sillyTitle: Reciprocal
Medium: Fanfic
Pairing(s): Buffy/Spike (mention of Buffy/others, Spike/others)
Rating: NC-17
Length: ~10,000
Timeline: S4, goes AU during Harsh Light of Day but set mostly post-Hush.
Warnings: dubious consent due to sex magic/claim, cliché-wallowing
Summary: What it all came down to, Giles told her, was that claims were largely thought to be fiction these days, and even then no one had ever heard of it happening in such a manner.
Notes: Shameless porn with a half-hearted attempt at plot and faint traces of satire… aka Moony’s I REGRET NOTHING fic. Many thanks to
herself_nyc and rahirah for speedy beta work. Thanks also to the lovely ladies who run this community. Concrit is, as ever, most welcome. Enjoy :)
Winner: Best Het at
wicked_awardsReciprocal
by The Moonmoth
Buffy clenches her fists into her pillow and writhes, feet tangling in the bedclothes, sheets sticking to sweaty skin. She feels ill – sick and fevered, almost like the time she ended up in the hospital, only there’s nothing to fight but herself. Most days the feeling comes and goes in waves so maybe if she can just hold on for a little longer it’ll pass, and she can throw herself into an icy cold shower and actually get on with her day. But she’s already brought herself off twice in quick succession and instead of taking the edge off it’s only sharpened it, honed it to something deadly bright. And to make things worse? She’s almost certain that downstairs, the Summers family’s own personal cellar dweller knows exactly what she’s been up to. How could he not, when she can’t help but think about him as she does it? God, she aches, and she wants, and she hates Spike for making her feel this.
*
She thought sometimes about that night and how things could have gone differently. If she hadn’t chased him and Harmony back to their lair when they’d shown up in the middle of that party, if she hadn’t forced the fight. If she’d ducked the blow that had left her blood on Spike’s knuckles for him to lick off. If he hadn’t been so obsessed by personally bagging his third slayer he hadn’t ordered his minions off, and she hadn’t gleefully agreed. If he hadn’t said those words – back off, she’s mine – and if Buffy had just kept her mouth shut. If she hadn’t said back, “Oh I’m yours all right, Spike. Your end.”
(If Giles had ever actually taught her about vampire rites and rituals; if she’d ever paid any attention to that stuff).
If Spike’s eyes hadn’t widened almost comically at the up-draught of magic.
If they hadn’t both fallen down like dominoes, the world turning black.
If he hadn’t, if she hadn’t, if, if…
*
Called by her thoughts he appears in her doorway, death-pale and wretched.
“Get out,” she hisses gamely, drawing the comforter up around her naked shoulders, “or I will throw you out head first.” Even so, her mom is away, taking Dawn to their dad’s for New Year’s, and the moment – the second – she’d agreed that she couldn’t go with, not with a vampire tagging along, some part of Buffy had known that this would be the result: fighting her body’s tidal pull towards his.
“Buffy,” he croaks, gripping the doorjamb so hard the wood creaks. “Please, love.”
He won’t come near again without her invitation, not after the last time. Her anger hurts him deeper than anything the initiative could’ve done, and he won’t risk that again, but she can see the effort it takes him to hold himself back. Can see the way he shies from the threshold when she thinks something particularly vicious at him. He’s the vulture in this scenario, though, and she’s the wounded lion. She’ll lash out until she can’t anymore, but all he has to do is circle and wait for the inevitable.
“It’ll be good,” he promises on a whisper, not even looking at her now, leaning his forehead against the doorframe. He’s sweating, although it can’t be from heat. Not like the bone-deep burn she feels, the itch she can’t dig out of herself. His cool skin would feel so good against hers – if only it wasn’t his. But the part of her that objected so loudly for so long is barely making pitiful, token protests these days, and really, telling her mom they’d be fine for the day while she drove Dawn to LA – that was the real capitulation. She’s already given up. This is nothing but pride.
“I’ll make it so good for you, Buffy. You’ll feel better, pet. We both will.”
He can feel what she wants, she knows he can – his needs and desires are almost strong enough to subsume her own and that’s saying something. But god, he’s gonna make her say it, isn’t he?
*
It was Willow’s damn spell that did it. As if the whole bonded-for-life-with-your-mortal-enemy, being-able-to-feel-his-feelings-and-hear-h
Until then she’d been able to put the sense of relief and comfort in a casual brush of fingers or a hand on his back to shove him around, down to some combination of coincidence, the inevitable satisfaction of manhandling Spike and la la la not thinking about it. But afterwards, the better part of a day having been spent sitting in his lap making out, it was impossible to ignore that touching Spike made her feel better, and made all the other horrible, niggly little problems that had been plaguing her since their fight go away. She got a good day’s worth of concentration after that, reeling out two only-slightly-overdue papers without once feeling manic or feverish, or having her train of thought rudely interrupted by his icky hunger pangs or ickier urges.
There’d even been a brief, blissful couple of hours when she’d actually believed that lifting one spell had also lifted the other. That lasted until patrol the following night, when through the drifting vampire dust she’d spotted a familiar figure all in black, who looked as confused, annoyed and – oh god – resigned to find himself, once again, inexplicably in her proximity as she did.
She tried, of course, because she hated him. And it felt a lot longer than a week, which was probably part of the problem. But when her mom, startled by the strain evident on her face, first made her spill and then offered a sort-of solution, she couldn’t find it in herself to say no. And besides, if she moved back home and installed Spike in the basement, she could get the touchies she needed on a regular basis without, a) waiting until she felt like she was going to explode and practically having to hug Spike to get some relief, and b) being able to do so without Giles’s looks of disapproval and faint nausea. (Which, totally understandable, but really not helping with the whole feeling better about the situation).
Great idea in theory; full of freshly-showered Spike abs and dangerously low-slung towels in practice.
And the worst thing – the worst thing was – after the Gentlemen and the whole not speaking thing, those occasional moments of being able to hear each other’s thoughts became an actual skill that got actually honed and there was just no going back from that.
