeth. Spike had apparently shifted back to human and – judging from what Tara felt pressing against her – was very, very happy with where he was at the moment.

"S-spike?" she whispered hoarsely, mouth and throat both dry from fear. She knew, in normal circumstances, that he wouldn't hurt her, but these were not normal circumstances. Dark, spiteful magic clung to him, mixing with her own. She had the strangest feeling that her simple binding spell around his wrists was the reason she hadn't been torn apart already.

He lifted his head and gazed at her with eyes that were a thin ring of blue around dilated pupils. A slow, sweet smile spread across his face. "Hi there, pet. Are you a good witch or a bad witch?" He sounded almost drugged. He giggled and whispered in a confidential tone, "I met a very bad witch today. Couldn't keep her grubby human feelers to herself. Always pawing, humans are. Can stop them here though. No zappy zappy."

He wiggled against her and the spacy look in his eyes was suddenly replaced with horrified panic as he realized the reaction he was having to a warm, soft woman underneath him.

"Bloody buggering fuck!" he snarled, rolling off of her. He struggled up into a sitting position and scooted away from her until his back hit the wall. "Sorry 'bout that, love. Didn't mean to… uh…."

"It-It's okay," Tara said, cautiously sitting up and studying the spell wrapped around him. "I think the w-witch you met put a spell on you to incite bloodlust. The… um… blood part seems to be… b-blocked at the moment."

Spike looked away in obvious embarrassment and mumbled something too softly for her to hear.

"I-I'm sorry, I didn't hear…. I… do you want to undo the binding spell?"

"No!" he shouted, looking at her with fresh panic in his eyes. "It's the reason… that's why 'm not trying to kill you. Norm'ly it'd hafta be tight enough to hurt a bit to cause… um… this reaction," he glanced down at his lap then back at her, "but if I… trust someone… Ilikebeingtiedup."

Tara frowned, trying to figure out the mumbled, slurred together words. When she did, her eyes widened a bit. "Oh! That… that's okay, Spike. There's nothing wrong with…."

He shrugged and wouldn't look at her. "'S not normal. Figured that out after I chained…."

"Buffy up," she finished for him when he trailed off.

Spike nodded. "When it's tight and hurts a little, that's just a bit of kink. Lots of folks like that. Didn't do that with the slayer. I chained her up good and proper, so she couldn't get away, but it wasn't tight on her wrists. It was s'posed to… to calm her down, so she'd just listen for once instead of punching me in the face and telling me to shut up."

She slowly stood up and moved towards him. He eyed her warily. "I think I can unravel the spell, but I need to be closer." To hopefully distract him from any thoughts of all the tasty blood running through her veins, she continued talking. "That's how it is for you? If you're lightly tied up, it's calming?"

The vampire nodded again. "Yeah, though it wouldn't have worked for the slayer, no matter what. The whole trust thing is kinda important for both kinds of being tied up." His lips quirked up in a slight smile. "'S a good thing, that, or being chained up in the watcher's bathtub would've been a lot more awkward."

They were both silent for a few minutes while Tara worked on removing the spell. She agreed with the others that chaining Buffy up had been a really bad thing, but she couldn't help the touch of sympathy she felt for Spike in regards to the incident. She knew how it felt to have something about yourself ridiculed as being abnormal.

Spike's quiet words pulled her out of her thoughts. "Dru liked to tie up her things. If she tied them up, then they belonged to her, didn't they? If she tied me up, and I didn't try to get away, it meant I was hers. That's something her 'daddy' could never take away. She may have belonged to him, but he didn't belong to her. Just me. I belonged to her for over a hundred years, an' she just cut me loose."

Tara's heart broke a little at the lost and bewildered sound of his voice. Over a hundred years of taking care of and loving a madwoman, the innate codependent tendencies of a natural caretaker being reinforced and strengthened to the point where he just couldn't function without some kind of relationship, whether it be romantic or something as innocent as the protective friendship he'd developed with the waking world version of Dawn.

We were all worried that he wanted some kind of control over Buffy, that he'd become crazy and possessive, but all he wanted was to belong to her and to take care of her as much as she'd allow, she realized sadly.

"Okay, got it," she said, just as she unraveled the last of the dark magic. She wasn't as powerful as whoever had cast it, but she had more finesse with her magic.

Spike leaned back against the wall with a sigh of relief. "Thanks, love." He looked at his still magically bound wrists. "You can… uh… you know, undo this now."

Tara didn't immediately respond or release the binding spell. She sat down on the floor beside him instead. Now that the other witch's spell was gone, his aura was more relaxed than she had ever seen it. Almost peaceful.

"Do you really want me to?"

He slowly shook his head and leaned forward, pulling his knees to his chest and hooking his bound wrists around them to hold them in place. "Should though. Need to find the bitch and put her down."

"No." Tara said coldly. Spike's angry expression shifted to confusion as she slid her arm across his shoulders. "I know a good local coven. We'll take care of her. No one messes with my vampire."

His eyes widened at the emphasis she put on the word, his expression clearly asking, do I belong to you? His response to her nod was a soft sigh as he very slightly leaned against her. And with that tiny little movement, the master vampire put himself completely in her power.

It seemed to be a night for revelations, and the one that hit Tara right then was about herself. It had been a coincidence that she had found Spike and Dawn asleep in the waking world first, but the fact that she had been sucked into the dream was not. The spell or whatever it was had always been designed with her in mind as the third person.

She'd been powerless for most of her life, except for one thing. Her magic. It was a power she treated with respect and the utmost care. Whatever being had set this all in motion had known she would treat this new power in the same way.