Fic: The Indefinite Article 1/2, S/B, NC-17
The Indefinite Article
By Barb C.
Disclaimers: The usual. All belongs to Joss and Mutant Enemy, and naught to me.
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: I'm just sayin', this isn't one of my fluffier stories. Highlight for specifics: Violence directed at pregnant women and small children, suicidal behavior, sexual situations that go Very Wrong.
Synopsis: Spike gets a soul. What could possibly go wrong?
Author’s notes: This story takes place in the same universe as "Raising In the Sun," "Necessary Evils," and "A Parliament of Monsters." It takes place in March 2020 in the Barbverse timeline, and contains spoilers for previous stories in the series. Many thanks to betas deborahc, typographer, wildrider, brutti_ma_buoni, kehf, & slaymesoftly. Additional thanks to shadowkat67 for invaluable plotting advice.
"It's not easy, what you're asking for." The woman behind the desk folded her hands beneath her ample decolletage. Her dark, half-lidded gaze was deceptively lazy. "Some might say impossible."
Spike slouched deeper into the sway-backed armchair reserved for clients, avoiding a too-close look at the shelves on the wall behind her. Rows and rows of squat, murky bottles lined the cramped office, glass and crystal and stone, some dark, some glowing eerily from within, all of them reeking of magic. He realized his fingers were tapping restlessly on one knee, and stilled them. "See here, Melly, you gave me some of my first business when I started Bloody Vengeance. You've been a good customer all these years. Figured I'd return the favor and give you first dibs on the job." One good turn deserved another; one of the simplest rules of mock-souled behavior he'd learned, back in the day. Didn't make any sense, on the face of it, but experience had borne out that it upped the overall number of good turns that came his way. Sneaky bastards, those white hats. "'Course, if your mojo's not up to snuff, there's half a dozen other mystical boffins who'd be glad enough of the dosh."
"Where the hell do you think you're going?"
"To fix this. To fix me. Once and for all."
Melly's plump cheeks dimpled in a grin, and the copper bells braided into her hair chimed softly with the shake of her head. "Spike, sugar, if you really thought anyone else could do it, you'd be talking to anyone else. The mysteries of the Kun Sun Dai don't come cheap." She leaned forward and laced her be-ringed fingers together on the blotter, all business. "First things first, and the first thing is, your soul's spoken for. If it still exists at all. The powers that Rosenberg woman bargained with for the Slayer's life - "
' - Don't make bargains you can back out of, yeah, I know." Spike caught his knee jittering and planted both boot-heels firmly on the floor. Trouble with avoiding the walls was, he had to stare at the carpet. Its faded patterns pulled mocking faces at him out of the corner of his eye. "Didn't ask you for my soul. I asked for a soul, kindly note the indefinite article."
You are not leaving! Not again. Not me. Not them."
"You want me to stay, after - ? You saw! You saw what I - "
"Didn't!"
"Could have done!"
The shaman made a small, inquisitive noise, like the chortle of a curious dove. "You intrigue me, sugar baby, you really do. I expect you've considered the risks - "
Spike interrupted with a throat-cutting gesture. "Bugger the risks."
"Mmm. If you say so, sugar. No skin off my nose." Her gaze sharpened to an obsidian keenness. "But there's still the little matter of payment."
Melly always had been a haggler. He still suspected she'd got the better of him on that shipment of mandrakes' tongues last month. Spike shrugged, donning cool like armor. "Seems to me your order owes us one. Wyndam-Pryce bloody near wiped your order out of existence before the Slayer and me took him down."
"Takes a lot more than one snooty-ass vampire and his pet lawyers to take down the Kun Sun Dai, sugar," Melly said with an affronted huff. "But point taken. You get a discount." She laid a finger to her pursed lips and considered. A brilliant smile blossomed. "Seems to me a man who's been around as long as you have might have a memory or two I could use."
Memories. Not a small thing to ask of a chap whose existence spanned three separate and distinct metaphysical phases, and was looking to embark on a fourth. Memories were all that made him who he was. Granted he had a hundred and sixty-odd years of them. Good memories, most of them, but wouldn't that change soon? "Can't think I've got that much of interest in there." Spike ground out.
Daddy!
"You'd be surprised," Melly murmured. "Mind spells don't work so good on vampires, them being dead and all." She leaned across the desk and extended one hand, silver rings glinting against her dark skin. She spread her fingertips against his temple. "Puts vampire memories at a premium. But you... you're different."
Her fingers fluttered like moths beneath his skin. Not like Glory's fingers, palping his brain like Jell-O. Spike gripped the arms of the chair and throttled his nervous growl down to a subterranean rumble. He'd never liked the sensation of people poking through his head, whether they were hellgods or well-meant sorcerous allies. Sodding Mohra blood. He wouldn't be in this mess if he hadn't - but he couldn't imagine where he would be now, if he hadn't.
Daddy, no!
"Truth is, sugar, I'm a bit curious." Whatever she was looking for, Melly was taking her time about it. "Most people come to me looking to get rid of souls. Mine never bothers me much - " she nodded across the room at one of the brighter jars - "But I always figure there's a reason they're so unpopular. You've been playing for the white hats for twenty years. Why a soul, and why now?"
The real question was, why not twenty years ago? His hands would be shaking if he weren't holding the armrests so tightly. "That's my business."
Daddy, no! Let go!
Oh, God, yes, take it away. But losing that moment would make nothing of the reasons he'd come here in the first place. Melly's chuckle was deep and rich and nasty. "Oh, sugar, a memory's not worth much if you want to get rid of it, is it? Let's see what else you got. Oh, looky here... now, ain't that sweet." Her fingers closed, pincer-hard. "First-ever night of Slayer nookie!"
Spike went rigid in the chair, the armrests splintering under the pressure of his grip. Twenty years of useless struggle, tying himself in knots - I can be good too! he'd told her, all those years ago, but he couldn't, not when it mattered. Wyndam-Pryce had told him nothing but the truth last summer, the sanctimonious bastard, and Spike would never forgive him for that. "Please. Not that one."
"Mmm. I dunno. This one's spicy."
Spike squeezed his eyes closed. "Best night of my life."
"Well then," Melly said. "Think about it, sugar. What's more important: your past with the Slayer, or your future?"
Daddy, no! Let go! You're hurting me!
Eyes open. "Take it, you skinflint bitch."
Melly laughed. "Bet you say that to all the girls." She pulled her hand free, and part of his past came with it - one night, only one night, one glorious, unlife-changing, revolutionary -
Spike blinked and looked at the shaman uncertainly, brow wrinkling in confusion. "Aren't you going to take it?"
She patted his shoulder. "Sugar, you'll never even know it's gone." She rose to her feet and selected a jar from the shelves behind her, popped the lid off and dropped something inside - something black and glittering, shot through with crimson and gold. She tucked the jar away on the shelf and beckoned. "Now let's get to work."
Spike followed her, frowning, prodding the gap in his memory as he might have the gap left by a missing tooth - how could you remember what you'd forgotten when you couldn't remember forgetting it? Bugger it, he had more important things to worry about now. "You'll get me a proper one, yeah?" he said. "I want the soul of a good man, not some bounder. And I want it to stick good and tight, none of this shoddy gypsy curse stuff."
Melly laughed. "Spike, honey, when I get done with you? You're gonna be a whole new man."
*****
When Spike got home she was going to kill him.
Buffy was extremely clear on this. There were diagrams. Or would be, if she'd had a pencil that wasn't snapped in two within ten seconds of her getting her hands on it. Which, in the long run, probably a good, lest said pencils end up rammed right through Spike's inconsiderately-beating heart.
And he was coming home. Any minute now she'd hear his key fumbling in the front door, and he'd roll in, black leather and worn denim and ruffled, greying curls, battered and exhausted because he was getting too damn old to deal with his troubles by getting drunk and beating up half the patrons of the Alibi Room. And she'd yell at him and swab Mercurochrome on his battered knuckles, serve him right if it stung, and in the middle of arguing she'd kiss him and he'd taste like beer and pig's blood soup from the take-out pho place down the street, and maybe the kissing would go places and maybe it wouldn't, but that was OK, either way they'd fall asleep together, and tomorrow... tomorrow they'd deal with it. Because that was what they did, damn it.
And then she'd kill him. As soon as Spike came home. And he was coming home. He'd promised.
"Where the hell do you think you're going?"
"To fix this. To fix me. Once and for all."
"You don't fix things by running away!"
"I'm not - I'm coming back. A day. Two days, tops. I swear. I swear on - " Laughter like the taste of bile, sick and bitter in the back of the throat. "Well, I haven't anything worth swearing on, have I?"
Buffy grimaced down at the cold oily dregs in her coffee cup, unfolded herself from the couch with a groan, and staggered out to the kitchen to dump the last of the coffee down the sink and start a fresh pot. Spike wasn't the only one getting too old for this crap. She leaned against the counter, squinting at the window as the coffeemaker burbled to itself, massaging the swell of her belly. Outside a pale dawn was breaking, painting the eastern sky in eggshell hues of pink and gold. Her eyes were gritty with lack of sleep and her mouth tasted like the bottom of a litter box, and the baby was doing the macarena on her kidneys and she should be out there looking for him and damn Spike for playing the mommy card on her.
"Mommy?"
Alex was standing in the kitchen doorway, Mr. Bun dragging behind him, big worried hazel eyes fixed on the lightening sky outside. "Is Daddy home yet?"