So when he had her backed up against the kitchen counter, almost-naked and murmuring words she was certain were filthy (if she could just focus on them instead of the deep sexy rumble of his voice), caught between the desire to touch all that smooth-hard skin and the certain knowledge thrumming up from below her waist that it wouldn’t end with just touching – when he’d trapped her there, and she’d found her voice long enough to tell him no, tell him to stop, knuckles white and bloodless on the edge of the counter top, and when he’d told her to make him, and she couldn’t because that would mean touching him – when he’d done that, and her mom and sister had walked in to the sound of Buffy’s soft pleas and the pair of them inches from something that would send her crashing down in flames – when that had happened, well, there had been words. And it wasn’t that her mom was the interfering type, exactly, and she very rarely went for confrontation in front of her daughters (some hangover from the divorce, Buffy’d always figured), but apparently coming in to find her super-powered eldest cornered and practically begging not to be ravished, while her impressionable youngest stood staring goggle-eyed and making ew noises at Spike’s state of undress, was sufficient to stir Joyce Summers to harsh words. Buffy hadn’t seen her that irritated since she’d taken a piece out of Principle Snyder on parent-teacher night, which, huh, had kinda been Spike-related too.
The funny thing was, though, Spike actually looked chastened, pulling his towel tighter and sort of shrinking back into himself. She could feel his confusion, his certainty that she’d wanted it as much as him coming up against her mother’s assurance that no means no and in this household we respect a woman’s choices. Weirdly, he kept glancing at Buffy, as though looking for some kind of back up, like she wasn’t currently consumed by humiliation; she spent the rest of the day shooting him bolts of anger and disgust until he did it back to her and she realized how much it hurt.
But the lesson stuck, apparently, because it was two weeks later and he was going to make her say it.
*
She’s so hot for him she’s boiling. She feels like a soda bottle that’s been all shook up, tense and bulging with the pressure inside. The hand that isn’t holding the comforter in place drifts without her conscious input to her inner thigh and a sharp thrill runs through her at the perversity of it, that she’s naked and touching herself while he’s just feet away.
His eyes snap to hers when her inching fingers reach the sensitive crease of her thigh, the juncture between smooth skin and neatly trimmed curls, slick from her earlier activities.
“Buffy,” he groans, warns, implores, and the sound of his voice as she teases her clit makes her scalp prickle and her blood throb.
“Spike,” she retorts with a scowl, because she can feel how bad this is for him and she doesn’t care, she doesn’t care, she doesn’t want to care damnit.
His expression darkens to something almost scary – creature of the night here, oh yeah, easy to forget when you’ve seen him playing cards with your little sister and brushing his teeth before bed. A muscle twitches in his jaw and his eyes glitter with the promise of something bad, something very, very bad… Her breath hitches.
“You fucking bitch,” he growls, having figured out her game, and when he steps into her room and pulls off his shirt like he’s preparing for a fight, she lets her eyes flutter closed for a moment in relief, because he’s taken the bait and maybe she can still get out of this with plausible deniability intact. Then he’s naked at the foot of her bed and everything in Buffy stops to take in the sight of him.
It’s not like she’s never seen a naked man – vampire – guy before. Obviously there was Angel, and the disaster of humiliation that was Parker, but they were both, well, in the act. Spike, he’s just standing there, completely unashamed as usual, glaring at her in a way that seems almost like a dare. She can’t help but stare at his erection, so of course she doesn’t miss it when he wraps his left hand around its length and slowly begins to stroke. A noise escapes her; it sounds kinda like a whine.
“Think you’re right clever, don’t you?” he purrs dangerously. “Sending your mum and sis away, luring me up here like this.” He shudders when he hits a particularly sensitive spot, and now Buffy can’t look away from his face, eyes half-lidded and lips parted softly.
“Wha…?” she tries, confused and almost cross-eyed with lust. Shouldn’t he be…? Why is he still just standing there?
“Know what you’re feeling, Slayer. Know what you want,” he tells her. “But unless your mouth matches this up here,” he taps his temple with the hand not… uhhh… “then this little tête-à-tête goes no further.”
“God, Spike, you’re so…” she grits out, suddenly furious and on the verge of tears. “I mean, what, have you suddenly grown a conscience in the last couple weeks? Gotten yourself cursed or something? Why won’t you just…”
“Just what?” He leers.
She turns away as her traitorous eyes overflow. The words come out small and plaintive, “Why are you making me do this?”
She feels him stop what he’s doing, feels him resist the compulsion to come comfort her, to give in, give her what she wants. “You know why,” he says, something gentle and terrifying entering his tone. “Figure you knew the same time I did.”
She did, of course. The effect his stupid sex dream had had on her, followed by the way his mind had called out for hers that afternoon – she’d been half-way across campus before she’d even realized. But god, are they talking about this now? She doesn’t want to talk about this now. Or ever. That’d be good.
“It’s the claim,” she says, swiping at her eyes. “It’s just the stupid claim.”
“No,” he says softly, “don’t think so. But either way, we do this, Buffy, I’m not going to have you resenting me afterwards, or acting like you had no choice. You want something from me, you can bloody well ask, pet, because the martyr routine is getting old fast.”
“I don’t have a choice,” she protests, fist slamming onto the bed. It bounces, feeble and a bit ridiculous. Drawing her knees up she buries her face in the bed clothes, arms around her head like the sky is falling. It leaves her back fully exposed and the cool air on her clammy skin feels, for a moment, like his fingers. “Damnit,” she murmurs, “damnit, damn.” Because the thought has just occurred to her that if she doesn’t have a choice, than neither does he. But there he is, choosing.
“Buffy,” he says, and he sounds slightly closer now, like maybe he’s crouching by the side of the bed. She can see it in her mind’s eye, those blue eyes imploring, that way he has of tilting his head to take her in, like he’s trying to align his world to hers. She can feel how earnest he is now, not playing anymore, and it’s too much. “Listen. I know you’ll never… care… for me. I know it’s the claim making you want this. But—”
“Spike,” she interrupts, because she can’t stand to hear whatever’s coming next. The swell of complex warmth she can feel in him just won’t lead to anything good, and so she does the only thing that promises to derail him. “Yes.”
“What?”
Buffy looks up, and there he is, just like she pictured. “Yes,” she repeats hoarsely, “let’s… let’s do it. Okay? Let’s just… do it. Please.”
