Title: Like Moths to a Flame
Author: okdeanna
Rating: R, for language and sexual content
Word Count: 4,174
Beta: dusty273
For: seasonal_spuffy Round 11
Timeline: “Fool for Love,” Btvs S5, but it doesn’t conform to the actual episode as I’ve chosen to rewrite it and explore what might have been.
Warnings: does include a small scene with Buffy/Riley, though it isn’t at all about them or their relationship with each other during this time on the show.
Summary: Buffy realizes there is more to Spike than what the Council wants her to believe, but she knows she can’t focus on that fact without also focusing on her growing attraction to him, a concept she’d rather die than admit aloud to him…
Disclaimer: I do not own the Buffyverse. That gem belongs to Joss Whedon, Fox and others associated with the TV shows, comics and merchandising. I’m just a writer who loves the show and likes to write about its characters.
Like Moths to a Flame
Complete One-Shot
Buffy Summers wanted to hate him. Tried to every single time they were together. Yet something about him—his looks, his manner, or his snarky attitude—prevented her from lumping him in with all the other vampires she had gone up against these past few years.
Spike was an enigma. A vampire who didn’t quite fit the mold the world—and even he—wanted him to wear. Oh, she had no doubt that the blond pest was evil; she’d seen firsthand the lengths to which he would go to achieve his desires, his goals. But Buffy also knew there was more to him than that, than the edge of darkness he wore around him like a thick, weighty cloak. If there weren’t, he wouldn’t be so willing to fill her in on his past now.
She had to admit she kind of liked that Spike shared little minute details of his past with her, things that on the whole didn’t much matter but somehow made the story of how he became a vampire that much more vital.
As crazy as it sounded, Buffy felt like she understood the vampire a bit more now, even if she really didn’t.
“Is that it?” she asked pushing off from the wall when his voice once again fell silent. “Is that all you’re going to tell me?” Disappointment rose within her at the thought and shortly distracted her from the way Spike’s muscles bunched beneath his jacket as he set his pool cue to rest against the table.
He lifted a shoulder, pulling his cigarette pack from the pocket of his duster. He used his mouth to remove a cigarette then dropped the cellophane pack back into his pocket and flicked a match on the top edge of the pool table, lighting the cigarette and taking a long, slow drag.
She swallowed hard and looked away from him, disturbed by the little rush of something just beneath the surface of her skin as she watched him. She whipped back to look at him when he chuckled aloud, his deep merriment reverberating on her skin.
His blue eyes twinkled at her through a dense haze of ash-gray smoke, his astute gaze letting her know he hadn’t missed her reaction to his movements.
“Guess that depends on you, sweetheart.”
Huh? Had she asked him something? She thought back to what she last remembered saying and colored when she released she had asked him a question. She blinked and shook her head, grateful that Spike wasn’t looking at her and therefore couldn’t see the blush that heated her cheeks.
What was wrong with her? This was Spike, for crying out loud. Mister evil incarnate himself. She’d never been attracted or swayed by him, and she wasn’t about to start now. No matter how good he looked bent over the pool table.
The cigarette dangled from Spike’s mouth as he set up his next shot at the table, his gaze sizing up the balls and their positions with the scrutiny of a master. He released the cue and hit the cue ball a little off-center, a move that sent two striped balls into opposing end pockets with impressive ease.
Fucking show-off.
Buffy frowned and took a step toward him. “What do you mean it depends on me?” she asked. “I already bought you dinner and drinks, Spike. I’m not buying you anything else.”
He looked up from the table and smirked, his gaze filled with thinly banked desire—he hadn’t missed a thing, had he? “Not asking you to pay for anything else, ducks. Just wondering how much else you want to know about me.”
His tone said more than his words revealed, causing Buffy to shiver internally. She wanted to deny her interest in learning anything about him but found the lie stuck in her throat.
She did want to know more about Spike, and not only for slayage purposes. She was curious about him, where he’d been, what he’d done, what he’d seen. However, being curious about Spike would only lead to trouble and that she already had in abundance.
“Just tell me the rest,” she said, shooting him another glare. “Tell me how you beat the second slayer.”
“Now that, honey, is a story best told elsewhere.” Spike came around the table toward her, trapping her body against the heavy, dark wood with a hand resting on the edge, on each side of her hips. He used one to put out his cigarette, coarse smoke billowing up to her face as the fire went out. She coughed and tried to move around him; he wouldn’t let her go.
“What do you say to going out back with me, Slayer? Get us a bit more privacy…and room to,” he lifted an arm, fingered a strand of her hair, waggled his brows, “dance.”
No way did he mean that literally. Suggestion poured from his every verbal infliction.
“I don’t think so,” she said, moving her head away from his questing fingers. She narrowed her eyes and met his dark, lust-filled gaze head on. “Stop stalling and talk. I don’t have all night.”
Spike smirked again. “Am talking, been talking most of the night, point of fact.” He leaned in, burying his nose in her hair, and inhaled once. “Strawberries and cream. Hint of vanilla and,” he paused, sniffing again, and pulled back to stare into her eyes, “Eau de Slayer.”
God! Could he be any more appalling? Or more dangerous to her senses?
What was he doing wearing spicy, wood-scented cologne? He didn’t need it. He was dead.
“Stop smelling me,” she ordered, pushing against his chest, hard.
Buffy took satisfaction when Spike stumbled into the pillar she’d leaned against earlier and brought up her hand to block the pool cue he aimed her way.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” she asked, gripping the end of the stick with her hand. “Do you want me to stake you?”