"Not yet, honey. Wanna come give Mommy a hug till he does?"
He flung himself at her knees without a word, and Buffy caught him up and hugged him tight. Alex buried his face in her neck and snuffled. "I'm sorry, Mommy. I'm sorry I cried. Can Daddy come home now?"
"Oh, Alex..." She set him down on the counter-edge. "You didn't do anything wrong. You know how Daddy gets scary when he's mad?"
Alex nodded solemnly. "But I'm not scareded any more."
"Well, he got so mad this time he scared himself."
"You saw! You saw what I - "
"Didn't!"
"Could have done! If you hadn't - "
"But I did! You're a vampire and I'm a Slayer and our kids are half-demon or half of them are all demon or I don't even know, but this is us! This is what we have! Running away doesn't change that! Fine, Spike, you screwed up! It's not the first time - "
"It'll bloody well be the last!"
She should have seen it coming. Spike had been on edge since Wesley's penitential visit. He'd never talked much about what had happened while he was undercover at Wolfram & Hart, but anything that gave a vampire nightmares wasn't happy funtimes. And however excited they were about the baby, they were both nervous, too, because the baby thing hadn't worked out so well last time, had it? So, stress. Good stress, but still, stress. She nuzzled Alex's tousled curls. God knew neither of them had a perfect parental track record. Maybe if it had been Bill or Connie, it all would have happened differently - Spike was used to clashes with his older children; knew their limits, and his own. But Alex... sweet-tempered, tractable Alex, who never talked back or threw tantrums...
...even Alex could be a brat sometimes.
Footsteps on the stairs: Bill and Connie, faces long as the morning shadows. Buffy set Alex down and pulled the curtains closed - second nature when half your family was combustible. At least going through the motions of breakfast-getting gave her something to do that wasn't worry. Shredded wheat and milk for Alex and Connie, pig's blood and Weetabix for Bill, and her stomach revolted at the mere thought of more coffee, so yogurt and raw liver (baby vampire cravings: yuck squared) for her. The kids congregated around the kitchen island, mourners around a domestic monument, eyes downcast and unwontedly silent.
"We could go find him," Connie blurted out, dropping her spoon into her bowl with a splash. "Bill can track him, and I - "
The part of her that cherished the everyday rituals of breakfast and shoe shopping was wailing, You're only eleven! but the rest of her was thinking that was a pretty damn good idea. "Bill can't go running around in the middle of - "
"Neither can Dad," Bill broke in, shoving his glasses up on his nose. "So all we have to - "
"Quiet!" It was her Slayer voice, and the children froze. Buffy turned, head raised, senses tingling. Vampire.
Not just vampire. Spike.
She didn't remember covering the distance from the kitchen to the front door, or pulling the door half off its hinges. But she would remember to her dying day the sight that greeted her when the door opened. Spike was standing on the front porch, half collapsed against one of the big brick pillars. He was haggard and unshaven, bruised eyes haunted above knife-edged cheekbones. His t-shirt was half charred away, his hair was scorched to stubble, and smoke billowed upwards from the blackened, oozing burns covering his face and arms and shoulders.
As he saw her, Spike swayed forwards, dropping to his knees. Flakes of burnt cotton and burnt vampire fluttered to the cool cement of the porch, and a beatific smile stretched across his grotesquely scorched face. "Buffy, he whispered, like a prayer. He held out both hands. "I've come home like I promised, Slayer. Now please... please kill me."
******
She didn't kill him.
He'd had that thought to sustain him, all the way home: Buffy would kill him. Dispatch him to whatever well-deserved hell awaited him, and still, if only for a moment, the voices in his head. She was the Slayer, and that was what the Slayer did.
But he'd forgotten, over the years, just how merciless the Slayer could be. Instead of running him through, she grabbed him by the remaining tatters of his t-shirt, hauled him one-handed to his feet, and whispered low and furious in his charcoaled ear, "If you think for one moment I'd make our children watch me kill you, you'll only wish you were dead!" and dragged him inside. Where she proceeded to visit food and rest and bandages upon him as if they were punishments. Maybe they were. Prolonging the torment, so to speak.
The bedroom door cracked open. Bill edged half-way into the room and stood ill-at-ease in the doorway. "Dad?"
Spike's breath caught hard in his throat. "Present. Come on in, then."
His son shuffled in, nervous flecks of gold showing behind his glasses. He'd always thought Bill had gotten Buffy's eyes. Not changeable like his mum's, but the clear lucent grey that hers became in certain bleak or thoughtful lights. But here was proof that in this, too, he'd left his own stamp. Bill raked a hand through his mop of sandy curls. Hands Spike had watched grow from a chubby curl of fingers to their current gangly teenaged spread - how had he never noticed before this that his eldest bit his nails, too?
"Mom's bringing you some blood."
"Ah." He wasn't hungry, but he supposed he ought to be.
"So I guess... " Bill fell to twisting the hem of his football jersey into knots. "Are... are you OK?"
"No."
"Are you still... are you still you?"
Spike couldn't help it; he laughed. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm still me, God help me."
The boy flinched at the sound, his thin shoulders hunching. "I don't understand," he said, in a voice near to breaking. "I don't understand why you did it. And I always used to understand you. When you walked out on us after - after Mom lost the baby I was so mad at you, but I understood why. I think I was so mad because I understood. And now... you always told me that I could be - that it didn't matter if - as long as I kept trying - "
He studied the boy's earnest, troubled face. "You understand why your Mum did what she did? Why she thought saving that tosser Wells was worth the risk?" I do. Now.
Bill shook his head miserably. "Not really. Connie's tried explaining it a million times, and I just..." he made a helpless gesture. "But it's Mom, and I know that's what she does, even if it doesn't make any sense." He took a deep breath, straightening and looking Spike in the eye for the first time. "Do you think I need a soul?"
Oh, Christ. And how could he answer that, with a boy he loved better than life itself looking full at him with those hopeful, inhuman eyes? Face alight with love and worry, and no more shred of conscience than had shone from his own only a day and a night past? He'd believed, naively, that being raised to goodness made a difference - for Bill, for the new one nestling now in her mother's womb. Not that he'd truly understood what goodness was then, but he'd been content to stand on the far side of Jordan, watching with pleased incomprehension when Bill seemed to grasp intuitively the niceties of souled behavior that still took him laborious thought.
All a sham. He could see that now, with a cold moral clarity that made him want to weep. Bill's self-imposed safety net of dos and don'ts was far more elaborate and instinctive than his own, but it was no more a conscience than he was the King of Prussia.
And there was Buffy, lips tight, eyes narrowed, her ferocious glare daring him to scorn the mug of microwaved pig's blood she'd just thrust into his face. Saved him from answering Bill, at least. He drank it, meekly.
"Let your father rest for awhile," Buffy said, shooing Bill into the hallway with brisk motions of her hands. Her voice was steady, but he could hear her heart racing, smell her fear and anxiety. "So. Williamus, I presume?"
He dropped back against the pillows with a groan. "You know it doesn't work like that."
"Do I?" Buffy removed the mug to the night stand and perched on the edge of the bed. "What I know is the last time a guy I loved underwent a change-of-soul-status, he might as well have been a whole different person. So pardon me if I'm a little nervous, here. There's considerations. Is our marriage license still legal?"
"Buffy - "
"You didn't ask!" she broke in furiously. "You ran off and did this big enormous thing that could change our whole lives, and you didn't talk to me or find out what I thought! Dammit, Spike, that was a - an Angel thing to do!"
Spike winced. Shouldn't he have exceeded his guilt quota by now? Apparently not. "Duly noted." She was gazing at him with all the intensity of the sun outside, all the love in the world shining in those fearsome eyes. Was no one to despise him properly except himself? "How can you love me?"
"What?"
"Knowing what I am. What I've done. That night before we went to face Glory. I told you I knew I was a monster, and you could never love me. And I did know, up here." He tapped a finger against his temple. "But I can feel it here now." He dropped his hand to his heart. "How many people have I killed, Slayer?"
Her frown deepened. "You figured it at twelve or fifteen thousand, once."
"Sounds about right." He held up one hand, flexed his fingers; the charred flesh was flaking away to make way for fresh muscle and new pink skin. He studied the healing burns as if they belonged to someone else. "Fifteen thousand. Doesn't seem a real number, does it? I can't remember them all. Angel, he does. Him and that memory of his. Every face, every last scream and plea for mercy. Me, it all runs together. A hundred and twenty years of slaughter. You'd think that would make it easier. You'd think - you'd think the least I could do was remember their faces." All at once he was sobbing, wretched, miserable, unmanly tears that burned the still-raw flesh of his cheeks. "Kill me, Buffy, please, for God's sake, I want to die - "
And the Slayer was on her feet, delivering an open-handed smack! to his sun-flayed cheek that rocked him back against the headboard. "No, you don't," she snapped. "If you really wanted to die, you'd be dead, not whining at me to do it for you. Fine, you've got a soul, and you feel really bad. That doesn't change the fact that you've got three children out there who love you in spite of the fact you keep running off to play Vamp of La Mancha - "
That was really too much. He sat up with an answering snarl. "Sod it, Buffy, I did this for them!"
"And a fat lot of good a soul will do them if you walk out into the sunlight the minute you get one!" She turned away, on the verge of tears herself, arms wrapped tightly around her growing middle. Bloody hell. She lifted her head, salt-water diamonds spilling careless over the curve of her cheek. "You idiot. Asking how I can love you - how can I not?"