For a moment he blinks at her and she has a horrible sinking feeling that he’s going to make her be more specific. But then he tongues his teeth in that way she hates, giving her the dirtiest grin she’s ever seen.
“And they say romance is dead.”
He waits just long enough for her heart to start ratcheting up again before he suddenly straightens, pulling the comforter with him in a swirl like some over-dramatic matador guy, leaving her naked on the bed and feeling more exposed than she ever has in her life.
“Geez, Spike, little warning,” she mutters, absurdly embarrassed by her own reflex to cover herself with her hands.
“Oh, pouty,” he says, grin widening as he practically prowls over the bed towards her.
*
It had taken a little while to realize anything was amiss – slightly longer still to confess to Giles – and Buffy sometimes looked back on that time as annoyingly wasteful. If she could’ve just sucked it up and gone to him sooner, then maybe they’d have had an answer by now. Still, when she’d come to in that empty cave passage, disoriented and aching, with a memory less than clear on the details, she was mostly just glad she’d woken up at all – or at least with soul still intact. (She didn’t find out until later how Spike, waking first, had tried to bite her and somehow found himself unable… Ironic, given what happened with the Initiative not long after).
So she’d dusted herself down and stumbled back to the party, peeled Parker away from his buddies with an explanation she no longer remembered, and proceeded to seduce the son of a bitch (or at least, so she’d thought at the time). Maybe she could blame the blow to the head for that, or maybe just run of the mill, male-related Buffy idiocy, but regardless, they did what they did and she was close to coming when Spike’s stupid face popped into her mind. Suddenly she couldn’t stop replaying the evening, the timbre of his voice, the way his eyes shone when he landed a blow, the fluid movement of his body. So it happened that she came with a growl that would’ve been his name if she hadn’t stuffed it back down her throat at the last moment. Definitely weird, and beyond disturbing, but not something she ever thought about telling Giles.
Then Spike found the gem and they fought again, this time in broad daylight for an exciting change. It went on and on, blow after blow, and even in the middle of it all Buffy found herself wondering why it felt so good to land her punches, feel him throw her around. She put it down to catharsis, after her little scene with Parker, and didn’t think of it again for a long time after.
The thing that did stick in her mind, however, that first little prickle of worry, was when she had him down, arm locked and incapacitated with the Gem of Amara practically under her nose, and she hesitated. He was yammering away, making empty threats about what would happen to her if she took it off him there and then, and the thought came that she didn’t want him dusted. She brushed it away like a troublesome bug and slid the ring from his finger anyway, but the relief she felt when he ducked safely into the sewers was real, and she stood for some time in the dappled sunlight, turning the ring over and over, stunned.
Spike assumed it was her fault, of course, on finding out his little dash to LA after the gem was a no go. He couldn’t get more than a few miles away, he said, before the compulsion to return sent him crashing back into town. He’d gone on loudly, and at length, and with another fight ending in a stalemate rather than a staking, that was when she’d circumspectly suggested to Giles that maybe something was up.
Then there was the… the bumping into each other all over town, just somehow finding themselves at the same place as each other, be it club, campus or cemetery. And the dreams. Seriously creepy. And seriously not something anyone needed to know about ever. She wasn’t sure exactly when he stopped feeding on humans, but somehow she knew that, when he finally came to them for help insisting that he was off the juice, he was telling the truth.
That, as it happened, was what finally clued Giles in. Questioning a tied-up Spike about the whys and wherefores of his strange new feeding habits, Spike eventually admitted, with murder in his eyes, that every time he tried to chow down on some poor victim’s neck, Buffy’s disapproval came to mind, and it hurt him so much he’d had to give it up.
God, that had been an embarrassing half hour, as Giles stutteringly tried to ascertain from Buffy exactly what her own symptoms were, and when and how Spike had bitten her. Once they’d finally gotten that straightened out, the ‘dear lords’ had come so thick and fast that Xander had suggested smacking him on the back of the head to see if he needed resetting.
Obviously they all blamed Spike at first, and Buffy had to admit that seeing the look on his face when he realized he’d brought everything about his current predicament on himself had been beyond good, but that got pretty old pretty quickly, especially as he obviously hadn’t meant to claim her, and didn’t know anything more than Giles.
And what Giles knew? Didn’t even fill a page of his watcherly books.
What it all came down to, he told her privately after the others had gone for the night and Spike was safely chained up in the bathtub, was that claims were largely thought to be fiction these days, and even then no one had ever heard of it happening in such a manner. They would continue to research, of course, but in the meantime there was nothing anyone could do to get her out of this except commiserate – and suggest she get used to Spike’s company. You know, helpful stuff.
That was six weeks ago, and she’d given up waiting for her team to come through.
***
Spike is fucking relieved when Buffy finally gives in because for all his high-minded talk, he knows he couldn’t have held back much longer. Not that it’s like him to hold back at all, especially knowing that he could have had her a hundred times over by now, and a few weeks ago, if it had been this bad, he would’ve. But the thing of it is, Joyce’s terrifyingly soft-spoken scolding had hit a nerve, and he’d realized – once the mental track of expletives had died down – that if he pushed Buffy before she was ready, he’d never truly have her.
That’s the sodding bleeding heart of the matter, isn’t it? He wants Buffy. Not just to fuck into the next life, which he intends to get on with imminently, but to have and to hold. Jesus god this is bad.
Still, when he whips the covers off her and is hit with a cloud of aroused Buffy-scent, he can’t quite bring himself to care. Every fiber of his being, every sense, every cell, is focused on her and the charming way she tries to protect her modesty from his roaming eyes. As though she hadn’t just been frigging herself under the covers a few moments ago.
There’s a wonderful wildness in his heart as he plants his fists on the mattress, freedom to finally let loose and take what the claim has been pushing them towards since the beginning; makes his body sing, it does. Slowly one knee, then the other, eyes never leaving hers as she drops her hands to scamper backwards – a mixture of token protest and slayer-instinct, he can feel. It makes him growl, makes him grin, makes him harder, which he barely thought possible. And makes her naked, of course, fully exposed to him for the first time, acres of golden skin, shimmering with sweat. God, she’s beautiful.
