Spike rolled his eyes.
The all-was-well moment was threatening to make him heave.
Giles was his blinky bespeckled self again.
Xander was happily wrapped back around Anya's little finger, unshredded by the demon hordes (unfortunately).
Willow had stopped moping long enough to make about four dozen cookies, give or take…
And he was tied to the chair again; bound by his chest and arms and ankles. Bloody humiliating.
"Don't I get a cookie?" he scowled, subtly straining against his newly tightened restraints with a grimace as the Slayer's entourage made chit-chat around him.
There wasn't any give in the ropes. He knew there wouldn't be, Buffy seemed to relish making the knots bite down to the bloody bone. But the show was the thing. Couldn't let her think he'd just sit there all trussed up like a Christmas turkey willingly.
It made his guts roil, knowing the ropes were pointless anyway.
Bleeding soldier boys did enough goddamn restraining, he thought with a bitter huff.
But even as he fidgeted he didn't miss the way Buffy glanced at Willow. Or the tight-lipped nod back.
"Yeah. Sure. You can have a cookie," muttered his ex-fiancée, biting into the chocolate chip cookie in her hand.
He narrowed his eyes at her as Willow brought around a plate. And held one out towards him.
With a snort and a glower, he sank his teeth into it rather than take it from her, relishing the way the witch flinched back as though he might bite off her fingertips. She recovered quickly and shot him a glare that would barely have made even a ladybird quiver. He pulled the rest of the cookie out with his fingers, his bound biceps straining.
There was a strangely quiet pause as he chewed; the watcher, the whelp, and the former-lady-of-chaos all either glancing at each other or him as though waiting for something to happen.
"What?" he snarled after swallowing his mouthful, running a tongue across his teeth.
"Feel better?" Buffy asked, chipper and aggravating, but something in her tone made a twitch of suspicion flicker in his already plenty-abused brain.
What's the bint plotting?
"Not hardly," he replied. "Could do with a bloody quart and then some." He took another bite. "Can still taste your sodding lipgloss."
"You're a pig, Spike," she sneered with that trademark curl of her lip that always made him want to push for more.
Spike grinned with a closed mouth before swallowing. "From what I remember, luv, you were more than excited for a roll in the dirt."
He blinked. That hadn't… quite been what he'd meant to say. He'd meant to make a jibe about her insipid taste in first-dance song choices.
He shook his head, unconcerned. His tongue always did have a bit of a mind of its own, spilling words without directing them through his brain first. Didn't matter, the Slayer's cheeks were turning a pretty shade of brassed-off pink anyway.
"That was the spell," she said icily, but the blush didn't fade.
"Yeah?" He smirked back. "Spell or no spell, you promised all sorts with your tongue in my ear, wriggling that pert arse in my lap. Still up for it if you are—" He cut himself off before the words twisted even further out of his control, jolting back as though trying to get away from his own mouth. "Oi, what the—?"
"Maybe this was a bad idea?" Buffy mumbled to Willow who was chewing her lip guiltily and casting nervous looks at Giles.
"Some unpleasantness is to be expected," he soothed, choosing to polish his glasses a second time rather than look the Slayer in the eyes. "After all it is Spike's unbridled inner thoughts."
Spike jolted into awareness, his face paling further out of its already deathly hue.
"My what?!" he growled, putting fresh effort into yanking at his bonds.
"Besides," Giles added, slipping his glasses back on as he pulled a book into his lap, "truth spells can be slightly more potent when ingested."
Spike dropped the cookie out of his hand as though it had burned him. "Hey, what've you lot gone and done now?!"
"Truth spell," Anya answered flippantly as she took another cookie from the plate on the coffee table. She nodded to the separate stack Willow had brought out for him. "You've been spiked."
"Ha," chuckled Xander. "Spiked Spike. Spike the Spiked."
"What?!" Spike snarled. "What the—bloody hell—" he gave up trying to pry his way loose and rounded on Buffy. "Untie me!"
"No," she bit back.
"Undo it!"
"Nope." Her eyes were flinty shards of green, sharp like broken pieces of glass and he found himself seething at the coldness in them. She crossed her legs like an interrogator getting comfortable. "Okay, tell us what the commandos did to you."
Spike stiffened, breathing hard through his nose as he worked his hands into fists and out again. If he pulled any harder on the ropes he'd start tearing skin.
Fuck!
"They…" he swallowed, trying to manipulate the words but he could taste the truth in them before they even made it up to his lips. "...Put me in a big glass box. There was… some other vampire too in another. Dropped a blood pack from the ceiling… tasted funny—ENOUGH, untie me," he broke off, giving up on trying to control the words and opting for at least stubborn uncooperation.
"So they've got cells?" Buffy said, unimpressed. "We already figured that much. What else?"
He seethed. Silently.
Buffy rolled her eyes in exasperation. "Look, Spike, you've got the info, and this whole tying you to the furniture or chaining you to Giles' bathtub is getting really, really boring—"
"Not to mention disruptive in the most unhygienic way," Giles chimed in without looking up.
"So, you give us the dirt on the super-sluethy commandos and hey, maybe I cut you a break long enough for you to slink off over the horizon. Preferably forever," Buffy finished, a quirk to her eyebrows insinuating that this was a 'Good Deal', but the malicious twinkle in her eyes belaying the smirk beneath.
Spike made a conscious effort to unclench his jaw before he cracked a tooth. "And the alternative?"
Buffy looked over to Willow, still holding the insidious plate of truth-cookies.
"Uh… I-I guess the alternative is; truths forever?" she stuttered.
"It's permanent!?" Spike near screamed, panic flaring. Brain-leashed and a permanent fountain of honesty, he'd be dead by the end of the week.
