"Start then," Buffy instructed, finishing her cookie and brushing the crumbs off her lap. "How did they catch you?"
Spike's nostrils flared. Bollocks.
The truth to that question was… embarrassing. A bit of a chip off his Big Bad Reputation.
"I was in the woods," he said, shifting uncomfortably, making a show of pulling against the ropes so he wouldn't have to look at her.
"Doing what?"
"...Watching you" he answered, wishing he could bite off his tongue and swallow it.
"Do you mean hunting me?" she retorted, the green in her eyes flaring venomously.
"No." He blinked, just as surprised as she was at that particular truth. A squirmy feeling of something a bit too close to shame wriggled in his gut, but he brushed it off. "Just… watching. You'd just dusted a vamp. You were-" he snorted, "you were talking to yourself a bit."
Buffy's mouth tightened into a pinched angry line, obviously irritated that she'd had a spectator.
"And what were you doing?" she asked, implying he could've been doing all manner of unsavory activities and she wouldn't be surprised at any of them.
"Was talking to myself too," he replied, wincing at the lack of evil-deed-itude he was admitting to. "Monologuing a bit, I guess. Then took a taser to the back. Didn't even hear them coming. Net over my head and dragged off."
She smirked, and Spike grit his teeth. He fucking loathed the maniacal glint in her eyes, laughing at how easily he'd been hauled off like some simpering fledgling cluelessly stumbling about in the dark.
"I bet that stung," she said.
"More than somewhat," he replied, the words dripping with animosity but she didn't bat an eye.
"Did you see where they dragged you?"
Spike shook his head. "Caves somewhere up in the woods. They weren't exactly escorting me, I didn't get a good look. Had my face in the dirt for the most part."
"Alright," she mumbled. "And the lab?"
"That's already six questions, luv," he growled. "Do we need a lesson on tit-for-tat? Because this ain't it."
Buffy let out an exasperated huff but waved a hand in a gesture of 'go ahead'.
Spike studied her for a bit, trying to decide on an avenue to take.
He could ask something grotesque. Make her squirm, the way he was. Get under her skin the way those soldier's scalpels and the witch's spells had got under his. Maybe dig a little bit deeper too; prod and probe her into a bit of self-discovery that would be impossible to bury later.
Save it. Don't wanna start out with a broken nose right from the get-go.
One question is distracting him… One he doesn't know the answer to, and even less why it's pressing on him. Why he even cares…
The ice in her eyes was a deadly warning, but that had only ever served to egg him on and she knew it.
He wasn't about to disappoint the girl.
"You couldn't keep your hands off me earlier," he said, nodding towards the armchair they'd spent the previous day sprawled in, entwined in each other's arms. His eyes glinted with malicious delight as Buffy's cheeks darkened on cue, her lips pinching all the tighter.
"Willow's spell—," she began to protest, only to be cut off.
"I don't care about the spell, Slayer," he sneered, before running a tongue across his lip. There were still faint traces of her there; all those kisses shared leaving their mark on his skin. They'd wormed their way into his brain, glittering alongside whatever the soldiers had shoved in and sending off little electric currents anytime his gaze stopped on her lips. "You ever thought of me that way?" he asked.
Buffy bared her teeth, trying very, very hard to say 'no'. Shout it even. A strangled noise escaped the back of her throat where he suspected the protestations were dying an agonizing death. When it was clear to them both that a vehement denial wasn't going to make it past her lips she clamped shut, breathing hard through her nose.
"Oooh," he jeered, his mouth spreading in a sadistic grin. "That's a yes, isn't it?"
She sucked her cheeks in exasperation but didn't break away from his leerful gaze.
"…Once or twice," she managed, and he could hear how it pained her to admit it; to take the lesser evil of being specific rather than have him think she'd been pining for him.
Why the idea of her doing so made his gut tighten he had no idea. He chuckled (because he was expected to) but silently—stealthily—a fluttering thrill trembled in his chest.
"Vampires get you hot, huh?" He smirked when her face took on a murderous countenance.
"No," she growled and looked genuinely relieved that it was the truth.
"Tell me, then."
Buffy worked her throat like she was desperately trying to choke down the words until she sighed and gave in.
"Our… truce," she said. She tucked a foot up underneath her leg and leaned back a little; an ineffective show of nonchalance. "After all you did to get Drusilla back when she… ran off with Angelus and everything else. How much you wanted her back." She dipped her eyes as she trudged deeper into her explanation and Spike didn't need his patented clairvoyance to other people's pain to see the misery on her face. "I still thought you were revolting," she bit out, finally looking up at him, angry at the humiliation he was inflicting on her. "But… I dunno… sort of wanted someone to fight like that for me."