“Gonna have you, Slayer,” he promises, moving slow as a glacier up her body, careful not to touch. Not yet. They’re both trembling with want for the other, but this is a moment to be savored, drawn out, and committed to memory. Her eyes are huge and luminous, fevered, her skin giving off heat like a furnace. He finally traps her up against the pillows, thighs over the legs she’s clamped tight together, hands either side of her head. Leaning down, still not touching, he lowers his nose to the curve of her neck, inhaling deeply. “You smell like heaven, love. Good enough to eat; gonna lick you head to…” he glances down her body, rumbling a chuckle. “Well, you know. Gonna have you every way I know and then some. Gonna—”
Buffy rolls her eyes. “Do you ever stop talking,” she grunts, gripping his hips and arching up into him, grinding his cock against hot, slick flesh.
They both groan incoherently at that and Spike feels suddenly on the verge of coming. Whip quick and taking advantage of his distraction, Buffy slips her legs out from under him and wraps them around his waist, dragging him back down before he’s ready. Resisting only makes the long slow drag of his cock up her slit longer and slower, and with a sensation so intense it’s akin to pain, he shoots his load across her belly.
“Gross, Spike,” Buffy complains, but the heavy rise and fall of her chest and uncomprehended lust shivering through her give lie to the words. “So much for vampire stamina.” She glances down at herself, nose wrinkling at the sight and runs her fingers through the mess; it’s the most erotic sight he’s seen in a long, long time. Taking her fingers coated in his jizz, he pushes her hand up her body until she’s circling her own nipple, watching as her eyes darken, lashes lowered.
“You wanted to shut me up,” he says, voice hoarse because fuck he’s still hard, or hard again, or just desperately in her thrall. “That’s one way of doing it.”
She doesn’t speak, but thinks her response so hard it comes through crystal clear. There are other ways? It arrives with a wave of arousal strong enough to make him fear that if he doesn’t get a move on she’ll come right then without his input, so he finally gets to business, and discovers what he’s suspected all along – that she tastes even better than she smells.
She’s also, it seems, just as wound up as him, because he’s barely got comfortable with his face buried between her legs before she’s arching off the bed with an earthy wail, convulsing with her climax.
He rests his forehead beneath her belly button as she comes back down, pressing soft kisses to her softer skin and reveling in that reciprocal happiness the claim brings him whenever he gives her pleasure. She makes the most adorable little whimpery sounds as he strokes her through the aftershocks with a gentle fingertip. It won’t take much to turn that fleeting relief into consuming need again, and he’s nothing if not dedicated. Also, kinda desperate for this flash in the pan not to be all there is.
Still, feeling her satisfaction, there’s his own relief to be had. He can feel it flickering cool and calm at the edges of that molten core, bubbling away in the part of himself he thinks of as belonging to the claim. It won’t last, he knows better than that. If there’s an ante, the claim can be guaranteed to up it, and just as fleeting touches were once enough to assuage the need, this too will pass into the realms of the inadequate. It scares him, when he thinks about it, because how much closer can they be pushed? What happens when the limit is reached? But mostly he doesn’t think about it. Too busy thinking about her, and her skin, and her lips, and her tight little ass. God, he hopes this wasn’t it.
“Hey,” she says softly, as though in response. “Come up here.” Hand threading through his hair she tugs at him lightly until he does as she wants. And then, with a hand on his face, she kisses him.
He forgets, sometimes, that she can feel him same as he can her. She spends so much time trying to ignore it and brushing him away that when she acknowledges the effect their bond has on both of them it always takes him by surprise. This is no different. It’s not the first time they’ve kissed – there was Red’s spell, and that one glorious snog he’d gotten out of her when she sprung him from the Initiative (before she realized what she was doing), a couple of other times – but this is different because she means it as something to sooth his uncertainty, the uncertainty she can feel in him from the claim, and that’s…
“Buffy,” he murmurs, overwhelmed, and sinks onto her, pressing her down with his body – pressing her closer to him. The kiss is slow but deep, the taste of her bursting in his mouth like sun-ripe fruit. He burrows his hands beneath her, between shoulder blades and buried in hair, to squeeze her closer still. She doesn’t need to breathe, does she? Seems not, as her legs and arms are wrapped around him like a python.
He barely notices it when he slides into her. Not because it doesn’t feel amazing to have her all hot and tight around his aching cock, but because it feels so natural, an extension of the kiss and the rhythm of their bodies. He’s so caught up in her and she’s letting him be, god she’s letting him, and it’s incredible to Spike because more than anything else, what the claim makes him crave is her intimacy.
*
Spike remembered Thanksgiving as the beginning of the end. It wasn’t long since Buffy and her little gang had sprung him from the Initiative’s underground lair and saved him from a fate worse than… well, worse than being bonded for the rest of his unlife to a snotty little vampire slayer with a stick up her arse. He knew full well the claim was the only reason she’d come for him, or even known where to find him in the first place, and so he was disposed just then to be charitable towards their ridiculous predicament.
Up until the rescue they’d been almost constantly at loggerheads, grating against each other and their newly formed bond like a pair of tectonic plates, eruption imminent. They’d both resisted its pull where possible and admitted defeat with bad grace where impossible, and it hadn’t made either of them feel good. However, it struck him as he watched her flail around the kitchen, corralling her friends like a prize cat herder, that she’d done something pretty special for him, and whether it was really for him was beside the point when you got right down to it. After days in the lockup, just being in the same room as Buffy made him feel like he could fly over the bloody rainbow. So yeah, maybe he was only just being tolerated by the not-so-merry men, but he could still sit at the watcher’s table and peel the damn yams for her, and try not to be too obvious about the way he couldn’t help but follow her movements about the room like a bleeding sunflower in the meantime. She didn’t say anything but he felt through the claim her surprised pleasure when she noticed what he was doing, and the sudden upwelling of happiness it brought back to him. Glancing over he caught her eye and the small quirk of her grin, and smiled back until that grin had spread into an embarrassed smile, eyes fluttering away from his like a well-bred lady of old. Addictive, it was, that reciprocal gratification.
