Part Fourteen: Catch Me As I Fall
Author’s Note: A lot of my older work has issues with consent, some more than others. For most of those works, it was a conscious choice I made at the time — Dreamscape and Beloved in Blood being the most egregious offenders. My feelings about consent issues have dramatically changed over the last 10-15 years. That said, I doubt I will change those stories much, if at all, in terms of content when I get around to reposting them. They are and remain a reflection of how I felt at the time, and I don’t really believe in sanitizing my work. I think it’s important to see where you were yesterday to appreciate where you are today.
Since starting the rewrites/revisions of my work, though, I have discovered consent issues in other works that I didn’t realize were issues at the time. This is one of them. It’s a weird kind of consent issue, but still a consent issue (Buffy goes against Spike’s wishes). Still, this (to me) reads like something she’d do on the show, (which, let’s face it, had consent issues out the wazoo). But I wanted to put it out there that I am aware this is problematic and might rub some readers the wrong way.
Just a head’s up.
“You stupid, tweed-wearing, two-faced, son of a bitch!” Buffy screamed as she exploded into Spike’s home. “I ought to rip your throat out.”
Wesley, who was seated on the couch, blinked at her owlishly before bringing up his hands. “Buffy! I—”
“How could you do that?” She braced herself over the couch and shoved with all her strength, sending it crashing against the wall about six feet behind it. “How could you? I told you! I told you what—”
“Spike said—”
“Spike is sick, Wesley. Or didn’t you notice?”
“He insisted on—”
“Look at me. Look at my face. Does it look like I’m interested in knowing what he insisted on?” By the look on his face, she could only imagine what hers looked like, and it wasn’t pretty. “What I’d like to know is how in god’s name you thought that I’d ever let you get away with this. How you thought I wouldn’t find out. ‘Cause I gotta tell you, Wes…that took real balls. You get them on loan or something?”
“I—”
“Shut up. Get out. Shut up and get out. I can’t look at you anymore.” Buffy sighed and turned toward the bedroom, the raw pain that had chased her out of the mansion finally catching up with her. When she looked back, Wesley was still there, looking at her dumbfounded. And that was it. The final thread snapped. “I mean it!” she screamed. “Get out! OUT!”
Wesley jerked, nodded, and broke in a fast run for the door.
A slam rang through the air, and then they were alone. Buffy was still for a long minute, calming herself before looking to the bedroom again.
Xander had told her the poison had twenty-four hours of damage before it killed its victims. She had held onto that, though still half-expecting Spike to be dead by the time she arrived.
But he wasn’t. He wasn’t, and she could save him.
She had to save him.
With a deep breath, she clenched her fists and approached. The door was slightly ajar. Of course he had been expecting her. He had known that she would come here directly after seeing that Angel had been cured. After seeing that he had taken the decision upon himself.
Spike didn’t believe her. Didn’t believe that she loved him. And it was all her fault. Of course he didn’t believe her—of course he believed that she’d only said it to get him to drink. Of course all of that was true.
But it hurt. God, it hurt. And she didn’t know who to be angrier with. Him for not believing her or herself for giving him reason.
It was strange, the stupid little things that people did or didn’t do because they thought they had all the time in the world. Now, no more than two hours after she’d finally said the words, she had absolutely no idea what had taken her so long. There had been nothing before this. Nothing before loving Spike. He had given her everything. He made her feel everything. When she wanted to argue philosophy, he was her sparring partner. When she’d had a bad day at school, he was her masseuse. When she wanted to gripe, he was her shoulder. They were equals in everything they did. They entertained each other with inane conversation, appreciated the same movies, experienced the same irritation if patrol went too slow, and on those nights, they enjoyed trying to take each other out. And there was no pressure for conversation. No pressure for anything. They had enjoyed lively discussions and companionable silences. They fought and fucked and made love with more passion than she thought it possible to experience.
He had given her so much without asking anything for himself.
And tonight, he had done something she hadn’t even thought him capable of. He had sacrificed his life, at least in his way of thinking, to save her old lover. He had placed his own belief of her wishes above himself. Beyond whatever they had, simply because she hadn’t given back to him.