Spike winced. Drusilla's name was a sudden stinging barb in his heart, fracturing the smug satisfaction he was going to use to torment the Slayer a bit; his heart breaking along that already well established crack.
"Bloody lot of good it did me," he muttered, shifting in his chair. His back was starting to ache from the strain of the ropes. "Can't count the times she's ground my heart out under her heel. Cast me aside for someone… someone…"
Someone more demon than I can be, he thought to himself, his breath suddenly razor-sharp as he tried to swallow. Pathetic… can't be a man. Can't be her monster. What good am I?
He flinched inwardly. That was a depth of honesty he didn't usually let himself descend to without a hefty amount of alcohol in his system to dull the pain, comfortably riding the frothy waves of denial instead; that he was bad, and he was hers, and eventually she'd see it even if she had cast him off over some rot about a Slayer-obsession. Bloody lunacy, but that was her expertise after all.
He shook it off, suppressing the cloying misery with force. This wasn't the time, the company for it, or the level of sobriety for it.
When he finally dared to look up, Buffy—to his surprise—offered him a microscopic smile; just a hitch of the corner of her mouth that looked sad.
"You stick around, even when you really shouldn't," she observed. The sentiment that she'd been abandoned or betrayed by every guy she'd thought to hang a hope on was left unspoken but was no less present, and the unusual vulnerability froze him in place.
He kept himself still, just watching her until her shoulders softened and the strain went out of her face, digesting her words diligently but not probing into the addicting glow they'd left in his head.
"So. The lab," Buffy persisted, once the silence had stretched long enough, and he nodded, letting her drag them back on course, clearing his throat.
"White corridors, big cells."
"Big enough for what?"
"Whatever you like. Vamps. Werewolves. Demons. Get the feeling they're not picky."
She hummed in consideration. "And you escaped how?"
"Played dead," he replied. "Deader," he added at her unamused look. "Don't reckon on it working twice though."
"Can you remember any of the soldiers?"
Spike nodded and obliged. She listened intently as he described one of the soldiers that seemed slightly more senior, and two of his underlings that were regularly in tow behind him. They'd talked a lot, and seemed to consistently forget that their prisoners could understand them (an even stupider feat when a majority of their captives were human-shaped).
He'd caught a name too; something Finn. When he said it, Buffy's face paled and he couldn't stop his brow furrowing.
"What?" he asked but she just shook her head, new agitation dappling her delicate features but this time not directed at him.
"Too good to be true," she muttered, then seemed to compose herself with effort. "So, what's the point? Did you see any plans? Tactics? Why are they doing this?"
"It's my turn," he replied and Buffy let out an aggravated sigh, closing her eyes.
"What's got your back up, Slayer?" he asked. "You're looking all… trodden on." He managed to make his voice not sound smug about that. The strange flare of a feeling uncomfortably close to jealousy helped.
What the hell's that about?
Buffy scowled at him but didn't give him the silent treatment.
"I know him," she answered. "Or I thought I did anyway."
"Yeah?" Spike sneered, letting that sour taste at the back of his throat put venom into his words. "Tall and broad and with a burgeoning sense of moral highhandedness? You must've fallen head over heels."
"Shut up."
"Make me," he bit back, and then something mean flared before he could douse it, his patience at the situation reaching a new brick wall of aggravation. "You want me to button my lip, why don't you gag me, huh? You've already got me roped to a chair, completely fucking pointlessly I might add since your newest heartache's gone and stopped just shy of a goddamn lobotomy! Not to mention it's full bloody daylight outside! Where am I gonna go?!"
She tried to incinerate him with a burning glare, but then her eyes twitched like something had occurred to her; lightning striking her brain and forcing her into a decision.
She pushed off her stool and stomped to the kitchen, turning her back on him briefly as she hauled open a drawer and rattled around in it for a second or two.
When she came back she was holding a knife.
"Whoa, hey, wait a minute—" he started, ineffectually attempting to lean back, but she dropped to one knee and deftly sliced through the ropes at his feet, then with a look of icy warning moved behind him and severed the ropes around his chest and arms.
He waited until she was back in front of him before shaking the ones around his middle off, and with his gaze still on the knife he stretched his arms until his back clicked.