It seemed stupid to think of it in such terms, but he hadn’t quite realized before that the slayer was a person, with a life and relationships with her friends beyond her role as savior. Sitting there in the midst of her private world, while she flapped around and wrung her hands over the turkey like it was the most important thing she would do that month, it occurred to him that this was the beating heart of her, and was fascinated. And Buffy, she had more on her mind than him for once, and let him somehow slip into the background noise of the day, not so much the focus of her ire as someone to share it with. There were looks, lots of casual touches, even a shared eye roll when little sis dropped a serving bowl. It was pathetic how good it made him feel, how accepted, when she turned to her sister and told her to “get out of the way or I’ll feed you to Spike.” Like he was part of her motley little pack, with a defined role and the wordless understanding that of course he wouldn’t really eat the bite-sized one, even when he did flash her some fang.
He had to take himself outside for a smoke and a stern talking to, after that. He told himself, without much gusto, that once they got this sorted out and were back to the proper order of things, then all this insight would be invaluable; help him finally take her down. He told himself that, so he wouldn’t have to feel so bloody deviant for feeling so enchanted by her. But he didn’t get very far with it before his train of half-hearted self-flagellation got thoroughly derailed by the arrival of the Chumash spirits.
She was magnificent, the way she dived at him and rolled them both safely out of the bear’s reach.
Yeah, some seismic shift happened inside him that day, that nonetheless passed silently and unremarked. Watching her mash those potatoes he’d fallen in love. Hadn’t realized it yet, but there it was. In retrospect, about as predictable as the bloody sunrise.
***
Afterwards they lie together in a sweaty tangle and sleep. When Buffy wakes, it’s to the realization that she didn’t dream – not of Spike, not of anything. Nothing but sweet, black sleep. Dear god, she feels more refreshed than she has in days. Weeks. Since the Will be Done spell, now she thinks about it. Which… kinda makes sense, given the reason for her sleeplessness and what they’ve just been doing. No denying it now, huh? Sex with the evil undead made her feel better, just like he promised. Revulsion tries to rear its ugly head, but she steps on it firmly because right now? She feels way too good for that.
Spike’s still out, though given that this is the time of day he usually sleeps, that’s not unexpected. They’ve shifted in their sleep, though not much, still close and holding each other, only now instead of lying where they fell – she half-draped over him, head pillowed on his chest – they’re both on their sides facing each other, one of his legs pushed between hers, her arm draped on his waist. They never retrieved the comforter but it still feels comfortable and cozy. They’re sharing a pillow and so close his lips are brushing her forehead, her breath in the warm hollow of his throat. It should be beyond gross, waking up next to a corpse like this, except because of the claim she can feel him, feel the life in him, and being this close while he’s so unguarded, she can feel how vibrant it is.
Drawing back a little she studies his face, notes the fine lines and contours, and wonders for the first time how old he is in human years. Older than her nearly-nineteen years, for sure, which is weird because she’s supposed to think of herself as an adult now she’s in college, right? So if she is, then Spike is too, or at least was at one time, and the thought of this punked out pest with responsibilities and, like, grown up stuff? Too bizarre. Suddenly she remembers a day not long after they’d both moved back in with her mom, coming home from college to find Spike bellowing threats after a shrieking Dawn as he chased her through the house, and how they’d both stopped short on seeing Buffy in the doorway, twin expressions of wide-eyed guilt. There’d been a book, she remembers, and a lecture from their mom later about respecting Spike’s privacy, and a feeling she couldn’t place at the time but now thinks might have been jealousy, because despite the claim and the access-all-hours pass to each other’s brains, Buffy often suspects that Dawn, bratty and nosey as she is, knows more about their undead house-mate than she does.
With all her thirteen years of wisdom, though, Dawn is right about one thing – Spike is really, really pretty. With the filtered sunlight coming through the curtains and the way his face has relaxed in sleep, she can almost see how she might find him attractive even without the claim messing with her head. Almost. It’s certainly easier to imagine without his noxious personality getting in the way.
Not that he was all that bad earlier, when they’d been… satisfying the claim. Once they got started and she’d forced herself past the fact that it was him, he’d been – not sweet. Definitely not sweet. Just something she hadn’t expected, something that had made the experience not entirely horrible. Not that she has much to compare it to; she’s had sex a grand total of three times with three different guys, and god, when you put it like that it sounds so bad! How many does it have to be before she’s a slut? Though it’s not like she wanted it this way. Angel she would have given anything to keep, and even with Parker she’d been desperate to make it work. Spike, at least, doesn’t have a choice about sticking around. Yay her. Barrel officially scraped.
Across the pillow, Spike’s eyes flicker back and forth behind his closed lids and he starts to breathe. Dreaming, she realizes – of her, the claim supplies. His contentment flows over her, as uncomplicated as a big cat on a sunny sill, and she can’t help but smile in response. Against her lower belly his cock begins to stir and she glances down to watch it lengthen with interest. She can’t deny he has a great body, lithe and ripped and beautifully proportioned, and it’s all to the good that that extends to every part of him; there aren’t many positives to this situation, but she’s starting to come around to the fact that this might be one of them.
Carefully lifting her arm from his waist she reaches between them to run a finger up the length of his not-quite-erection. His skin is vulnerable and soft here, and she wonders with a flash of heat how many others have touched him like this. It has to be more than her three, doesn’t it? She knows he was devoted to Drusilla for all that time, but somehow she just can’t imagine vampire lovers being concerned with something like faithfulness. Don’t they sometimes seduce their prey? That seems like a Spike thing to do. But the thought of him being unfaithful to her…
Possessive anger rises in her abruptly, sharp enough to put a frown on Spike’s face. Buffy feels oddly sorry for that, and circles his cock with her thumb and forefinger, stroking him gently until the frown is gone. He lengthens some more and hardens in her hand, allowing her to firm up her grip. He’s uncut which, duh, super old guy here, but the way his foreskin moves feels nice in her hand. Did she even touch him here earlier? She can’t remember. They were both so frantic and then with the all-consuming kissage. He’d gone down on her, though. He’d found time for that.