Something had to be done.
Buffy drew in another deep breath and pushed the door open, allowing a mini river of light to draw across the artless carpet. Spike was lying on his back on the bed, eyes closed. The room was heavy with silence except the deep gasps sharpened with pain that reverberated through his chest. His eyes were clenched tight with pain, and he was grasping the mattress as though to anchor himself to an earthly plane.
Oh god.
“Spike.”
He jerked at the sound of her voice, blinking hard. It took him a few seconds to find her, but he smiled when he did. “Buffy,” he said, his voice burdened and hoarse. “I…I held on…for you. Had to…”
She was crying before she realized it, her chest breaking. No, no.
“You’re here,” he continued. “So glad. Need you, baby. Need you with me.”
“I’m here,” she agreed, tugging at the collar of her shirt. Spike was a man of many things, but he was never weak. Never weak. It broke her to see him like this. “I’m here. I’m here and I’m not leaving you.” She was at his bedside the next minute, giving him a watery smile as she cupped his cheek. “I have what you need. You’re gonna be fine.”
A long minute passed, his gaze burning hers.
“No.”
Buffy shook her head, prepared. “You have to. You’re not leaving me.”
“I’m…not…” His face clouded with pain as he moved to sit up, his arms trembling with effort until she neared and helped him. The tremors intensified when she didn’t pull back. “I…told you, sweetheart. Won’t…won’t drink. Not from you.”
A choked sob rumbled from her lips. “Why?” she demanded. “Why won’t you? You won’t hurt me. You won’t. Faith’s fine. She’s recuperating and everything. She—”
“Faith’s. Not. You,” he replied, eyes burning hers. “Take chances…with slayers…who aren’t you. Who aren’t my Buffy. Not with you, love. Besides…” His gaze fell to her throat. “Couldn’t…demon…couldn’t stop. I’d hurt you…I’d…”
“You wouldn’t.” She grasped his hand and held it to her chest. “I know you, Spike. You wouldn’t hurt me. You would never hurt me. Not like that.” When his expression refused to soften, she released another sob and shook her head. “But this… this is gonna kill me.”
A humorless chuckle sounded through the air. “Me, too.”
“Don’t you dare crack jokes, you son of a bitch!” She was at her feet the next minute. “You’re…they do this to me, Spike. They do. Not you. Not anymore. You did once, but you came back and you promised me… You promised me you’d be here. That the only way you’d leave is if I left, too.”
He chuckled again. “Quite a talker, wasn’t I?”
She slammed her fists slammed against the mattress, fresh tears raining down her face. “Dammit! You can’t do this to me! This is what they do. But not you. Not you.”
“Do…?”
“Leave me. Everyone I love leaves me…in one way or another. You can’t do it, too. Not when I can save you.” Buffy collapsed to her knees beside his bed, tilting her head so that her jugular was inches from his lips. “Drink. Me.”
There was a heated pause. His eyes absorbed her. Revved her to life. Made her…just made her.
“No.”
She had never hurt like this before. Hadn’t known it was possible. “You can’t do this to me. You can’t. It’s not fair. You can’t make me fall in love with you and leave me. You can’t.”
He caught her eyes again, his own staunch in their resolution. “You don’t love me.”
Another sob strangled her throat. “How can you say that?”
“’Cause…if you did…you know it’d kill me…if anything happened to you. If you did…” He ran a long finger down her throat. “You’d never ask me to do this. Not with what it risks. I kill slayers, you hear me? I don’t know…how to not. And I’d never forgive myself…if something happened to you.”
“Stuff happens to me, Spike. Every day.”
“I don’t hurt you, Buffy. Not anymore.”
She looked at him incredulously. “You don’t think this hurts? You don’t think I feel this…you…with everything I…well, fuck you.” She shook her head, sobbing again, trying to ground herself with all the success of a leaf in a hurricane. “What can I do? What can I do to convince you that it’s real? That I love you? I’ll do anything. Please.”