He'd never been able to stand up to her tears. Some things, he supposed, didn't change. "Can I see Alex, please? Connie too, but I've something to say to Alex."
She gave him a tight little nod and strode out. His cock stirred and stiffened to the sway of her baby-plush bum, then wilted in a confused welter of shame. He'd thought he'd be different. He'd been a fool - a soul fixed nothing. He was still the same old Spike, demon lusts and human desires so tangled he couldn't sort them. How the hell could he sit here, shedding crocodile tears for his sins, and still ache to bury himself in her warmth? Gaze on her ripening belly, knowing what soulless creature he'd planted there, and feel pride as well as horror? He'd eaten the apple, and now he had the bellyache to show for it.
"Daddy!"
Alex was upon him like a five-year-old landslide, hard little head butting his chest, sticky hands twining round his neck, chattering a mile a minute. "Daddy, you came home all burneded up! You shouldn't go out in the sun 'cause you'll burneded yourself again. Does it hurt? Where did you go? Did you bring me something?"
"I did, little man, and I shan't. And it hurts like silly buggers, and I went to see a wizard, and I brought you something special. Let's have a look at your arm first."
Alex obligingly stuck out his arm. The bare skin was unmarked - which meant nothing; Alex and Connie might walk in the sunlight, and so far displayed no hint of powers beyond mortal ken, but both of them had a Slayer's (or a vampire's) resilience when it came to injuries. "Does it hurt still, tadpole?"
Alex shook his head vigorously. "Nuh-uh."
"You know I'm sorry as hell I hurt you, yeah?"
Alex nodded just as vigorously. "I'm sorry I cried, Daddy."
"Don't be. I'm a bad, rude Daddy." He caught the boy's small soft hand, laid it upon his chest. "Got a soul for you, so I can promise it'll never happen again. How's that?"
Alex considered this, his expression doubtful. "Can I have a puppy instead?"
Spike managed a snort. "Your mum might have been better pleased. Now, where's your sister?"
****
"He WHAT?" Evie choked on her B-Pos margarita, looking from Buffy to Spike with comic dismay. "Shit. Shit! I always knew he was loco, but... shit!" She planted both elbows on the table and buried her face in her hands with a groan. Peering out at Buffy from between her fingers, she asked, "Can't you, like, fuck it out of him or something?" At Buffy's expression, "OK, fine, bad suggestion. But... shit. You know half the employees are gonna quit the minute they hear about it, right?"
Buffy bit her lip and concentrated on swirling her straw around her Tab-with-a-twist. Spike, moodily absorbed in the amber depths of his third neat Scotch, shrugged and said nothing. Great. Spike getting a soul was a good thing, Spike getting a soul was a good thing... "I didn't expect they'd throw him a congratulations on your new soul party, but..."
"It's hard enough finding vampires who'll sit still for Spike's crazy no-killing rules," Evie said, licking salt. "He staked David what, five years ago, and we still haven't found a decent accountant! No self-respecting vampire's gonna want to work for a guy with a soul. I got a chip in my head, but the others, they got options." She slurped at her lime wedge and turned disapproving eyes on Spike. "Any brilliant ideas up your sleeve, El Jefe?"
Spike downed his Scotch, and gestured for a refill. "No."
"Spike, haven't you..." Buffy left off with a sigh. Even with the post-Mohra metabolism, it took a hell of a lot of booze to get Spike drunk, and it wasn't exactly like he didn't have a reason to get smashed at the moment. In a way it was kind of reassuring that he was reacting in such a... such a Spikey fashion. She'd had a heck of a time coaxing him out tonight; for the last few weeks all he'd wanted to do was mope around the house and watch TV.
"Leave the bottle," Spike said as Susie, the Bracken bartender, set a fresh shot glass down. Buffy'd had some reservations when Susie bought Willy the Snitch out a few years back. Still, she had to admit that there was some justice in the idea of a demon bar actually being owned and operated by a demon. And Susie's concept of hygiene was certainly an improvement over Willy's in that she actually had one.
Buffy massaged her forehead, trying to stave off her incipient headache as Spike poured himself another drink. Maybe she could make this all David's fault. If Spike hadn't had to stake David, he wouldn't have been in a pissy mood from trying to balance the books by himself, and wouldn't have blown up at Alex, and... crap. The demon-hunting business had taken some major hits in the last two years with Spike's extended absences, and her gig at the skating rink wasn't enough to reliably support a family of five-and-counting and an increasingly cranky old house by itself. They really, really needed two steady incomes.
"OK, assuming we all want to keep Bloody Vengeance Inc. operating..." Buffy raised an inquiring eyebrow; you couldn't make too many assumptions about what a vampire wanted. But Evie only nodded. "Maybe we can just keep it quiet for awhile. He's not... he doesn't seem too different." Apart from the crying jags and the intermittent suicidal ideation, of course. "You didn't notice."
Evie rolled her eyes. "You think you can keep gossip that juicy quiet in this town? Anyways, some demons can smell it. We gotta have a plan."
An hour later, the plan amounted to 'keep it quiet for awhile,' and Buffy's headache was staging a guerilla raid down her spine and into her shoulder blades. She tried to nudge Spike into contributing, but his repertoire of indifferent grunts decreased in inverse proportion to the number of shots he'd put away. "Can you maybe scrape up a teeny bit of interest in the portions of your life that don't involve soap operas and alcohol?" she asked as they made ready to leave.
"No fear, I'll be the life of the party in no time." Spike glowered at the row of empty glasses on the table. "Maybe I should pick up a fifth on the way home. Susie's watering the hell out of this stuff."
"Great idea. Healthy coping skills R Us." A lump rose in her throat. "Can we also maybe avoid getting drunk in front of the kids?"
Spike heaved a deflated sigh and shrugged into his motorcycle jacket, avoiding her eyes. "Yeah. Sure. Doesn't help anyway."
She watched him as they walked along the darkened street, sidelong glances beneath her lashes. He walked with head down and hands thrust into his jacket pockets. One hand toyed with his lighter, though she hadn't seen him light a cigarette since he'd come back. He looked... like Spike. Tired, sad, every-one-of-his-hundred-and-sixty-plus-years Spike. Spike getting a soul was a good thing - how many times had she thought to herself how much easier everything would be if only he had one? Sure, there were some short term problems, but...
"I'm sorry," she whispered, knowing he'd hear. "I know this is hard for you. It's just... I used to love your smile. And I'm starting to wonder if I'll ever see it again."
"Ah, love, there's no good in wallowing. I know that. Should sally forth, fight the good fight, all that bollocks. 'S just..." He took a pained breath. "I'd try to imagine it, before. What it'd feel like. Like disappointing you times a million, was the best I could come up with. But it's not like that at all. And there's things..." He hesitated. "Things I didn't expect to feel."
Buffy frowned. "What kind of things?"
His eyes were distant. "Last year, when Wyndam-Pryce had me under his thumb... he told me that I'd been the ruin of you. Dragged you down into the dark with me."
"And you told him he was an idiot. Wesley was trying to mess with your head. Hello, evil mastermind?"
"Doesn't mean he's wrong." Spike sounded genuinely troubled. "You and Evie are right chummy these days, aren't you?"
Before she could answer, a voice like a cement mixer croaked, "Slayer!" From the mouth of the alley ahead loomed a cross between a gorilla and an ambulatory slab of concrete. It lumbered towards them, steam billowing from a red-hot maw lined with jagged crystalline fangs. "The half-breed abomination you carry must die!"it rumbled. "So it is written!"
"Not again!" Buffy groaned. Never mind that for the last fifteen years Dawn, Willow and Giles had collectively failed to find a single prophecy, prediction, or oracular pronouncement regarding her and Spike's offspring, they went through this every time she got pregnant. There was probably a cottage industry on the web somewhere, forging prophecies and selling them to goons like this one.
The demon raised both ham-sized fists and brought them smashing down at the place Buffy'd been two seconds earlier. Buffy came down from her leap with a side-kick to the creature's shoulder. She might as well have kicked a brick wall. The impact jarred her leg all the way up to the hip, and she hit the ground off-balance and went with it into a roll that took her out of range. The monster's craggy slab of a foot slammed down hard enough to crack the pavement beneath her. Rock, the thing was solid rock. Strong, but slow. If it connected it would mash her to jelly. (Dodge) Punching, kicking no use. If only she had a pickaxe. (Jump) Or a big vat of acid. Sadly, neither in evidence. (Roll) Here, anyway...
A roar of pure fury split the night, followed by a tremendous CLANG! and Rock Lobster toppled over backwards beneath the weight of the Dumpster Spike had just slung at him. "Gerroff her, you walking slag heap!" he bellowed, and leaped after, fangs bared and fists flying.
Buffy lunged after him. His hands were already streaming blood, and she heard the sickening crack of bone as he drove his fists into the creature's impervious hide again and again. The monster was rocking back and forth like a miniature earthquake, seconds from throwing the Dumpster off. She grabbed Spike's shoulder and spun him around - lips peeled back from ivory fangs in a savage snarl, his eyes a wild, blazing gold beneath the row of small stubby horns that had started to sprout along his ridged brow as he reached vampiric middle age. So far gone in rage and pain that for an instant she half-believed he'd turn on her, instead.
She caught his wrist before he could break another knuckle. "Harbor!"
