Title: Fiend with Benefits
Author: DarkVoid116
Rating: NC-17
Setting: pre-series, AU S5
Word Count: 2700ish
Prague – May, 1997
Drusilla let her body sway naturally to the sweet and solemn music, Spike’s hands clutching her hips possessively as they danced the peaceful night away. Her sweet prince was always doting on her, making her feel special, even when she used to act naughty and chose Daddy again and again instead of him. Spike always stood firm in his belief that she’d one day choose him.
The part of her mind that kept its wits knew she should forget about Daddy, but the pixies never wavered when whispering about all the possible futures to her: she could bring him back if she played everything right.
Visions of evil blue demons and stone statues fluttered about in her mind. It would be simple to follow the stars and have him back, but Drusilla knew, deep down, that it would only be for a little while. Angelus would be lost again to the depths of hell and then to his blonde dollie, and she’d have only succeeded in hurting her dark prince with her infidelity, again.
Spike deserved better. He always had. He deserved someone who could love him wholly like he himself loved her, someone who’d dance with the pixies out in the open, lavish him with devotion, praise, and sweet nothings; he deserved someone who put him first in their world. She’d never be able to do that.
Drusilla wanted to be that devoted woman for him – she really did. The part of her brain that had survived her Daddy’s games with its rational thought intact, the one that she shoved deep down and kept buried, knew that Spike deserved someone better.
She angled her face towards her lover, admiring not for the first time the way the serene light shone off his face. He was so pretty. He’d been so beautiful in that alleyway as William, ensconced sadness and heartsick admiration, just calling out to her, his emotional turmoil lighting up the dark night.
Shaken out of the memory, she tenderly reached up and kissed him softly, sighing when his beautiful blue eyes glanced down with love.
She needed to do this for her knight, even if it meant never getting her Daddy back. The pixies told her she could do it. If she avoided hunting for a few days and stayed indoors, she could help her prince, could lead him down a different path, gift him the loving relationship that she herself couldn’t offer.
Satisfied that she could do one thing right for her lover, Drusilla stayed away from the mobs encasing the Prague streets.
Sunnydale – October, 2000
Buffy moved her hips in sync with the sound of Nickel’s music filling The Bronze. She glanced at the so-not-subtle vampire scoping out the perimeter with a mix of horrified fascination and trepidation. A few years ago, her mind would’ve just thought hottie! but her vampdar tingles had gotten better with time. He was most definitely a bloodsucker, and probably not a fledge if he knew enough to watch her before acting.
He was also clearly hot as hell, only the second vamp she’d ever thought that about. She could see his stupidly sexy smirk through the foggily lit bar, the singer’s I’m one step away reaching her ears over her nerves.
She tried to dance her evening away without incident, deciding that even if he was unobtainable, she’d still give him a little tease, a little ass sway, see if she could get him all riled up. She clasped her hands above her head and turned away from him, bumping her hips lightly into the nearest guy, smiling when her peripheral vision caught him still looking intently, watching her like a hawk.
She glided across the dance floor with grace, keeping it so she was within his sight at all times. Any time she caught his expression, she spied poorly shielded lust just beneath the surface, the type of shameless longing she found made him hotter. She loosely considered dancing closer to him, circling around him. Maybe he’d be able to smell the onset of her arousal? Could a vampire do that? She’d also be able to tell if her teasing had given him a hard-on. Maybe she’d be able to grind her ass into him a little bit. God, she normally didn’t find guys so fucking hot so quickly. She wished he wasn’t a damned vampire.
Buffy allowed herself a small smile when she noticed her friends also watching her from across the club with weird expressions on their faces. They were all there tonight, even Cordy and Oz. They’d taken the whole night off to spend with the rest of their little gang. With sophomore year beginning and most of them working, she was happy all eight of them had been free.
Maybe later, Buffy’d be able to manage some girl time with Cordy. God knew they needed a chance to catch up. Cordy would probably regale her with tales of whichever guy she was hooking up with now. Cordelia didn’t want to settle yet and really wanted to enjoy her adolescent years and take advantage of everything life as a hot twenty-something in southern California had to offer. With Xander, Willow, and Faith in long-term committed relationships, it was a welcome breath of fresh air to have someone else be single with her. God knew she was happy to be single right now.
She let the simple beat of the weirdly introspective music wash over herself again, resuming her dancing. She felt so thankful that she’d been – for the most part, at least – able to avoid major heartbreak over the years, even last year.