She’d never really thought about it from the guy’s perspective before, as in, actually enjoying it. Of course she’s both given and received oral sex but she’d figured it as something you did to please your partner, not yourself. Spike, he’d really gotten off on it. Like, really. She would’ve put it down to the claim except he’s perverse enough Buffy can believe he’d be like that anyway. Still, she’s starting to feel restless again, his unconscious arousal vibrating alongside her own like a low hum in the pit of her stomach, and maybe she’s feeling curious too.
Slipping out from under his arm as smoothly as she can, Buffy nudges him over onto his back. He goes with a small noise of complaint and her heart thuds in anxiety and excitement. It isn’t like she can do this without getting caught, but she kinda wants to get going before he wakes up. Something about being able to take her time without his scrutiny appeals to her.
He settles and she moves down his body, thoughtlessly placing kisses on his firm abdominals and the sweet indent of muscle over his hip that points like a runway to her destination. Angel had those too, she recalls, but Spike’s are more defined, and she kinda really loves it when he goes around in his low slung jeans, that line of muscle disappearing sinfully beneath the waistband. Now that she’s given up the no naughty touching rule, anyway. Can you enjoy something retroactively? What is that, like, horny nostalgia?
“Don’t just look at it, woman,” comes a sleep-thickened voice above her head. “You stare at it any harder, you’re gonna burn a hole.”
Crap, she woke him after all.
“Just wondering what it would take to pry apart the vampire’s dimpled knees.”
He raises his head to look at her, a little worried frown drawing his eyebrows together. “Uh, about that, Buffy,” he says after a moment. “Know that I struck a nerve or two that day, but you get it wasn’t serious, right?”
“Oh yeah?” she asks lightly. “Just kidding around in the sun with your best pal the slayer.”
“You know what I mean,” he says solemnly. “S’a part of the way I fight. It’s nothing personal.”
“If this is supposed to be an apology, it sucks,” she tells him.
“Yeah, well, I’m trying to get you to suck, so…”
“You’re a pig, Spike.”
He grins and raises his scarred eyebrow at her in a way that is not at all sexy.
“Look, love,” he says, “not to state the blindingly obvious, but of the two of us, you are not the easy one.”
“Aww, you mean it?” she asks sarcastically, taking him firmly in her hand so that he stutters over his answer, head falling back, his point made clear by the way he gives himself over to her with sinuous ease.
“Rest assured, Slayer, nothing about you is easy.”
Looking at him now, it occurs to her that if either of them is a slut, it’s him. After all, he’s been fondling himself in her general direction since the second time they fought, the big… man-ho. Weirdly, the thought gives her confidence and she lowers her head to taste him.
It’s good. She’d thought she didn’t want to do it with him watching, but with the claim and him being awake and all, she can feel exactly what he wants, exactly how to make it good for him, and she’s the one to decide whether to give it to him or not. The feeling she gets from teasing him is just as good as the feeling she gets from pleasuring him – as good, but different. For the first time since this started, she feels like she’s in control, and wow does she need that.
“That’s it,” Spike croons as she tongues lightly around his cockhead, hands coming to rest in her hair. “Yeah, so hot, you’re so fucking hot, Buffy. Press harder – ugh – come on, not going to bruise me.” He grips her when she takes him in, trying to force more pressure, but she’s just as strong as him – stronger, maybe – and she knows he knows it.
“I’m driving,” she admonishes, letting him go with nothing more than the touch of her lips around his shaft, a ring of warmth that leaves him groaning as it fades.
“Fuck,” he curses, heartfelt, as she pushes his hips firmly into the mattress. She feels the stab of lust shoot through him and can’t help but smile as she kisses his tip. He likes being put in his place, huh? Who knew?
“Yeah,” he agrees, as though in response to that thought. Hell, probably is in response to that thought. “Got a sweet little fantasy; you in leather, me in chains. What do you say, Slayer?” he pants. “Next time, my place? There’s a whole box of tricks I’d love to introduce you to.”
“Your place?” She lets the words vibrate against his cock. “You were staying with Giles before we took you in.”
“Sweetheart, for this, I’ll get a place.”
Buffy draws back a moment until he meets her eye. “Oh, so I am worth a second go?” And then she leans back down and bites him.
His response is an incoherent shout but she doesn’t need words right now because his thoughts are coming through loud and clear, and they’re telling her Yes! A second go, a third go, as much as you can stand, preferably until you can’t stand. The feel of his nails on her scalp, the sound of his voice (inside her head and out), the sensation of his pleasure – all coalesce to a deep, throbbing ache between her thighs. Spike notices, and moves his leg obligingly, giving her something to rub on. She feels like an animal, rutting against him with his cock in her mouth, and it’s primal and urgent but somehow not embarrassing. And this is different to before, which had been so tender she’d been kind of amazed to remember he was a vampire. Also? Pretty vanilla. Not that she, with her vast oceans of inexperience, is complaining, and at the time it had been what she wanted; what they both wanted. Just that it hadn’t been what she’d been dreading (anticipating) whenever she’d thought about how it would be with him – not that that was very often, or barely at all really. But there had been expectations, and for better or worse, they hadn’t been met.
This? This is wilder. This is more like what she feels inside, when she hasn’t seen him all day but has to restrain herself to sitting virtuously side-by-side watching a movie on the couch, willing him to drop his arm around her shoulders so she can get just that little bit closer. And anyway, vampires are kinky, aren’t they? So this has got to be more his thing. Later, he’ll probably want to take her doggy style or in the shower or something.
Spike makes a sound that’s half-laugh, half-groan, tugging on her hair again just right. She rewards him with a long, slow suck, tightening her hand around the base of his cock until he’s panting in time with her firm, quick strokes.
“Christ, Buffy,” he moans, leg muscles tensing deliciously, “I’m going to – Buffy.”
She’s not the kind of girl who lets go, though, so she doesn’t. A couple more hard sucks that hollow out her cheeks and Spike comes in her mouth, thick, salty liquid that somehow tastes amazing. She continues licking at him lazily as he trembles through another spasm, body scissoring up from the bed with such force that she’s finally dislodged.
Strong hands reach for her and pull her up the bed, and before she’s even had a chance to wipe her face he’s kissing her. “Felt you having some dirty thoughts there, Slayer,” he says after a moment. “No, don’t get all shy. I liked it. One day, you’re going to tell me all your little nasties out loud.”