For a second she thought he wouldn't get it. Then understanding broke in his eyes, and he whirled on the monster with a taunting, "Catch us if you can, Gumby!" and was off, matching her stride for stride.
They were a good mile from the wharf. She was five months pregnant and Spike was a little out of condition from mooching around doing nothing for weeks, but they ran as they'd never run before. Behind them the thunder of their pursuer's footsteps grew louder, shaking the ground beneath them as it picked up momentum. Down deserted, warehouse-lined streets they sped, through damp and fetid alleys. Close to the harbor now - Buffy pulled the stink of dead fish and rotting seaweed deep into her lungs, thrust it out again, run, run, run, run.
They burst out onto the echoing boardwalk that ran along the marina - there'd been a lot of attempts at gentrification in the last ten years, but none of them had stuck. The demon was right behind them, leaving a trail of cracked and splintered planks behind it. Buffy glanced back, smacked Spike's shoulder and pointed; with a nod he followed her lead and they tore down the waterfront, heading for the loading dock.
The long arm of the loading crane loomed overhead. Buffy exchanged a quick look with Spike; he nodded and took off in one of those phenomenal vampire leaps, fifteen feet straight up in the air, aiming for the big steel hook dangling from the crane's pulley. He missed his first jump, swore, and leaped again, as Buffy whirled to face their pursuer. The demon bellowed and grabbed for her, mile-long arms swinging with pile-driver force, and she leaped, somersaulting over its head. She landed, spun, just as Spike came rocketing down, arms and legs wrapped around the steel pulley-cables. Buffy seized the hook and rammed it into the creature's fissured hide as it wheeled into a ponderous turn. Spike's boots hit the dock beside her, and with one motion, they shoved.
Caught mid-turn, the demon staggered, swayed, and began to topple, arms windmilling ineffectively in an attempt to regain its balance. Buffy dashed for the crane controls, stabbed a button, pulled a lever, and prayed. The crane arm groaned, shuddered, and swung out over the slick black swells of the harbor. The cables jerked and went taut, and with a tortured scream of metal the rock-demon swung in a graceful arc, up, up, and out over the water. At the apex of it journey a cable snapped with a metallic SPUNG! and the pulley hook jarred loose of its mooring. Spike and Buffy hit the planking as the cable whipsawed back over their heads. The demon hung suspended for a heartbeat in mid-air, a black, wriggling bug pinned against the floodlit harbor sky, and then gravity took over. It hit the slick black swells with a crash. A column of boiling steam erupted into the night as cold water met molten demon innards, and fell back to earth in a shower of warm stinking seawater, soaking them both to the bone.
Buffy waited, chest heaving, as the furious upwelling of steam spent itself. Spike was breathing almost as fast a normal human, which for him was major windage. They watched until the frothing water stilled to nothing but fragments of dirty white lace awash on a black satin sea. A few bubbles wavered up from the depths, popped, and were gone.
Spike rolled over and sat up, slumped against the crane. He stared down at his half-pulped, bloodied hands, looking as if he wanted to be sick. His shoulders were shaking. Buffy got to her knees and reached out tentatively - he'd been stiff and unresponsive to her touch since coming back, shrugging off any attempt at physical comfort. But he didn't move away this time, and she laid her hand on his (too thin; he hadn't shown much interest in food lately, either) shoulder. "You OK?"
He took a deep shuddering breath. "Think I sprained something." He flexed his shoulders experimentally. "Think I sprained everything."
"That's what you get for slacking off on the workouts, soul boy."
And she kissed him.
She hadn't intended to. She'd given herself all kinds of lectures; Spike was going through a Major Trauma, it would happen when he was ready, she was Mature Understanding Buffy. But it wasn't just his smile that she missed. She felt him go tense, and braced for rejection. A shiver ran through him. He pulled away, but all he said was, "Home. Now."
Once upon a time Spike would have taken her right then and there, fucked her hard up against the column of the crane, and she'd have loved every what-if-someone-catches-us minute of it. Right now she wasn't sure if his reluctance was a soul thing, or just a we're-not-twenty-five-anymore thing, but as long as his hands were on her body and his mouth was hungrily devouring hers she didn't care. They staggered drunkenly up the stairs - house dark, kids asleep, coast clear.
"You're sure?" she gasped as they stumbled into the bedroom, struggling with wet clothes and recalcitrant shoelaces. Hard not to notice he wasn't exactly... up for it, yet. Which might also be a we're-not-twenty-five-anymore thing, don't take it personally, Buffy. "You're ready for this?"
"Yes, damn it, let's fuck," Spike snarled. His fingers skimmed the curve of her belly, and flinched away. He immediately winced in contrition. "Sorry. Sorry. I'm - "
"It's OK." She tried to keep the hurt out of her voice. Spike had always had a little bit of a thing for her pregnant body - as Dawn had put it once, he generally followed her around from the moment she started to show with his tongue hanging out and a boner the size of the Washington Monument. Maybe the soul had made him more squeamish about baby-making, or something. Time to take the wheel, obviously. She laid her head against his shoulder, reached down and took his cock in hand, working the foreskin up and down along the shaft in sensuous rhythm. "We can go slow," she said, tongue flicking out to tease his nipple. "Or fast. Or slow, then fast."
She raked her thumbnail lightly over the slit and he gasped, eyes squeezing shut. He shivering against her. "I'm a very bad man," he rasped, voice husky with what she hoped was desire. "Aren't I, Slayer?"
"You can be," she said cautiously.
"And I need to be punished."
In the past he'd said that with a laugh or a leer. He sounded deadly serious now. "If that's what you want." She made a quick recon of the bedroom: two scarves, a bathrobe tie, and Spike's belt. Just the ticket. She plucked the nearest scarf from the vanity, ran it between her legs and trailed it under his nose. He backed up one startled step, nostrils flaring, and she planted her hand in the middle of his chest and gave him a little shove. He fell back on the bed with a thump, and Buffy pounced.
Rough stuff wasn't anything new between them. It was a vampire thing. (Or maybe an English public schoolboy thing, but she was voting for vampire.) Spike got off on pain. It wasn't the only thing he got off on, not by a long shot, but sometimes... On her end, it had taken her years to fall in love with Spike, but she'd itched to get her hands on him from the first night they met. And if the only conceivable way to do that back then was to smash that cocky, infuriating smirk right off his face, well...Do we really need weapons for this?
But that was then and this was now, and Spike was way more fun to manhandle now that he was her man to handle. And it was that very same cocky, infuriating grin which somehow made it okay that the Slayer had her very own personal vampire on a string, or tied up in it, anyway.
Spike wasn't grinning now. He watched her with a desperate, hungry intensity, eyes following the deft movements of her fingers as she tightened the knots. She knelt between his legs, her hands resting lightly on his thighs, caressing the taut muscle. She slid them up to stroke the jut of his hipbones. His cock arced upwards, only half-hard, but that was an improvement, wasn't it? He had a beautiful body, lean and strong and economically muscled - a little thinner, a little softer now than she knew he liked to keep himself, but he still took her breath away. She bent down, dropping a kiss on the velvet head. "Roll over."
She'd left enough play in his bonds for that. Spike complied, fists clenching around the silk. His silence was starting to creep her out a little - usually Spike kept up a running commentary during sex: teasing and snark and flirty, dirty talk, praising her body and her technique and her stamina. Now there was only the harsh, nervous rasp of his breath against the sheets. She straddled his thighs and picked up the belt, doubled it between her hands, and snapped it hard. The crack of leather made him jump. "You've been a very naughty boy, William," she purred, caressing the tight pale curve of his ass-cheek with one hand. "And Buffy's gonna spank."
Spike hissed, a soft indrawn breath that echoed the tension in his limbs. Maybe this was exactly what he needed: to let go, to drown the voices in his head in sensation. She could give him that.
He cried out, once, when the belt smacked down on his ass, back arching, muscles going rigid. Buffy slammed him back down against the mattress, 'cause he liked that, too, and brought the belt down again - smack, smack, smack, shoulders, ass, thighs, getting a good rhythm going. You wouldn't think something with a vampire's weird circulation would welt, but he did, red stripes cris-crossing pale skin, a latticework of hurts-so-good. And she was hurting him damn good, if she did say so herself. Spike was humping the mattress now, breath coming in ragged, whimpering gasps, gripping the scarves hard enough to rip the fabric if he'd wanted to.
And talking, at last, a guttural litany of filth half-buried in pillows: "...come on, harder! Harder! Make it hurt, you vampire-fucking whore - "
Buffy faltered, gut-punched.
Spike turned his head to glare at her over his shoulder. "Come on, Slayer, put your back into it! Let's see some blood!"
"Spike.... William, please..."
"You know you want to! Don't tell me you've never thought about it - what I've done. D'you want to know what I did to the girls? D'you want to know how I laughed to see them cry, an' beg, and offer to suck my cock, if only I'd let 'em live?" With a jerk, he was free, her second-best La Fiorentina cashmere in shreds. His eyes flashed yellow, his face distorted in ridges and fangs. "This is what you profess to love, Slayer! This is the real me! The soul just lets me see it better! Don't tell me you never wanted to see me get some of my own back. Just how fucking sick are you?"
Buffy rocked back on her heels, her urge to burst into tears warring with an overwhelming desire to smash his face in. "Not sick enough to give you what you want right now," she said, forcing steadiness on her voice. She rolled off the bed, wrapping herself in sheets and dignity equally tattered, and snatched her pajamas off the footboard of the bed. "Jerk yourself off, Spike. I'll be on the couch."