There’d been the one scare when she’d grown close to Angel, but thankfully Ms. Calendar had helped her out there, nipping that in the bud before she could get her heart shattered.
Thankfully, her vamp stalker chose that moment to make his move. Her ears picked up the low sound of the blond vampire whispering to the bartender about a commotion outside involving biting and rabid dogs and whatever other weird stuff the police in this town believed. Mr. Vampire looked in her direction as he fed the bartender the lies, smirking that infuriatingly attractive smirk.
Buffy knew she was being played like a fiddle, but decided to play along and turn the situation to her advantage. She’d encountered plenty of dumb vampires; a vampire using a ruse to lure her into a false sense of security was a weirdly welcome change of pace.
She wasn’t some newly-chosen slayer, though. She knew The Bronze’s layout like the back of her stake. She patted her pocket to make sure she had said Mr. Pointy – a mailed gift from Faith’s predecessor that she now kept attached to her hip at all times – and strode towards The Bronze’s back door, towards the alleyway. She spied her friends giving her concerned looks out of the corner of their eyes, but they stayed put, trusting her to take care of whatever issue was afoot. She liked that about them.
By the time she got outside, Mr. Hot Vampire had made himself scarce. She could still feel his signature on the periphery, taunting her with its familiarity, but it was faint.
In front of her, though, a large, bulky brown-haired vampire had cornered a young brunette woman, his fangs moments away from puncturing her neck. “Hey, Smelly. Whatcha got there?” she quipped. She brandished her weapon. Her watcher had eventually drilled into her head that her enemies always had their weapon. After a few brief scares, she’d gotten that message loud and clear.
“Slayer,” the vampire hissed at her, yellow eyes glaring daggers.
“Slayee,” she returned. They just made it so dang easy. Big Ugly jabbed a fist out at her, but she’d expected he’d try that and easily ducked around it, instead balling her fist and striking his shoulder. She quickly followed with a kick that knocked him back several feet.
Now that she had some separation, she reached into her back pocket and removed her stake. The vampire’s eyes widened in fright at the sight, all pretense of calm abandoned. “Spike!” he shrieked, just before Buffy brought her stake down through his heart.
She slowly turned around when she heard a slow clap behind her, not at all surprised to find Mr. Vamp Hottie had reappeared. She was struck by his cheekbones at the close distance. When she’d been dancing, he’d been too far away to really see the angle of his face. Holy shit, was he hot. Damn. Why do they all have to be vampires? Buffy thought to herself, a bit dismayed. He was easily the hottest man she’d seen in a long while.
“Nice work, luv,” the vampire complimented her. Spike, she realized, recalling what his dust buddy had yelled out.
“Who are you?” she asked, deciding to play dumb. She was almost positive he’d come to seek her out. Why, she had no idea. What kind of vampire was arrogant enough to seek the slayer out? Did he have a death wish?
“Name’s Spike. You’d do well to remember it,” he taunted, running his tongue tantalizingly over his bottom lip so quickly she nearly missed it. “And you’re one of the current vampire slayers,” Spike said, with no inflection. He was just telling her like it was. “Buffy Summers, I hear.”
She grinned a little at that. He wasn’t the first to know her before arriving in Sunnydale, but it’d been awhile. “That’s me,” she agreed easily. “What do you want?” She watched as his eyes roamed over her body, pausing as they landed on her various parts.
“Oh, you know. A mean cuppa. A good shag. To rip your entrails through your throat. The usual,” Spike told her, a nastier-than-before smirk finding its way to his face when he drew out the word ‘shag’ with another tongue roll. The British accent didn’t normally do anything for her, but hoo boy, this one oozed confidence and sexiness.
Buffy felt her cheeks brighten just slightly at her straying thoughts. He was still a vampire – likely a super evil one! – but now her mind continued to play back the image of Spike shagging her. She glanced down at his groin, not surprised to see he was growing visibly hard at their byplay. “That might be a little difficult for you to do if I stake you first.” She shrugged. “I’ve defeated some damned tough enemies before. You don’t scare me.”
Spike just grinned back at her. It was starting to infuriate her that he wasn’t more scared of her. He wasn’t treating her as a serious threat. “I’m smarter than your average vampire, luv.”