End of the day, even.
"No, not like permanent-permanent," Willow fumbled, almost dropping the plate from his volume. "You just take the antidote and poof; lies galore."
"Give it," he growled. "Now!"
"Information first," persisted Buffy.
Spike panted. He cursed. His anger blazed.
This fucking place. This fucking place never ceased to mess with him. One tortuous mindfuck after another. Soldier's messing about in his brain so any bit of violence came with an agonizing lightning bolt to his frontal lobe. Then the Slayer's mates screwing with his head and his heart and getting him twisted all the way around…
He cast a look at them—her Slayerettes, her Scoobies—snarling at the… the… disinterest. He was strapped to a goddamn chair, plenty mucked about with already, and they just sat there, reading and chewing and chatting like it was just another sunny day in Sunnyhell.
Bastards!
His eyes flicked to Buffy. Sitting on her stool watching him carefully. Calculatingly.
He stared back. And very slowly, very begrudgingly, came to a decision.
Maybe it was the lingering feeling of the engagement spell—a soft round sort of trust-y feeling—or maybe it was just that when push came to shove she did the right thing not because it was the right thing but because she was incapable of doing the wrong thing…
But if he had to do this, and it did seem like he had to, then it'd at least be on his terms in the most minutest sense.
"I'll talk to you," he ground out sternly to Buffy, his meaning clear even without him adding, "You only."
She held herself still, deliberately not reeling back in shock, and he powered through. "This isn't the bleeding Oprah Winfrey show, Slayer; you want the story then no audience."
Buffy sucked in a cheek, and her eyes slid to Giles' as he tore his gaze away from his book long enough to read her expression.
"You are joking," he huffed back, removing his glasses as though that would—somehow—bring clarity. "I'll not be turfed out of my own home so it can be used for cross-examining the world's most unhelpful witness."
"But if it gets the job done faster-" Buffy argued back, and Spike was somewhat surprised that she was agreeing until he read the blush that was continuing to stain her cheeks.
She's worried what other nasty little things she whispered might slip loose…
Or so he thought until her eyes flicked back to him briefly and in their green depths he seemed to read… Pity? Concern? A shade of guilt, maybe?
Guess lacing the baked goods aint sitting so pretty with her white-hatted morals.
Giles seemed to read it too, shooting a venomous glare at Spike before rolling his eyes and shutting his book.
"As you wish," he muttered, making it clear with his tone that he very much did not appreciate her wishing it. "I'll be at the Espresso Pump should you need me."
"Me too," murmured Willow, setting her treacherous plate of cookies down on the kitchen divider.
"Yeah, us three and four," Xander chimed in, taking Anya's hand and then—after a moment's hesitation—three more cookies from the plate on the coffee table.
The door shut quietly after them, leaving Buffy and Spike alone in a consuming silence.
She crossed her arms and leaned back against the kitchen divider.
"Start talking then," she instructed, but he only tightened his jaw in response.
"Y'know," he tsked, "this rather seems a tad…" he cast his eyes upward, sucking in a cheek as though in thought, "unbalanced," he finished.
"The hell is that supposed to mean?" she asked.
"It means I think I'd really prefer to play this game on an equal footing, Slayer," Spike growled, his arms straining against the ropes lashing him to the chair. "Quid Pro Quo, and such."
Buffy—probably by rote—scoffed at him. "I am not playing Silence of the Lambs with you."
"Oh?" he sneered. "I think you are. That tiddly lil truth charm might work a treat on the content, luv, but nowhere in the books does it say I have to open up. I could bloody well sit here until my teeth rot, see if I care."
"It's you, Spike. We both know you're completely incapable of even a teeny tiny grain of silence."
"Try me," he snarled. "Can be quiet as a grave. At least those until the mystery men finish doing what they're doing. I can wait, you can't."
She didn't answer him, and when the dueling bout of glares threatened to get boring he played the card he was pretty sure would win the hand if he'd read that flash of guilt in her eyes right.
"S'only fair, Slayer. You wanna mojo me up, fine. You want the low-down on the new boys in green, all yours. But I want something back."
"You always do," she countered.
"Yeah, well, it's not about your cash this time. Tit-for-tat, or nothing."
She sucked in the flesh of her lower lip in thought, making it pout in a way that drew his gaze there, causing a flush of memory at what that lip between his teeth had felt like. Tasted like.
Fucking distracting—
"Unless you're scared?" he goaded, dragging his thoughts back on track. "I'm sure there's plenty of secrets you're keeping buried. Right interesting ones, I bet."
Buffy snorted like she was bored of the whole thing, but she'd clearly made her decision before he'd spoken. "Fine. Have it your way," she huffed. "If I don't like the questions you ask I reserve the right to punch you in the face."
He smirked, holding down a grin as he nodded to the plate Willow had brought out. "Have a cookie, luv," he dared.
She glared but reached out a hand for a cookie off the cooling rack behind her.
"Ah ah ah—" He stopped her, facing down her glare with his own. "Play the game."
Her cheek twitched in annoyance, fingers curling lightly, but she took a truth-cookie from the Willow-plate anyway. She broke off a piece and popped it into her mouth, and he watched her as she chewed, then swallowed.
"Happy?" she asked, raising her brow at him.
"Ecstatic," he sneered, but settled back into the chair, preparing for a game of words that he fully expected to get wildly out of hand.
AN: I have an enormous weakness for truth spells (I'm still obsessed with Jim Carey's Liar, Liar) and if anyone comes at me with a fic request containing my favorite ship and an inability to lie hoo-boy am I consumed. Such mega thanks to CD85 for the push, and to RavenLove12 for the beta (my dream team, my enablers).