*****
Part 2
By Barb C.
Disclaimers: The usual. All belongs to Joss and Mutant Enemy, and naught to me.
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: I'm just sayin', this isn't one of my fluffier stories. Highlight for specifics: Violence directed at pregnant women and small children, suicidal behavior, sexual situations that go Very Wrong.
Synopsis: Spike gets a soul. What could possibly go wrong?
Author’s notes: This story takes place in the same universe as "Raising In the Sun," "Necessary Evils," and "A Parliament of Monsters." It takes place in March 2020 in the Barbverse timeline, and contains spoilers for previous stories in the series. Many thanks to betas deborahc, typographer, wildrider, brutti_ma_buoni, kehf, & slaymesoftly. Additional thanks to shadowkat67 for invaluable plotting advice.
"It's not easy, what you're asking for." The woman behind the desk folded her hands beneath her ample decolletage. Her dark, half-lidded gaze was deceptively lazy. "Some might say impossible."
Spike slouched deeper into the sway-backed armchair reserved for clients, avoiding a too-close look at the shelves on the wall behind her. Rows and rows of squat, murky bottles lined the cramped office, glass and crystal and stone, some dark, some glowing eerily from within, all of them reeking of magic. He realized his fingers were tapping restlessly on one knee, and stilled them. "See here, Melly, you gave me some of my first business when I started Bloody Vengeance. You've been a good customer all these years. Figured I'd return the favor and give you first dibs on the job." One good turn deserved another; one of the simplest rules of mock-souled behavior he'd learned, back in the day. Didn't make any sense, on the face of it, but experience had borne out that it upped the overall number of good turns that came his way. Sneaky bastards, those white hats. "'Course, if your mojo's not up to snuff, there's half a dozen other mystical boffins who'd be glad enough of the dosh."
"Where the hell do you think you're going?"
"To fix this. To fix me. Once and for all."
Melly's plump cheeks dimpled in a grin, and the copper bells braided into her hair chimed softly with the shake of her head. "Spike, sugar, if you really thought anyone else could do it, you'd be talking to anyone else. The mysteries of the Kun Sun Dai don't come cheap." She leaned forward and laced her be-ringed fingers together on the blotter, all business. "First things first, and the first thing is, your soul's spoken for. If it still exists at all. The powers that Rosenberg woman bargained with for the Slayer's life - "
' - Don't make bargains you can back out of, yeah, I know." Spike caught his knee jittering and planted both boot-heels firmly on the floor. Trouble with avoiding the walls was, he had to stare at the carpet. Its faded patterns pulled mocking faces at him out of the corner of his eye. "Didn't ask you for my soul. I asked for a soul, kindly note the indefinite article."
You are not leaving! Not again. Not me. Not them."
"You want me to stay, after - ? You saw! You saw what I - "
"Didn't!"
"Could have done!"
The shaman made a small, inquisitive noise, like the chortle of a curious dove. "You intrigue me, sugar baby, you really do. I expect you've considered the risks - "
Spike interrupted with a throat-cutting gesture. "Bugger the risks."
"Mmm. If you say so, sugar. No skin off my nose." Her gaze sharpened to an obsidian keenness. "But there's still the little matter of payment."
Melly always had been a haggler. He still suspected she'd got the better of him on that shipment of mandrakes' tongues last month. Spike shrugged, donning cool like armor. "Seems to me your order owes us one. Wyndam-Pryce bloody near wiped your order out of existence before the Slayer and me took him down."
"Takes a lot more than one snooty-ass vampire and his pet lawyers to take down the Kun Sun Dai, sugar," Melly said with an affronted huff. "But point taken. You get a discount." She laid a finger to her pursed lips and considered. A brilliant smile blossomed. "Seems to me a man who's been around as long as you have might have a memory or two I could use."
Memories. Not a small thing to ask of a chap whose existence spanned three separate and distinct metaphysical phases, and was looking to embark on a fourth. Memories were all that made him who he was. Granted he had a hundred and sixty-odd years of them. Good memories, most of them, but wouldn't that change soon? "Can't think I've got that much of interest in there." Spike ground out.
Daddy!
"You'd be surprised," Melly murmured. "Mind spells don't work so good on vampires, them being dead and all." She leaned across the desk and extended one hand, silver rings glinting against her dark skin. She spread her fingertips against his temple. "Puts vampire memories at a premium. But you... you're different."
Her fingers fluttered like moths beneath his skin. Not like Glory's fingers, palping his brain like Jell-O. Spike gripped the arms of the chair and throttled his nervous growl down to a subterranean rumble. He'd never liked the sensation of people poking through his head, whether they were hellgods or well-meant sorcerous allies. Sodding Mohra blood. He wouldn't be in this mess if he hadn't - but he couldn't imagine where he would be now, if he hadn't.
Daddy, no!
"Truth is, sugar, I'm a bit curious." Whatever she was looking for, Melly was taking her time about it. "Most people come to me looking to get rid of souls. Mine never bothers me much - " she nodded across the room at one of the brighter jars - "But I always figure there's a reason they're so unpopular. You've been playing for the white hats for twenty years. Why a soul, and why now?"
The real question was, why not twenty years ago? His hands would be shaking if he weren't holding the armrests so tightly. "That's my business."
Daddy, no! Let go!
Oh, God, yes, take it away. But losing that moment would make nothing of the reasons he'd come here in the first place. Melly's chuckle was deep and rich and nasty. "Oh, sugar, a memory's not worth much if you want to get rid of it, is it? Let's see what else you got. Oh, looky here... now, ain't that sweet." Her fingers closed, pincer-hard. "First-ever night of Slayer nookie!"
Spike went rigid in the chair, the armrests splintering under the pressure of his grip. Twenty years of useless struggle, tying himself in knots - I can be good too! he'd told her, all those years ago, but he couldn't, not when it mattered. Wyndam-Pryce had told him nothing but the truth last summer, the sanctimonious bastard, and Spike would never forgive him for that. "Please. Not that one."
"Mmm. I dunno. This one's spicy."
Spike squeezed his eyes closed. "Best night of my life."
"Well then," Melly said. "Think about it, sugar. What's more important: your past with the Slayer, or your future?"
Daddy, no! Let go! You're hurting me!
Eyes open. "Take it, you skinflint bitch."
Melly laughed. "Bet you say that to all the girls." She pulled her hand free, and part of his past came with it - one night, only one night, one glorious, unlife-changing, revolutionary -
Spike blinked and looked at the shaman uncertainly, brow wrinkling in confusion. "Aren't you going to take it?"
She patted his shoulder. "Sugar, you'll never even know it's gone." She rose to her feet and selected a jar from the shelves behind her, popped the lid off and dropped something inside - something black and glittering, shot through with crimson and gold. She tucked the jar away on the shelf and beckoned. "Now let's get to work."
Spike followed her, frowning, prodding the gap in his memory as he might have the gap left by a missing tooth - how could you remember what you'd forgotten when you couldn't remember forgetting it? Bugger it, he had more important things to worry about now. "You'll get me a proper one, yeah?" he said. "I want the soul of a good man, not some bounder. And I want it to stick good and tight, none of this shoddy gypsy curse stuff."
Melly laughed. "Spike, honey, when I get done with you? You're gonna be a whole new man."
*****
When Spike got home she was going to kill him.
Buffy was extremely clear on this. There were diagrams. Or would be, if she'd had a pencil that wasn't snapped in two within ten seconds of her getting her hands on it. Which, in the long run, probably a good, lest said pencils end up rammed right through Spike's inconsiderately-beating heart.
And he was coming home. Any minute now she'd hear his key fumbling in the front door, and he'd roll in, black leather and worn denim and ruffled, greying curls, battered and exhausted because he was getting too damn old to deal with his troubles by getting drunk and beating up half the patrons of the Alibi Room. And she'd yell at him and swab Mercurochrome on his battered knuckles, serve him right if it stung, and in the middle of arguing she'd kiss him and he'd taste like beer and pig's blood soup from the take-out pho place down the street, and maybe the kissing would go places and maybe it wouldn't, but that was OK, either way they'd fall asleep together, and tomorrow... tomorrow they'd deal with it. Because that was what they did, damn it.
And then she'd kill him. As soon as Spike came home. And he was coming home. He'd promised.
"Where the hell do you think you're going?"
"To fix this. To fix me. Once and for all."
"You don't fix things by running away!"
"I'm not - I'm coming back. A day. Two days, tops. I swear. I swear on - " Laughter like the taste of bile, sick and bitter in the back of the throat. "Well, I haven't anything worth swearing on, have I?"
Buffy grimaced down at the cold oily dregs in her coffee cup, unfolded herself from the couch with a groan, and staggered out to the kitchen to dump the last of the coffee down the sink and start a fresh pot. Spike wasn't the only one getting too old for this crap. She leaned against the counter, squinting at the window as the coffeemaker burbled to itself, massaging the swell of her belly. Outside a pale dawn was breaking, painting the eastern sky in eggshell hues of pink and gold. Her eyes were gritty with lack of sleep and her mouth tasted like the bottom of a litter box, and the baby was doing the macarena on her kidneys and she should be out there looking for him and damn Spike for playing the mommy card on her.
"Mommy?"
Alex was standing in the kitchen doorway, Mr. Bun dragging behind him, big worried hazel eyes fixed on the lightening sky outside. "Is Daddy home yet?"
"Not yet, honey. Wanna come give Mommy a hug till he does?"