She doesn’t know what to say to that, the idea faintly horrifying, so she kisses him back instead. He seems to have forgotten that their thing is only temporary, and she doesn’t feel like reminding him just now. Especially when he mouths down her jaw and starts macking on her neck, that sensitive spot over the vein that responds to him so strongly.
Restless, Buffy grinds against him, then pulls him on top of her for the feel of it. They wrestle around for a minute to the sound of his laughs, her pants, until Spike has her pinned on her front, lying on top of her to hold her in place.
“Little firecracker, you are,” he murmurs in her ear, worrying the rim with blunt, human teeth. “I could fight you all day and take you home at the end of it to fuck you raw.”
“You’re assuming you’d still be standing. Can’t f-fuck,” she stumbles over the little used word, “when you’re dust in the wind.”
“Haven’t managed it yet, have you? And now you’ve had a taste…” He thrusts himself against her ass, already hard again, and all she can do is moan. Her position, spread-eagled beneath him, doesn’t give nearly enough friction, and she’s so turned on it’s almost painful now. “Payback’s a bitch,” Spike laughs darkly in her ear, and she’s just marshalling her reserves to buck him off when he slides to one side, pulling her around with him with an arm around her waist. Lying spooned, he continues to rub himself between her ass cheeks as he thrusts one hand between her legs. The sensation of his cool fingers where she’s burning most hotly is enough to bring her out in fresh sweat, back arching away from his chest.
“Like that, kitten?”
“Yeah,” she says, when she can speak. Why not? It’s not like he doesn’t already know.
“What else do you like? Know you were thinking about it earlier. Do you want to get on all fours for me? Take it like a bitch in heat?”
“Ugh, you’re disgusting,” she sputters, even as his words make her wetter.
“You were the one thinking it,” he says, far too reasonably for how she’s feeling. She can sense how much he’s enjoying this, making her squirm, trying to making her say it. She slides her hands up over her breasts, almost involuntarily, tweaking her nipples to the same rhythm as Spike’s fingers on her clit. “Don’t go getting all ashamed,” he tells her, voice dropping to something lower, rich and dark. “I can feel it in you, a sharp little pebble in your shoe. But you were made for this, Slayer. This is life. There’s nothing more vital than this.” He slides two fingers into her pussy, and Buffy lifts her thigh to give him better access, hooking it back over his legs. “Tell me what you want, love. There’s nothing dirty or wrong between us, not here, not now.” But she can’t speak, can barely breathe, can only writhe and grind and glory in the feel of his hand in front, his cock behind, and hope he’ll figure it out because she’s so desperate to come she might crawl out of her skin. “You’re so raw,” he whispers, words vibrating against the racing pulse in her neck, “so untried, you want something you can’t even name. Let me give it to you.” He slides his fingers out of her pussy and trails them back, firm over her fluttering perineum and then further, until he’s fingering the sensitive place his cock has been rubbing that makes her gasp on every stroke. It’s only as one wet fingertip gently probes inside of her that she realizes what it is, and what he’s doing. “Sweetheart, let me give it to you.”
“No,” she manages, the vowel sound coming out long and throaty in mockery. “Spike, I’m – stop, it’s, it’s wrong.”
He doesn’t stop, and her own jerky movements push his finger deeper. She whimpers. “Told you, gonna have you every way I can. It’s been a long bloody time coming, love, and you’ve made us wait longer still, but you know – you know – we’ve got no choice but to have each other now, inside and out.” He sounds strangely anguished as he withdraws his finger and her hips jerk after it, needy despite the uproar inside. Then he’s lining himself up to her pussy and fucking in so hard she cries out, and again, but then that too is withdrawn and she’s left clenching on nothing. “Not playing by your rules anymore, Slayer, we’ve gone past that now. I can feel what you need, and I need to give it to you.”
The head of his cock nudges against her asshole and the sensation goes through her like lightning. Then he’s thrusting again, not hard like before, but insistently until something gives and it hurts but it’s good and she’s so hot she’s shivering but this is so, so bad, because she shouldn’t like this kind of thing, should she? But she feels herself bearing down, the draw towards orgasm gathering up from her toes, and her panic flares as bright as her pleasure. Her nightstand is right there, a spare stake in the top drawer, and she scrabbles for it urgently, fingers closing around smooth, familiar wood.
Spike catches her wrist, though, somehow stronger than her in that moment, murmuring “Ah, ah,” before forcing her hand lower. With a heartfelt moan, the rounded head of the stake rubs against her clit and then, everything stops. She teeters on the verge of coming, the polished wood too smooth to take her over, but for some reason Spike isn’t moving any more, his whole body trembling with the effort to pause with his cock in her ass (just the thought makes her coil even tighter).
“Tell me you want it,” he growls, cool breath gusting in great heaves against her neck, and oh, how is this fair? He’s going to hold her orgasm to ransom until she tells him what he wants to hear. Despair swoops in, because this is what you get for sleeping with the enemy, and really she ought to have expected it.
“Thought you weren’t – unh – playing by my rules.”
“Buffy,” he says, voice raw, and like a curtain lifting she can sense his distress above the clamoring of her own reactions, caught between the twin draws of the physical desire the claim puts on them and the emotional need for her acceptance. She realizes: he’s doing his best. Inside, something cracks, and warmth flows out.
“Yes,” she gasps finally, “yes, I want it.”
Oh god. The way he surges and swells and gathers her in, taking her slow but deep, so intense that she’s totally consumed by it. Her whole body is tensed, curled over in pursuit of the cresting wave, and him curled around her like a second skin, murmuring a stream of encouragement and praise. She’s never been so close to someone, so intimately held, cherished, worshipped. That’s what it feels like – not dirty, but reverent. And he was right again, earlier – what they’ve been driven towards is possession. Well she feels utterly possessed, and it’s amazing. She can’t tell, at this point, if he’s talking aloud or not, can’t feel her body or see. All she is is pleasure and light, need and completion. Spike is at her back, and inside her, and around her, and she can feel every part of him, the strange beauty of his dappled light and shade, and her own heart is open, she feels safe and loved, and for one drawn-out moment, it’s glorious.