There was a long minute. He watched her, sliding his hand into hers again. Then, slowly, he lifted her skin to his lips and caressed. Every inch of her tingled at the contact, but she knew what was coming.
“Let me go,” he whispered. “And live.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Would do anything for love, but you won’t do that.” Spike laughed again like any of this was funny. “But you gotta. And I gotta rest.”
“No! You can’t—”
“Tired, pet. Very tired. Waited …for you. Rest now.” He smiled at her once more. “Love you, Buffy. So much. Rest.”
“No! Spike, you—”
But it was too late. He closed his eyes, tightening his hand around hers. Holding her there. Anchoring her to him.
And he rested.
*~*~*
Spike had been asleep for thirty-seven minutes. And every second of those thirty-seven minutes, she died just a little more.
It was a battle of wills with them. Always had been. Buffy was so accustomed to getting her way that it hadn’t really occurred to her, him saying no. She could prod and push him all he liked, but the vampire at her side was just as stubborn as she was. This was something entirely different.
It wasn’t as though she didn’t know why he was worried. She knew the risks. Hell, she had been reciting them to herself since the minute Faith’s arrow had pierced his skin. She had known it would come down to this on some level. Her offering. Her blood being the thing that saved him.
But not him saying no.
Thirty-eight minutes.
Had she been honest with him from the start, it wouldn’t have come to this. She wouldn’t be lying in his bed, a bed where they’d made love more times than she could count. Where just a few nights ago something profound had shifted between them. She wouldn’t be crying tears that wouldn’t stop. She wouldn’t be breaking all over. She wouldn’t be watching him die.
Thirty-nine minutes.
The few breaths he took were reassuring. They had stopped her from making a scene when he drifted off, thinking that his exertion had cut down his remaining time and that she had lost him forever. He wheezed into the air as though his lungs were fighting for life. She wondered if he breathed so much because of his nicotine habit, accustomed to inhaling and exhaling, so much so that for his body it was natural.
Cigarettes made Spike seem more alive. There’s a thing that would floor the anti-tobacco lobby.
God, it wasn’t supposed to be this way. Vampires weren’t supposed to die long deaths. That was what was so great about them. Stake through the heart, decapitation, fire, sunlight. They had the easy life. No rules. No regulations. As much unprotected sex as they wanted. They were creatures of the night—sure—but so was she. Inherently. The Slayer was nocturnal because her prey was nocturnal. It was as simple as that. Lying by the man she loved, listening to him suffer, watching his strength abandon him, knowing he was going to die had not been in the brochure.
She couldn’t do this. She wouldn’t. She was Buffy Anne Summers, and she wouldn’t stand for it. Not when the answer was so simple.
Not when she could save him.
Forty minutes.
She wouldn’t wait any longer. Something had to be done and it had to be done now.
Buffy pushed herself to her feet slowly, steeled herself, and left the bedroom.
A year ago, she had been preparing to battle Angelus. She and Spike were nearing the anniversary of their unlikely truce. The move that made her being here with him now feasible at all. She remembered well how her heart had failed her as she shoved the sword through her first love’s gut. How it felt like the world had turned its back on her and nothing would ever be right again. How the only way to face herself was to run away from everything that made her Buffy. Her friends, her Watcher, her mother, and her duty. Most importantly, her duty. It had torn her in two. She had never thought anything would be right again.
The pain she felt now took a peek at that pain and laughed. Laughed hard, cold, and long. You call THAT pain, little girl? it jeered.
She drew in a sharp breath as she stepped into the bathroom that was stocked full with her unmentionables. Spike insisted on keeping things for her at his place at all times. Made it easier for when she needed something, he’d said. Made it so she didn’t have to go all the way home to get them.
She had always wanted a boyfriend who would give her a drawer. With Spike, she practically got the whole damn house.
The mirror above the sink opened into a cabinet full of her girly things. Mydol, aspirin, tampons, perfume, hand lotion, bath gel, and a whole bag of unused razors.
Buffy bit her lip and grabbed one of the razors. Then, as if in a trance, she turned and walked back to the bedroom. There, she divested of her clothing—it seemed weird being in Spike’s bed, wearing stuff anyway. Once everything was on the floor, she fisted the razor and climbed back into bed.