He flung himself at her knees without a word, and Buffy caught him up and hugged him tight. Alex buried his face in her neck and snuffled. "I'm sorry, Mommy. I'm sorry I cried. Can Daddy come home now?"
"Oh, Alex..." She set him down on the counter-edge. "You didn't do anything wrong. You know how Daddy gets scary when he's mad?"
Alex nodded solemnly. "But I'm not scareded any more."
"Well, he got so mad this time he scared himself."
"You saw! You saw what I - "
"Didn't!"
"Could have done! If you hadn't - "
"But I did! You're a vampire and I'm a Slayer and our kids are half-demon or half of them are all demon or I don't even know, but this is us! This is what we have! Running away doesn't change that! Fine, Spike, you screwed up! It's not the first time - "
"It'll bloody well be the last!"
She should have seen it coming. Spike had been on edge since Wesley's penitential visit. He'd never talked much about what had happened while he was undercover at Wolfram & Hart, but anything that gave a vampire nightmares wasn't happy funtimes. And however excited they were about the baby, they were both nervous, too, because the baby thing hadn't worked out so well last time, had it? So, stress. Good stress, but still, stress. She nuzzled Alex's tousled curls. God knew neither of them had a perfect parental track record. Maybe if it had been Bill or Connie, it all would have happened differently - Spike was used to clashes with his older children; knew their limits, and his own. But Alex... sweet-tempered, tractable Alex, who never talked back or threw tantrums...
...even Alex could be a brat sometimes.
Footsteps on the stairs: Bill and Connie, faces long as the morning shadows. Buffy set Alex down and pulled the curtains closed - second nature when half your family was combustible. At least going through the motions of breakfast-getting gave her something to do that wasn't worry. Shredded wheat and milk for Alex and Connie, pig's blood and Weetabix for Bill, and her stomach revolted at the mere thought of more coffee, so yogurt and raw liver (baby vampire cravings: yuck squared) for her. The kids congregated around the kitchen island, mourners around a domestic monument, eyes downcast and unwontedly silent.
"We could go find him," Connie blurted out, dropping her spoon into her bowl with a splash. "Bill can track him, and I - "
The part of her that cherished the everyday rituals of breakfast and shoe shopping was wailing, You're only eleven! but the rest of her was thinking that was a pretty damn good idea. "Bill can't go running around in the middle of - "
"Neither can Dad," Bill broke in, shoving his glasses up on his nose. "So all we have to - "
"Quiet!" It was her Slayer voice, and the children froze. Buffy turned, head raised, senses tingling. Vampire.
Not just vampire. Spike.
She didn't remember covering the distance from the kitchen to the front door, or pulling the door half off its hinges. But she would remember to her dying day the sight that greeted her when the door opened. Spike was standing on the front porch, half collapsed against one of the big brick pillars. He was haggard and unshaven, bruised eyes haunted above knife-edged cheekbones. His t-shirt was half charred away, his hair was scorched to stubble, and smoke billowed upwards from the blackened, oozing burns covering his face and arms and shoulders.
As he saw her, Spike swayed forwards, dropping to his knees. Flakes of burnt cotton and burnt vampire fluttered to the cool cement of the porch, and a beatific smile stretched across his grotesquely scorched face. "Buffy, he whispered, like a prayer. He held out both hands. "I've come home like I promised, Slayer. Now please... please kill me."
******
She didn't kill him.
He'd had that thought to sustain him, all the way home: Buffy would kill him. Dispatch him to whatever well-deserved hell awaited him, and still, if only for a moment, the voices in his head. She was the Slayer, and that was what the Slayer did.
But he'd forgotten, over the years, just how merciless the Slayer could be. Instead of running him through, she grabbed him by the remaining tatters of his t-shirt, hauled him one-handed to his feet, and whispered low and furious in his charcoaled ear, "If you think for one moment I'd make our children watch me kill you, you'll only wish you were dead!" and dragged him inside. Where she proceeded to visit food and rest and bandages upon him as if they were punishments. Maybe they were. Prolonging the torment, so to speak.
The bedroom door cracked open. Bill edged half-way into the room and stood ill-at-ease in the doorway. "Dad?"
Spike's breath caught hard in his throat. "Present. Come on in, then."
His son shuffled in, nervous flecks of gold showing behind his glasses. He'd always thought Bill had gotten Buffy's eyes. Not changeable like his mum's, but the clear lucent grey that hers became in certain bleak or thoughtful lights. But here was proof that in this, too, he'd left his own stamp. Bill raked a hand through his mop of sandy curls. Hands Spike had watched grow from a chubby curl of fingers to their current gangly teenaged spread - how had he never noticed before this that his eldest bit his nails, too?
"Mom's bringing you some blood."
"Ah." He wasn't hungry, but he supposed he ought to be.
"So I guess... " Bill fell to twisting the hem of his football jersey into knots. "Are... are you OK?"
"No."
"Are you still... are you still you?"
Spike couldn't help it; he laughed. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm still me, God help me."
The boy flinched at the sound, his thin shoulders hunching. "I don't understand," he said, in a voice near to breaking. "I don't understand why you did it. And I always used to understand you. When you walked out on us after - after Mom lost the baby I was so mad at you, but I understood why. I think I was so mad because I understood. And now... you always told me that I could be - that it didn't matter if - as long as I kept trying - "
He studied the boy's earnest, troubled face. "You understand why your Mum did what she did? Why she thought saving that tosser Wells was worth the risk?" I do. Now.
Bill shook his head miserably. "Not really. Connie's tried explaining it a million times, and I just..." he made a helpless gesture. "But it's Mom, and I know that's what she does, even if it doesn't make any sense." He took a deep breath, straightening and looking Spike in the eye for the first time. "Do you think I need a soul?"
Oh, Christ. And how could he answer that, with a boy he loved better than life itself looking full at him with those hopeful, inhuman eyes? Face alight with love and worry, and no more shred of conscience than had shone from his own only a day and a night past? He'd believed, naively, that being raised to goodness made a difference - for Bill, for the new one nestling now in her mother's womb. Not that he'd truly understood what goodness was then, but he'd been content to stand on the far side of Jordan, watching with pleased incomprehension when Bill seemed to grasp intuitively the niceties of souled behavior that still took him laborious thought.
All a sham. He could see that now, with a cold moral clarity that made him want to weep. Bill's self-imposed safety net of dos and don'ts was far more elaborate and instinctive than his own, but it was no more a conscience than he was the King of Prussia.
And there was Buffy, lips tight, eyes narrowed, her ferocious glare daring him to scorn the mug of microwaved pig's blood she'd just thrust into his face. Saved him from answering Bill, at least. He drank it, meekly.
"Let your father rest for awhile," Buffy said, shooing Bill into the hallway with brisk motions of her hands. Her voice was steady, but he could hear her heart racing, smell her fear and anxiety. "So. Williamus, I presume?"
He dropped back against the pillows with a groan. "You know it doesn't work like that."
"Do I?" Buffy removed the mug to the night stand and perched on the edge of the bed. "What I know is the last time a guy I loved underwent a change-of-soul-status, he might as well have been a whole different person. So pardon me if I'm a little nervous, here. There's considerations. Is our marriage license still legal?"
"Buffy - "
"You didn't ask!" she broke in furiously. "You ran off and did this big enormous thing that could change our whole lives, and you didn't talk to me or find out what I thought! Dammit, Spike, that was a - an Angel thing to do!"
Spike winced. Shouldn't he have exceeded his guilt quota by now? Apparently not. "Duly noted." She was gazing at him with all the intensity of the sun outside, all the love in the world shining in those fearsome eyes. Was no one to despise him properly except himself? "How can you love me?"
"What?"
"Knowing what I am. What I've done. That night before we went to face Glory. I told you I knew I was a monster, and you could never love me. And I did know, up here." He tapped a finger against his temple. "But I can feel it here now." He dropped his hand to his heart. "How many people have I killed, Slayer?"
Her frown deepened. "You figured it at twelve or fifteen thousand, once."
"Sounds about right." He held up one hand, flexed his fingers; the charred flesh was flaking away to make way for fresh muscle and new pink skin. He studied the healing burns as if they belonged to someone else. "Fifteen thousand. Doesn't seem a real number, does it? I can't remember them all. Angel, he does. Him and that memory of his. Every face, every last scream and plea for mercy. Me, it all runs together. A hundred and twenty years of slaughter. You'd think that would make it easier. You'd think - you'd think the least I could do was remember their faces." All at once he was sobbing, wretched, miserable, unmanly tears that burned the still-raw flesh of his cheeks. "Kill me, Buffy, please, for God's sake, I want to die - "
And the Slayer was on her feet, delivering an open-handed smack! to his sun-flayed cheek that rocked him back against the headboard. "No, you don't," she snapped. "If you really wanted to die, you'd be dead, not whining at me to do it for you. Fine, you've got a soul, and you feel really bad. That doesn't change the fact that you've got three children out there who love you in spite of the fact you keep running off to play Vamp of La Mancha - "
That was really too much. He sat up with an answering snarl. "Sod it, Buffy, I did this for them!"
"And a fat lot of good a soul will do them if you walk out into the sunlight the minute you get one!" She turned away, on the verge of tears herself, arms wrapped tightly around her growing middle. Bloody hell. She lifted her head, salt-water diamonds spilling careless over the curve of her cheek. "You idiot. Asking how I can love you - how can I not?"