“I’m smarter than your average slayer,” she bantered back, twirling her stake as she approached him. He stood in a defensive stance, still in his human face. She had difficulty keeping herself as collected and knew that, three years ago, she’d have been putty in his hand if he’d played it the same way.
She stopped a few feet in front of him, waiting for his next move. He seemed hesitant and she even thought she saw a true spark of lust in his eyes. The way he was looking at her, like she was good enough to lick inch by inch, made her squirm in anticipation. The blurry lines between wanting to fight him and fuck him were quickly converging. Evil! her mind reminded her, but, well… she was smart enough now to know that evil had layers and that she could separate her sexuality from her duty. It wasn’t like her lusty thoughts meant she wanted to marry him. She still wanted to kill him. His lips were moving then, but it took a second for the words to reach her.
“Are we doing this, Slayer? Or would you like to reschedule this? I can kill you on Saturday, if you’d prefer,” Spike offered. If his posture hadn’t remained defensive, if he hadn’t stayed agile and ready to pounce, she’d almost have thought his words were friendly. She still almost did.
“We are,” she said, finally leaping forward, aiming a kick at his right hip. She anticipated him moving to grasp her leg and pulled it back at the last second; she’d maintained her equilibrium and pivoted so she could sweep him off his feet with the element of surprise. He was better than she’d thought, though, and read her move. He gave her a quick shove towards the wall, slipping into his demonic visage.
Oh, good, he was finally taking her seriously. “You’re good, luv. Best I’ve fought since the slayer in New York.”
Oh. He’d fought slayers. The thought should have scared her, but merely excited her. He was good. “You kill her?”
“Sure did. She begged for her life,” Spike bragged. He moved to hit her, swinging his right fist in an uppercut towards her belly.
She leapt into the air, keeping her legs together to keep from giving him an opening, and used the wall to launch herself towards him with an outstretched fist. It seemed like using her surroundings had caught him by surprise finally, as she landed her hit squarely on the shoulder, causing him to stagger back.
Spike recovered quickly, grabbing her wrist and spinning them so he held her at an arm’s length, his own back to the wall. She stared up at his ocean blue eyes, seeing past the demon and back to the version of him that had so utterly captivated her in The Bronze. His own eyes fluttered as he surely realized the fight was making her hot. She was pretty certain he was growing hot too. He spun them back around, the evidence of his arousal seated against her thigh.
He leaned in closer to her, baring his fangs as he breathed onto her neck. He didn’t even give her the satisfaction of hesitating when she dabbed Mr. Pointy against his upper chest. Instead, he just turned her head towards him. She could see the strong desire behind his guarded blue eyes as he pushed her hard against the wall, lifting her by the hips so her back scraped the wall lightly, her stake falling uselessly to the ground.
Damn, if he had been playing her to get her into a vulnerable position, he’d succeeded. “Guess you are smarter than your average vampire,” she conceded, hoping he’d take it to mean a compliment over their stalled fight.
Even though he’d given her the chance to voice her disapproval by leaning in slowly, he still surprised her when he kissed her hard and fast, holding their mouths together just long enough for her to begin responding to the sensations before pulling away, sliding his pink tongue across the tops of his bottom teeth one final, annoying time. “I’m also hotter,” he whispered against her mouth, and, fuck, he was right about that.
“I’m hotter than your average slayer,” she replied, moving her hips slowly under his touch.
“That you are, luv. That you are,” he agreed easily, kissing her one more time. He sauntered away then, leaving her to move her fingers to graze over her lips, dazed, wondering how their super fun fight had dissolved into heavily making out.
His annoying bark of laughter trailed back at her. His arrogance bothered her, but more than that, the connection they’d had after just one kiss made her question what the fuck she was doing with herself. She was the damned chosen one, hand-picked by the gods to slay vampires, not play tonsil hockey with drop-dead gorgeous blond vampires possessing swoon-worthy smirks. Even her Angel-shaped romance hadn’t left her so hot and bothered after just one kiss-based meeting.
She really hoped he didn’t show up again, because she didn’t know what she’d do with a second meeting like that. She was playing a gamble that her gut was right to let him live. Or she just found him that hard to resist. She wasn’t sure which one was the true reason.
Well, fuck.
Notes: a big thanks to bewildered & yellowb for beta-reading, and to Twinkles for the wonderful banner. Some dialogue taken from 2×03, “School Hard”. Future chapters will be posted at Elysian Fields.
Originally posted at https://seasonal-spuffy.livejournal.com/696135.html