She took a long look at her sleeping beauty before sliding the protective covering from the blade’s teeth.
This was it. She drew in a deep breath and pressed it into her palm. Pressed until it hurt. Pressed until blood oozed around the broken skin and dribbled down her wrist. And yet, she dug deeper. Dug until she was bleeding in earnest. Dug until she was certain it wouldn’t dry up on her in seconds.
Then she shimmied up to Spike’s back and waved her reddened palm before his nose. He murmured and shifted, but did not awaken. Buffy pursed her lips but did not dishearten. She dabbed a little directly under his nostrils, then moved until the wound was directly in front of his waiting mouth.
Forty-six minutes.
The first sweep of his tongue sent a shiver down her spine, and her heart leaped fully within her chest. A whimper rumbled through his throat and he took another taste before she was done reacting to the first. And that was it. She had him. His hand closed around her wrist, holding her to him. He licked and sucked and vamped at some point, tugging her closer. As close as he could get her without flipping her completely over his body.
But it wasn’t enough. Not yet.
“Spike…”
He had buried his face in her palm. He wasn’t answering her anytime soon.
“Spike.”
He nibbled a bit at her flesh—not biting, but coming dangerously close. She felt her thumb press against an elongated fang and her heart doubled over.
Then she tugged her hand away, knowing that his nose would instinctively follow the scent of blood. Knowing that he could do nothing but what his body demanded.
It was with that knowledge that she pressed her bloodied hand to her throat. Then her arms were around him, pulling him on top of her as she encouraged his head to where she needed him most of all. Her fingernails ran lightly down his biceps, whispering little thoughts of wordless support. She felt butterflies fluttering about in her abdomen as he lapped at the mess she’d made. Felt her entire body respond when something hard pressed against her stomach. That she hadn’t been expecting, but god, did she welcome it.
Spike, still sleeping, raised his head to nuzzle her hair and murmur, “Buffy,” into her ear. One of his hands had broken free and cupped her sex. She nearly buckled when she felt him teasing her clit, thankful that she didn’t have to support her own weight. God, he touched her so expertly that she thought for a moment that he was awake.
But no. Looking at him, he was definitely not awake. Not completely. Not enough to know what he was doing.
Spike dipped his head again, growling into her skin. She felt the barest hint of his fangs against her throat. She tightened her grip on him and nodded.
“I love you,” she whispered. “It’s okay. I want this. I love you.”
And that was it. A shiver ran through him, his fangs pricked her, then slid all the way home. His fingers did too, slipping inside her pussy as his thumb found her clit. Buffy gasped, rolling her hips under him, and nearly sobbing the feel of it. And he was there, at her throat, drinking. Murmuring into her skin and drinking. Touching her, sending ripples of pleasure throughout her body as he took what his own needed. She had thought he would tear at her throat once he took a taste. He didn’t. As though he knew what was happening and knew to be gentle. As though this had been the plan all along.
Tiny waves of pleasure coursed over her skin, and she arched herself to ground into his hardened, cotton-clad cock. He murmured into her bloodied flesh at that, his other hand coming up to gently cup her face. He rubbed himself against her as he stroked the locks of her hair, brushing sweaty strands from her eyes. His mouth left her for a moment, then was on her again. Drinking her fully as he stroked her from the inside. Pushing her closer and closer to the edge.
Buffy sobbed softly and held him to her. The room was beginning to spin and she was more than a little lightheaded, but she honestly didn’t know if it was the blood or what he was doing to her. All she knew was that it was working. So much that she didn’t care when the world began to slip away. So much that didn’t register when he snapped to his senses. So much that even the orgasm that slammed her out of their world and into the next couldn’t force her back to consciousness.
“Buffy? Buffy! Fuck, talk to me, baby. Say something. Please! Buffy!”
Her blurred vision took him in. He was sitting up. Looking at her. Holding her. Sobbing.
But he was fine. He was fine. It had worked.
“Buffy!”
That was the last thing she heard before the world tumbled away.