A New Bird – Chapter Five

Angelus strode through the door in an ebullient mood.  He’d had some fun with Dru and now he could torture Spike with that as well as finish his first evening back with a side of Slayer.

They hit him simultaneously, bringing him to the floor and holding him there, Spike’s knee in his back.  Drusilla, trailing behind Angelus, shrieked and dove for the Slayer, sharp nails extended and shrieked again in surprise, when just before she made contact, she was thrown to the side.

Spike and Buffy looked at each other, puzzled, neither had touched her.  Then it hit Spike.  “Testing something, luv.  Trust me,” was all he had time to say before vamping and seemingly trying to sink his fangs into her shoulder.

Buffy’s eyes widened in shock, but she couldn’t move for fear of freeing Angelus.  She waited for the pain, but felt nothing.

Spike grinned at her.  “Stupid pillock botched the spell.  She can’t hurt you.”

Comprehension dawned.  The spell went both ways.

But Drusilla had come up behind them and she whispered angrily at Spike, “But I can hurt you, my traitorous knight,” and raised the stake she now held.

For a split second, Buffy calculated.  She saw the open door and knew she could run and likely live to take them on another day with reinforcements.  She saw Angel beneath her, the man she was supposed to love.  She saw Spike, the one who was helping her get out of this mess, which was ironically the mess he’d also gotten her into.  She knew he’d been personally responsible for the deaths of all of the people at the club and that he was an evil, vicious killer the world would be better off without.  She knew this.

Buffy brought the knife down into Angelus’s neck, severing it completely and losing her balance as he turned to dust beneath her.

Spike was also jolted, but reacted quickly, leaping up and grabbing his former love by the arms, nullifying the stake.  He looked into her eyes for a long moment before turning the stake back on her in one swift movement.  Then he dropped it, letting it clatter to the floor.  “Guess she was right.  She could hurt me and vice versa.  Wasn’t sure how messed up the spell was.”  He fell to his knees, head in his hands.

Buffy got to her feet slowly and went over to him.  Awkwardly, she rested her hand on his head and stroked his hair.  She was still stunned at what she’d had to do to Angel, but Spike looked far worse.  She knew what she’d done would haunt her later, but for now she had to function.

“Spike,” she said urgently.  “We should go.  We don’t know who else is out there or what they’ve been told.  We need to go.  If they’re yours, they can’t hurt me, right?  But they could stake you…”

He raised reddened eyes to hers, tears still falling.  “Go then.”  He saw she wasn’t moving.  “Go!” he said. “Get out.  Go.  Leave me be.”  Then what she’d said registered.  “Wait.  I lied before.  Spell was for me and Dru. They can hurt you.  But you should be able to sneak out.  Still dark, most should be out,” he mumbled.

Buffy felt her own eyes well up, the force of his obvious grief and the strain of her own hitting her at once.  “I can’t go!  Remember?”  He looked at her, uncomprehending, “The spell!  I can’t go out of what was it, one hundred feet or something remember?  Or was that a lie too?” she yelled at him when he remained sitting there, “Stupid vampire!  Remember?” She pulled him up.  “We’ll go to Giles and he’ll reverse it.  But you have to come.”  She looked into his ravaged face and was perversely glad for the spell.  She didn’t think she could leave anyone alone looking as bereft as he did.  For all she knew, if she left him, he’d run out into the sunshine when dawn arrived.  ‘And you care, why, Buffy?’ she asked herself. ‘One less killer then.’  She told herself to shut up.

“You helped me,” she said quietly. “Now, I’m going to help you.”  She tugged at his arm, looking back impatiently when he still didn’t follow.

Spike stared hollowly at her. “You already helped me.  We’re even.  Plus, I kidnapped you.  So,” He rubbed his hand through his hair wearily, “More than even.”

Buffy huffed in frustration.  “Whatever.  You’re coming with me,” she said firmly, tugging at him again.