"Don't make me regret it," she said, and he rolled his eyes. After shrugging off the rest of the ropes, he raised himself out of the chair and stalked off past her.
"Uh, hello?" she called after him. "Where are you going?"
"For a smoke."
"Not in Giles' bathroom!"
"Here's another fun truth for you, Slayer," he answered from down the hall, "your watcher pinches my cigarettes and smokes them out the window when he says he's having a shower."
He found the packet on top of the medicine cabinet, tapping one out, and with a cupped hand lit it with his Zippo. He held the smoke in his lungs for a while before breathing out and taking another drag, nearly inhaling half of it as he leaned against the bathtub's shower pole.
He pressed a thumb into an eye, almost wishing he could push further back all the way into his brain to fish out that little plastic shard that he could practically feel digging into the gray matter. Hook his finger around it and drag it out along with the slippery tendrils of Willow's spell that were making him feel pulled in all directions.
Spells. Plural.
The engagement spell was still doing something to him, he was sure. Every time Buffy moved he felt overly attuned to her, like his skin was calling out to hers, like he was waiting for her to press up against him again and sink her mouth down on his.
Knock it off! You don't want that! Like HELL do you want that!
He shook his head hard and let out another plume of smoke.
Fucking magic. It always got right under your skin and you couldn't get free of it for ages. The burning love that had throbbed through him as he'd got down on his knees with his ring held out to her had dimmed to a miserable ache. A worrisome yearning that was clogging his throat.
It's gonna take a while to shrug this one off, is all… Been messed about with too much.
The stomping sound of Slayer-footfall preceded Buffy's appearance in the bathroom doorway. Buffy grimaced and opened the bathroom window, fanning the cigarette smoke out of it before leaning against the sink.
"So," she said, taking up her turn again as she crossed her arms. "You definitely can't bite people?"
Spike suppressed a growl and squashed down the irritation that question caused him. He leaned across and tapped out his ash into the sink. She pointedly shifted out of the way and a fresh sting of resentment pierced his chest that she wouldn't even risk the graze of his hand.
Why do you care?! He berated himself internally as he pulled his hand back and took another drag.
"Can't bite people," he confirmed, and despite the multitude of times he'd said those words she seemed to relax all the more for them being uttered under a truth spell.
Maybe she thought the whole thing was a long game. Get her to invite him in so he could wreak havoc and murder her mates…
"Or…" Buffy continued, narrowing her eyes, "hurt people… in general?"
He glowered. "Fully declawed," he ground out.
Buffy snorted but it was a joyless sound. "Poor Spikey," she said, "how ever will you get your rocks off, now?"
"Oh, alright," he snarled back. "Since we're getting all personal, and it's my turn, why don't you tell me, luv; those wanker's you let between your legs—your precious Angel and oh so sensitive Parker—they ever manage to get you off?"
Buffy's fist connected brutally with his nose and his head whipped back. He groaned, and when his vision undappled tested the bones with careful fingers still holding the cigarette. Nothing broken, but he could taste salt on the back of his tongue.
"No, then," he chuckled, responding for her as he finished his cigarette and dropped the butt out the window. He let the smoke burn the same way something else was burning; a strange and wholly unwelcome sense of satisfaction. He'd worked her up into a fever during the spell, he was certain of that. If they'd managed to get a bit further he just bet he could've been the one to get her there.
And that would be bad, his inner thoughts reminded him as he struggled to push that image out of his head, memories of her all too pliant under his hands feeding the unwanted fire.
"Was that question worth it?" Buffy growled, her hand still in a fist as he raised his eyes to meet her angry gaze.
He sniffed, the back of his throat stinging from the inhale of blood.
Spike snickered. "The answer was," he said as he took a seat on the lip of the bathtub. "Let's hear it, Slayer, did you bruise sweet little Parker?" He wiped a finger pointedly under his nose, collecting a spot of blood that had trickled out of a nostril. "Or do you just save that for the men who can take it?"
She let out an exasperated laugh. "You're a degenerate."
"Think you are too," he retorted. "You certainly know how to tie a knot."
"Ugh, I knew you liked it," she sneered, her face coloring with a delicious rosy hue.
"I like whatever you do to me," Spike replied.
And froze, evaluating those words.
They'd come out of nowhere. He certainly hadn't thought them before they were in his mouth, and they were more than a shock as the silence that followed swallowed them whole.
A shock for Buffy too, it seemed, as that delicate flush across her cheeks paled.