***
Spike almost feels cheated that he doesn’t black out. Orgasm that intense, it doesn’t feel right, having to come back down the normal way. His limbs barely function, heavy as lead, but he tightens his grip on his girl anyway, because if he wasn’t before then he’s sure now – neither snow nor rain nor mind blowing sex can stay this vampire’s adoration (and wandering hands). Buffy makes those sweet little kittenish sounds again as he pets her, stroking her sweat-slicked skin and pressing closed-mouth kisses to the thrumming vein in her neck. She’s still heaving for breath, shuddering every now and then with aftershocks, flushed and so beautiful it could break him.
Who’s he kidding? He’s already broken. It’s already done. William the Bloody, Slayer of Slayers, brought to heel by this tiny little tumble of golden skin and shampoo-commercial hair. And he couldn’t give a single fuck.
See, the thing is… the thing is, he was never built to be alone, he knows that about himself. Never liked it in life, barely survived it in unlife, and maybe he should feel ashamed, how quickly his dark princess became supplanted in his affections, but then again the bloody bitch left him and he hasn’t forgotten why. You’re all covered with her. He snorts. Damn straight. He’s soaking in her sweat and come and enthralling scent and it’s entirely possible that he’s never been happier. It’s hard to believe how fast he’s fallen how far, and maybe none of this would’ve happened without the claim, but so what? He’s always needed a purpose, closeness, affection, almost as much as he needs blood, and for so long it was Drusilla, the bright star in his night sky, but now it’s Buffy and it’s – she’s beyond anything he could’ve imagined.
He listens to her body as her breath slows, pulse eases, temperature returns to normal. He’s never really paid that much attention to human bodies beyond their capacity to feed him, but hers fascinates him. She’s coming back to herself bit by bit, floating down to earth like a feather, and it amazes him how he can hear it happening. Slowly, she turns her head towards him with a soft smile and a hum of contentment, and nuzzles into him, seeking a kiss. He obliges, touching lips with aching sweetness, before those big green eyes open up and swallow him whole.
“Hey,” she says, a smile that wraps itself around his heart.
His voice is hoarse. “Hey.”
“I’m all noodly,” she pouts, soft and girlish. “My arms feel like noodles. Ow, ow.” That last as he carefully withdraws from her, thoroughly spent though she’s clearly still sensitive.
“Sorry, sweet,” he murmurs, kissing her on the nose as he rolls her over and draws her near. She still has her stake in one hand, shiny with her juices, and he can’t help but smirk a little. “Best use for one of those things if you ask me,” he says, nodding to it.
She looks down as though confused at how it got there, nestled between their intimate bodies, before blushing so deeply it makes his mouth water. “Oh god,” she whines, burying her face in his chest and he kisses the top of her head in mirth.
“Need to get you some proper sex toys, kitten. Something that isn’t quite so risky for yours truly.”
“Sorry,” she mumbles into his skin, before jerking back with a narrow-eyed look. “Wait, not sorry! You, you did me,” her voice drops to an outraged stage-whisper, “in the back door!”
He can’t help but laugh, bite his lip. “So I did. And it was a bloody revelation.”
“Mmm.” Her gaze goes unfocused for a moment and he’s awash in her satiety, before her attention snaps back. “But I said no. At the start. You didn’t stop when I said no.”
“You only said it with words.” Feeling his own hypocrisy, he tries again. “You said yes later.”
They look at each other, her expression open, her thoughts ticking over slowly. He can feel faint traces of annoyance, betrayal, echoes of arousal, and there’s uncertainty in there but understanding too. Even a hint of gratitude. She’s not so much complaining as processing, and that’s a whole universe better than denial and recriminations, so he waits patiently for her to untangle her thoughts. It seems to be taking her a while, though, and he loves her so he tries to make it easier for her.
“Look,” he says, “this thing we have, neither of us asked for it, Buffy, but it’s powerful. My control only goes so far, as does yours. I know you don’t want to admit it, but pleasing each other, meeting each other’s needs – that’s a big part of it. Might be all of it.”
“I know,” she says quietly. “Thank you, I guess, for not… And I shouldn’t have… But I just…” she shakes her head. “Why is this so hard?”
He cups her breast, thumbing her nipple. “Not right now, but give me a minute or two…”
“Spike!” She slaps him on the chest, and he pushes her hand lower, and things devolve for a while as they snog and Buffy melts into him like chocolate. “Okay, maybe,” she says when they wind down again, threading her fingers through his hair in a way that’s guaranteed to put him at her mercy, “Maybe we should, I don’t know…” she trails off, biting her cheek in consternation.
“What, pet?”
She sighs, kisses him. “I think we have to trust each other.”
He mulls this over for a moment, wondering if it’s possible to know someone as closely as they do and not have trust. He thinks of Drusilla, and the hundred and twenty years they spent roaming the globe together, and realizes, yes, it’s possible. But somehow, not with Buffy.
“All right.”
“Okay? Just like that?” She reaches behind her and comes back with the discarded sex-stake. “You do remember who we are, right?”
“Yeah,” he says slowly, because she’s being stupid now. “And I also remember that I can tell really easily when you’re lying. Ergo, trust.”
She lets her stake hand fall. “That’s not what I meant.” Spike raises a questioning eyebrow. “Maybe we should trust each other to… to know what the other… you know… needs.”
Inside, Spike feels a tentative hope begin to take root. “You mean,” he puts on a falsetto, “Spike, I hate having to tell you what I want every time I want it, so just work your big, bad mojo and do your worst…” he trails off into more normal tones as the laughter comes, finding himself flung flat on his back with a lap full of Buffy. She’s wielding the stake but the glint in her eye looks more dangerous.
“Oh, don’t stop there,” she says silkily, “I’m just dying for a good staking.”
Under her weight his dick springs to attention as his imagination leads him down the inevitable path.
“Yeah,” he says huskily, looking up at her in all her naked majesty, “reckon I probably deserve it.” He thinks about it for a second, before asking hopefully, “Got any handcuffs, love?”
~fin
*
Now with added sequel: Making It