Spike straightened, “Right.  The spell.  Need me for that.”  He started off.

This time it was Buffy who stopped him.  “We’ll see what Giles can do tomorrow night.  For now, I meant it.  I’ll help you.”
She couldn’t take the look in his eyes anymore and she pulled him to her in a rough embrace, mumbling into his t-shirt, “Maybe I need help too, you know?  I’m…” her voice wobbled, “not too great myself and I don’t know where to begin explaining this whole thing to Giles.  Tonight I don’t even want to try.  Not to mention still a little woozy from the blood loss,” she lied.  “You’re the only one I can be with right now who already knows what happened tonight and I don’t want to be alone.  We can go somewhere and just… I don’t know… wait together until it hurts less.”  More tears came, wetting his shirt.

“Why would you want to make me feel better, luv?  Makes no sense.”

Buffy couldn’t explain that it had something to do with the way he’d looked at Angel and Dru and everything to do with how he’d acted towards her, Buffy, afterwards.   “You didn’t know you couldn’t bite me.”

Spike waited for her to continue. “Yeah, so?”

Buffy looked up at him as though he hadn’t a brain in his head.  “You didn’t bite me.”

Spike stared at her.

“You didn’t try to bite me.  I dripped all that yummy slayer blood all over you and when you woke up, you didn’t just go all grr arrrgh and try to sink your fangs in for more, you let me go and took what I offered from my wrist.”  She faltered.  “Look, I kinda thought it was curtains for Buffy when I did that.  You were so hurt and well, vampire!  But you didn’t and you…well you stopped when you thought you were hurting me and…”  She frowned at him.  “I’m sure you had sneaky vampirey reasons for doing all that, but well, you didn’t hurt me.  You didn’t know you couldn’t and you still didn’t.”

A hint of the old Spike flickered across his expressive features and he touched his tongue to his teeth, teasingly.  “You sure you aren’t just angling for a bit of cold comfort?”  A faint smile even emerged when he got the predictable blush.

“Ewwww.  NO!  Pig,” Buffy said, but she didn’t move.  “I would slap you but I can’t.  Got to fix that,” she muttered darkly, but stayed in the loose circle of his arms a minute longer before pulling away.

He walked with her, whispering, “But what if that’s the sort of comfort I need?”

She threw her hands in the air and whispered back, “Shut up, Spike!”

She knew he was a murderer and once this fragile truce was ended, it was her duty to stake him.  She knew it was wrong on every level that she hadn’t staked him yet.  She knew she had to figure out why she didn’t want to and why she did want to give him a good head start before she went after him. Most of all she knew she inexplicably needed him right now.  She knew all of these things and she’d sort them out tomorrow. Maybe it was that weird, what was it, Stockholm Syndrome.  Yeah.  That was it.  That uh, strange, bonding with the kidnappers thing. She’d heard about it on a tv show once.  That had to be it.

“You know, Angel got pig’s blood from the butcher,” she said after a few more steps, deliberately not looking at him and keeping her tone carefully neutral.

Spike was repulsed.  “Bloody swill, pun intended, Slayer.  Don’t go getting any do-gooder notions about me.  This was the one and only exception.”

“Oh yeah, the kidnapping was a really good deed, Spike.  I got confused there for a minute…”

They continued to argue as he willingly followed her and they made their way into the night – together.

The End

End Note:  Ok, so this was originally supposed to be a long road fic (evolving from the unable to travel far from each other clause of the spell) where they slowly grew interested in each other and Spike gradually changed some of his evil ways but it would have been much longer and even the length that it is I just barely made it under the wire time-wise.  I didn’t want to post an unfinished story or have something else I feel guilty about not updating!  Hopefully, the new version still worked out ok, despite the rapid changes in attitude towards each other.  I’m blaming the bonding in a stressful situation!  That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.  Hope you enjoyed it.
Originally posted at http://seasonal-spuffy.livejournal.com/203020.html