He'd never been able to stand up to her tears. Some things, he supposed, didn't change. "Can I see Alex, please? Connie too, but I've something to say to Alex."
She gave him a tight little nod and strode out. His cock stirred and stiffened to the sway of her baby-plush bum, then wilted in a confused welter of shame. He'd thought he'd be different. He'd been a fool - a soul fixed nothing. He was still the same old Spike, demon lusts and human desires so tangled he couldn't sort them. How the hell could he sit here, shedding crocodile tears for his sins, and still ache to bury himself in her warmth? Gaze on her ripening belly, knowing what soulless creature he'd planted there, and feel pride as well as horror? He'd eaten the apple, and now he had the bellyache to show for it.
"Daddy!"
Alex was upon him like a five-year-old landslide, hard little head butting his chest, sticky hands twining round his neck, chattering a mile a minute. "Daddy, you came home all burneded up! You shouldn't go out in the sun 'cause you'll burneded yourself again. Does it hurt? Where did you go? Did you bring me something?"
"I did, little man, and I shan't. And it hurts like silly buggers, and I went to see a wizard, and I brought you something special. Let's have a look at your arm first."
Alex obligingly stuck out his arm. The bare skin was unmarked - which meant nothing; Alex and Connie might walk in the sunlight, and so far displayed no hint of powers beyond mortal ken, but both of them had a Slayer's (or a vampire's) resilience when it came to injuries. "Does it hurt still, tadpole?"
Alex shook his head vigorously. "Nuh-uh."
"You know I'm sorry as hell I hurt you, yeah?"
Alex nodded just as vigorously. "I'm sorry I cried, Daddy."
"Don't be. I'm a bad, rude Daddy." He caught the boy's small soft hand, laid it upon his chest. "Got a soul for you, so I can promise it'll never happen again. How's that?"
Alex considered this, his expression doubtful. "Can I have a puppy instead?"
Spike managed a snort. "Your mum might have been better pleased. Now, where's your sister?"
****
"He WHAT?" Evie choked on her B-Pos margarita, looking from Buffy to Spike with comic dismay. "Shit. Shit! I always knew he was loco, but... shit!" She planted both elbows on the table and buried her face in her hands with a groan. Peering out at Buffy from between her fingers, she asked, "Can't you, like, fuck it out of him or something?" At Buffy's expression, "OK, fine, bad suggestion. But... shit. You know half the employees are gonna quit the minute they hear about it, right?"
Buffy bit her lip and concentrated on swirling her straw around her Tab-with-a-twist. Spike, moodily absorbed in the amber depths of his third neat Scotch, shrugged and said nothing. Great. Spike getting a soul was a good thing, Spike getting a soul was a good thing... "I didn't expect they'd throw him a congratulations on your new soul party, but..."
"It's hard enough finding vampires who'll sit still for Spike's crazy no-killing rules," Evie said, licking salt. "He staked David what, five years ago, and we still haven't found a decent accountant! No self-respecting vampire's gonna want to work for a guy with a soul. I got a chip in my head, but the others, they got options." She slurped at her lime wedge and turned disapproving eyes on Spike. "Any brilliant ideas up your sleeve, El Jefe?"
Spike downed his Scotch, and gestured for a refill. "No."
"Spike, haven't you..." Buffy left off with a sigh. Even with the post-Mohra metabolism, it took a hell of a lot of booze to get Spike drunk, and it wasn't exactly like he didn't have a reason to get smashed at the moment. In a way it was kind of reassuring that he was reacting in such a... such a Spikey fashion. She'd had a heck of a time coaxing him out tonight; for the last few weeks all he'd wanted to do was mope around the house and watch TV.
"Leave the bottle," Spike said as Susie, the Bracken bartender, set a fresh shot glass down. Buffy'd had some reservations when Susie bought Willy the Snitch out a few years back. Still, she had to admit that there was some justice in the idea of a demon bar actually being owned and operated by a demon. And Susie's concept of hygiene was certainly an improvement over Willy's in that she actually had one.
Buffy massaged her forehead, trying to stave off her incipient headache as Spike poured himself another drink. Maybe she could make this all David's fault. If Spike hadn't had to stake David, he wouldn't have been in a pissy mood from trying to balance the books by himself, and wouldn't have blown up at Alex, and... crap. The demon-hunting business had taken some major hits in the last two years with Spike's extended absences, and her gig at the skating rink wasn't enough to reliably support a family of five-and-counting and an increasingly cranky old house by itself. They really, really needed two steady incomes.
"OK, assuming we all want to keep Bloody Vengeance Inc. operating..." Buffy raised an inquiring eyebrow; you couldn't make too many assumptions about what a vampire wanted. But Evie only nodded. "Maybe we can just keep it quiet for awhile. He's not... he doesn't seem too different." Apart from the crying jags and the intermittent suicidal ideation, of course. "You didn't notice."
Evie rolled her eyes. "You think you can keep gossip that juicy quiet in this town? Anyways, some demons can smell it. We gotta have a plan."
An hour later, the plan amounted to 'keep it quiet for awhile,' and Buffy's headache was staging a guerilla raid down her spine and into her shoulder blades. She tried to nudge Spike into contributing, but his repertoire of indifferent grunts decreased in inverse proportion to the number of shots he'd put away. "Can you maybe scrape up a teeny bit of interest in the portions of your life that don't involve soap operas and alcohol?" she asked as they made ready to leave.
"No fear, I'll be the life of the party in no time." Spike glowered at the row of empty glasses on the table. "Maybe I should pick up a fifth on the way home. Susie's watering the hell out of this stuff."
"Great idea. Healthy coping skills R Us." A lump rose in her throat. "Can we also maybe avoid getting drunk in front of the kids?"
Spike heaved a deflated sigh and shrugged into his motorcycle jacket, avoiding her eyes. "Yeah. Sure. Doesn't help anyway."
She watched him as they walked along the darkened street, sidelong glances beneath her lashes. He walked with head down and hands thrust into his jacket pockets. One hand toyed with his lighter, though she hadn't seen him light a cigarette since he'd come back. He looked... like Spike. Tired, sad, every-one-of-his-hundred-and-sixty-plus-years Spike. Spike getting a soul was a good thing - how many times had she thought to herself how much easier everything would be if only he had one? Sure, there were some short term problems, but...
"I'm sorry," she whispered, knowing he'd hear. "I know this is hard for you. It's just... I used to love your smile. And I'm starting to wonder if I'll ever see it again."
"Ah, love, there's no good in wallowing. I know that. Should sally forth, fight the good fight, all that bollocks. 'S just..." He took a pained breath. "I'd try to imagine it, before. What it'd feel like. Like disappointing you times a million, was the best I could come up with. But it's not like that at all. And there's things..." He hesitated. "Things I didn't expect to feel."
Buffy frowned. "What kind of things?"
His eyes were distant. "Last year, when Wyndam-Pryce had me under his thumb... he told me that I'd been the ruin of you. Dragged you down into the dark with me."
"And you told him he was an idiot. Wesley was trying to mess with your head. Hello, evil mastermind?"
"Doesn't mean he's wrong." Spike sounded genuinely troubled. "You and Evie are right chummy these days, aren't you?"
Before she could answer, a voice like a cement mixer croaked, "Slayer!" From the mouth of the alley ahead loomed a cross between a gorilla and an ambulatory slab of concrete. It lumbered towards them, steam billowing from a red-hot maw lined with jagged crystalline fangs. "The half-breed abomination you carry must die!"it rumbled. "So it is written!"
"Not again!" Buffy groaned. Never mind that for the last fifteen years Dawn, Willow and Giles had collectively failed to find a single prophecy, prediction, or oracular pronouncement regarding her and Spike's offspring, they went through this every time she got pregnant. There was probably a cottage industry on the web somewhere, forging prophecies and selling them to goons like this one.
The demon raised both ham-sized fists and brought them smashing down at the place Buffy'd been two seconds earlier. Buffy came down from her leap with a side-kick to the creature's shoulder. She might as well have kicked a brick wall. The impact jarred her leg all the way up to the hip, and she hit the ground off-balance and went with it into a roll that took her out of range. The monster's craggy slab of a foot slammed down hard enough to crack the pavement beneath her. Rock, the thing was solid rock. Strong, but slow. If it connected it would mash her to jelly. (Dodge) Punching, kicking no use. If only she had a pickaxe. (Jump) Or a big vat of acid. Sadly, neither in evidence. (Roll) Here, anyway...
A roar of pure fury split the night, followed by a tremendous CLANG! and Rock Lobster toppled over backwards beneath the weight of the Dumpster Spike had just slung at him. "Gerroff her, you walking slag heap!" he bellowed, and leaped after, fangs bared and fists flying.
Buffy lunged after him. His hands were already streaming blood, and she heard the sickening crack of bone as he drove his fists into the creature's impervious hide again and again. The monster was rocking back and forth like a miniature earthquake, seconds from throwing the Dumpster off. She grabbed Spike's shoulder and spun him around - lips peeled back from ivory fangs in a savage snarl, his eyes a wild, blazing gold beneath the row of small stubby horns that had started to sprout along his ridged brow as he reached vampiric middle age. So far gone in rage and pain that for an instant she half-believed he'd turn on her, instead.
She caught his wrist before he could break another knuckle. "Harbor!"
For a second she thought he wouldn't get it. Then understanding broke in his eyes, and he whirled on the monster with a taunting, "Catch us if you can, Gumby!" and was off, matching her stride for stride.
They were a good mile from the wharf. She was five months pregnant and Spike was a little out of condition from mooching around doing nothing for weeks, but they ran as they'd never run before. Behind them the thunder of their pursuer's footsteps grew louder, shaking the ground beneath them as it picked up momentum. Down deserted, warehouse-lined streets they sped, through damp and fetid alleys. Close to the harbor now - Buffy pulled the stink of dead fish and rotting seaweed deep into her lungs, thrust it out again, run, run, run, run.
They burst out onto the echoing boardwalk that ran along the marina - there'd been a lot of attempts at gentrification in the last ten years, but none of them had stuck. The demon was right behind them, leaving a trail of cracked and splintered planks behind it. Buffy glanced back, smacked Spike's shoulder and pointed; with a nod he followed her lead and they tore down the waterfront, heading for the loading dock.
The long arm of the loading crane loomed overhead. Buffy exchanged a quick look with Spike; he nodded and took off in one of those phenomenal vampire leaps, fifteen feet straight up in the air, aiming for the big steel hook dangling from the crane's pulley. He missed his first jump, swore, and leaped again, as Buffy whirled to face their pursuer. The demon bellowed and grabbed for her, mile-long arms swinging with pile-driver force, and she leaped, somersaulting over its head. She landed, spun, just as Spike came rocketing down, arms and legs wrapped around the steel pulley-cables. Buffy seized the hook and rammed it into the creature's fissured hide as it wheeled into a ponderous turn. Spike's boots hit the dock beside her, and with one motion, they shoved.
Caught mid-turn, the demon staggered, swayed, and began to topple, arms windmilling ineffectively in an attempt to regain its balance. Buffy dashed for the crane controls, stabbed a button, pulled a lever, and prayed. The crane arm groaned, shuddered, and swung out over the slick black swells of the harbor. The cables jerked and went taut, and with a tortured scream of metal the rock-demon swung in a graceful arc, up, up, and out over the water. At the apex of it journey a cable snapped with a metallic SPUNG! and the pulley hook jarred loose of its mooring. Spike and Buffy hit the planking as the cable whipsawed back over their heads. The demon hung suspended for a heartbeat in mid-air, a black, wriggling bug pinned against the floodlit harbor sky, and then gravity took over. It hit the slick black swells with a crash. A column of boiling steam erupted into the night as cold water met molten demon innards, and fell back to earth in a shower of warm stinking seawater, soaking them both to the bone.
Buffy waited, chest heaving, as the furious upwelling of steam spent itself. Spike was breathing almost as fast a normal human, which for him was major windage. They watched until the frothing water stilled to nothing but fragments of dirty white lace awash on a black satin sea. A few bubbles wavered up from the depths, popped, and were gone.
Spike rolled over and sat up, slumped against the crane. He stared down at his half-pulped, bloodied hands, looking as if he wanted to be sick. His shoulders were shaking. Buffy got to her knees and reached out tentatively - he'd been stiff and unresponsive to her touch since coming back, shrugging off any attempt at physical comfort. But he didn't move away this time, and she laid her hand on his (too thin; he hadn't shown much interest in food lately, either) shoulder. "You OK?"
He took a deep shuddering breath. "Think I sprained something." He flexed his shoulders experimentally. "Think I sprained everything."
"That's what you get for slacking off on the workouts, soul boy."
And she kissed him.
She hadn't intended to. She'd given herself all kinds of lectures; Spike was going through a Major Trauma, it would happen when he was ready, she was Mature Understanding Buffy. But it wasn't just his smile that she missed. She felt him go tense, and braced for rejection. A shiver ran through him. He pulled away, but all he said was, "Home. Now."
Once upon a time Spike would have taken her right then and there, fucked her hard up against the column of the crane, and she'd have loved every what-if-someone-catches-us minute of it. Right now she wasn't sure if his reluctance was a soul thing, or just a we're-not-twenty-five-anymore thing, but as long as his hands were on her body and his mouth was hungrily devouring hers she didn't care. They staggered drunkenly up the stairs - house dark, kids asleep, coast clear.
"You're sure?" she gasped as they stumbled into the bedroom, struggling with wet clothes and recalcitrant shoelaces. Hard not to notice he wasn't exactly... up for it, yet. Which might also be a we're-not-twenty-five-anymore thing, don't take it personally, Buffy. "You're ready for this?"
"Yes, damn it, let's fuck," Spike snarled. His fingers skimmed the curve of her belly, and flinched away. He immediately winced in contrition. "Sorry. Sorry. I'm - "
"It's OK." She tried to keep the hurt out of her voice. Spike had always had a little bit of a thing for her pregnant body - as Dawn had put it once, he generally followed her around from the moment she started to show with his tongue hanging out and a boner the size of the Washington Monument. Maybe the soul had made him more squeamish about baby-making, or something. Time to take the wheel, obviously. She laid her head against his shoulder, reached down and took his cock in hand, working the foreskin up and down along the shaft in sensuous rhythm. "We can go slow," she said, tongue flicking out to tease his nipple. "Or fast. Or slow, then fast."
She raked her thumbnail lightly over the slit and he gasped, eyes squeezing shut. He shivering against her. "I'm a very bad man," he rasped, voice husky with what she hoped was desire. "Aren't I, Slayer?"
"You can be," she said cautiously.
"And I need to be punished."
In the past he'd said that with a laugh or a leer. He sounded deadly serious now. "If that's what you want." She made a quick recon of the bedroom: two scarves, a bathrobe tie, and Spike's belt. Just the ticket. She plucked the nearest scarf from the vanity, ran it between her legs and trailed it under his nose. He backed up one startled step, nostrils flaring, and she planted her hand in the middle of his chest and gave him a little shove. He fell back on the bed with a thump, and Buffy pounced.
Rough stuff wasn't anything new between them. It was a vampire thing. (Or maybe an English public schoolboy thing, but she was voting for vampire.) Spike got off on pain. It wasn't the only thing he got off on, not by a long shot, but sometimes... On her end, it had taken her years to fall in love with Spike, but she'd itched to get her hands on him from the first night they met. And if the only conceivable way to do that back then was to smash that cocky, infuriating smirk right off his face, well...Do we really need weapons for this?
But that was then and this was now, and Spike was way more fun to manhandle now that he was her man to handle. And it was that very same cocky, infuriating grin which somehow made it okay that the Slayer had her very own personal vampire on a string, or tied up in it, anyway.
Spike wasn't grinning now. He watched her with a desperate, hungry intensity, eyes following the deft movements of her fingers as she tightened the knots. She knelt between his legs, her hands resting lightly on his thighs, caressing the taut muscle. She slid them up to stroke the jut of his hipbones. His cock arced upwards, only half-hard, but that was an improvement, wasn't it? He had a beautiful body, lean and strong and economically muscled - a little thinner, a little softer now than she knew he liked to keep himself, but he still took her breath away. She bent down, dropping a kiss on the velvet head. "Roll over."
She'd left enough play in his bonds for that. Spike complied, fists clenching around the silk. His silence was starting to creep her out a little - usually Spike kept up a running commentary during sex: teasing and snark and flirty, dirty talk, praising her body and her technique and her stamina. Now there was only the harsh, nervous rasp of his breath against the sheets. She straddled his thighs and picked up the belt, doubled it between her hands, and snapped it hard. The crack of leather made him jump. "You've been a very naughty boy, William," she purred, caressing the tight pale curve of his ass-cheek with one hand. "And Buffy's gonna spank."
Spike hissed, a soft indrawn breath that echoed the tension in his limbs. Maybe this was exactly what he needed: to let go, to drown the voices in his head in sensation. She could give him that.
He cried out, once, when the belt smacked down on his ass, back arching, muscles going rigid. Buffy slammed him back down against the mattress, 'cause he liked that, too, and brought the belt down again - smack, smack, smack, shoulders, ass, thighs, getting a good rhythm going. You wouldn't think something with a vampire's weird circulation would welt, but he did, red stripes cris-crossing pale skin, a latticework of hurts-so-good. And she was hurting him damn good, if she did say so herself. Spike was humping the mattress now, breath coming in ragged, whimpering gasps, gripping the scarves hard enough to rip the fabric if he'd wanted to.
And talking, at last, a guttural litany of filth half-buried in pillows: "...come on, harder! Harder! Make it hurt, you vampire-fucking whore - "
Buffy faltered, gut-punched.
Spike turned his head to glare at her over his shoulder. "Come on, Slayer, put your back into it! Let's see some blood!"
"Spike.... William, please..."
"You know you want to! Don't tell me you've never thought about it - what I've done. D'you want to know what I did to the girls? D'you want to know how I laughed to see them cry, an' beg, and offer to suck my cock, if only I'd let 'em live?" With a jerk, he was free, her second-best La Fiorentina cashmere in shreds. His eyes flashed yellow, his face distorted in ridges and fangs. "This is what you profess to love, Slayer! This is the real me! The soul just lets me see it better! Don't tell me you never wanted to see me get some of my own back. Just how fucking sick are you?"
Buffy rocked back on her heels, her urge to burst into tears warring with an overwhelming desire to smash his face in. "Not sick enough to give you what you want right now," she said, forcing steadiness on her voice. She rolled off the bed, wrapping herself in sheets and dignity equally tattered, and snatched her pajamas off the footboard of the bed. "Jerk yourself off, Spike. I'll be on the couch."
*****
Part 2