Spike laughed, deep, rich, and long. “Have a bit of a time of it right now, wouldn’t you, baby?”
Spike pulled the stick from her hand, quick as lightning, and jabbed at her side with the rounded end. Pain lanced through her midsection, swift, sharp, doubling her over and forcing her to shoot out a hand to balance herself against the table beside her.
“As I thought,” Spike whispered next to her ear, his voice holding his smile even as his hand clutched at his head. “Some nasty got a li’l piece of you, didn’t he, sweetheart?”
She glared at him through the hurt and shot out a fisted hand, straight at nose, too quick for him to block it. “I’d do just fine,” she snapped, blocking his next attempt to attack her with a raised forearm. “Unless you want to find out just how fine I’d do, I suggest you cut the crap and tell me the rest.”
His amber gaze clashed with hers. “Not in here. You want the rest? We go out back.”
He headed for the exit that led to the alley, never once looking back to see if she followed him.
Buffy sighed, reached for her coat hanging on the back of a nearby chair and, after sliding her arms into its warm sleeves, she went outside after Spike.
Something told him it might. That once he’d tasted Buffy’s blood, experienced her essence flowing deep inside of him, nothing else but having her beneath him would satisfy his body’s cravings.
That thought terrified him.
He might be in love with her—or suspect that he was at any rate—but that didn’t mean he had to give her all control over him. That he had to let her inside of him, twisting, turning, and gutting him day in, day out.
“Okay, Spike,” she said, her annoyed voice sounding close, though he’d yet to turn around and look at her to know exactly where she stood. “We’re outside. Let’s hear the rest of the story.”
The sodding story. All she bloody cared about, wasn’t it? Learning how he did it, how he killed them.
Chit didn’t even realize she asked the wrong question, did she?
Poor, delusional, little Buffy.
How bad would she take it when he told her the truth? When he said what she wanted most to hear?
Would she stake him? Would he let her?
“Won’t help you,” he told her honestly, turning to meet her eyes. “Knowing how I killed them. Won’t do you a bit of good. It’s not about the fight, Slayer, never has been.”
He could see the disbelief in her gaze, and the doubt. It was the doubt he spoke to next. “See, the fight is physical, all about the movements, the choreography in the dance. But look a bit deeper, find out what’s inside, and there’s the real story. There’s how I beat them.”
“A psychology lesson, Spike? Bit beyond your skill set, isn’t it?”
Sodding bint had no idea what his skill set was, nor would she, if she didn’t open her eyes to the world around her. The world her bloody watcher kept from her. “Watch it, Slayer. Don’t have to be here, you know. Could walk away right now, let you live in the dark as your watcher’d like.”
“Leave Giles out of this,” she said, anger swatch in her tone, hands fisted at her sides. “This is about you and me, about what I want you to tell me.”
Spike scoffed. “Already told you what you needed to know. Not my fault you can’t read between the lines.” He stepped toward her, crossing into her personal space. “I didn’t beat them, Slayer. They didn’t lose because I was better, stronger, quicker. All that matters sod all in a fight to the death with a slayer and you bloody know it,” he told her, watching her eyes as his words suck in.
“Those girls lost because they gave up the bloody fight. They caught a bite of fear, saw their own deaths, and a part of them wanted it, ached for it.” Spike leaned in, his nose almost touching hers as he whispered, “Want the bloody truth? Here it is. Every slayer, whether they admit it or not, has a death wish, even you, baby.”
Buffy shivered beneath the weight of his words and pushed him away from her, hard. He stumbled back but quickly righted himself. “What’s the matter, Slayer? You know I’m right. Acknowledgement is in your sodding eyes and any vamp worth his salt can see it. All it takes is a glimpse, one moment you fail to hide it, and you’re done for, simple as that.”
“You’re wrong. I don’t want to die.”
But she did. They all did. World got hard, lonely for girls like her. Even with her friends rallying around her, egging her on, backing her up, she still stood alone, fought alone. Moment she realized it, moment she let it show, she’d be toast.
“Only takes one vamp, one good day, one glimpse into a death-seeker’s eyes for him to win a bloody fight. That’s the secret,” Spike said, his gaze never leaving her ashen face. “That’s how I killed two slayers. They craved death, they wanted to know what it was like, and I gave it to them.”
Her gaze hardened. “That’s bullshit,” Buffy said, green eyes shooting fire at his chest. “No slayer wants to die. No slayer just…gives up.” Doubt crept into her words though, her gaze turning glassy, unfocused, her irises shrouded with a memory he couldn’t see.
“They …don’t,” she repeated on a whisper then more forcibly. “They just don’t!”
Who the bleeding hell was she trying to convince? “They do,” he said again, his tone a mite harsh as he reached for her shaking hands, holding them against his chest. “They get tired, Slayer, they want it over, and in a single second, something goes out of them. They freeze, they tense up and in that moment, they lose focus and give in to their fear, their curiosity about death, and their opponent capitalizes on it.”
Spike reached up, touching her cheek with his palm. “Sorry it’s not what you wanted to hear, love. But you asked for the truth and I gave it. I didn’t beat them. They let me win.”
Tears glistened in her eyes and for a racing beat of her heart, he thought she’d let them fall. Then she blinked and the moisture disappeared along with her doubts. “I will never let you win, Spike. I won’t let you beat me,” she said, pulling her hands from beneath his palm and stepping away from him.
“No,” he acknowledged with a nod. “But then we’ve never fought, just danced.”
“You call what we do dancing?” Disgust lit her voice, as did doubt. “You’re crazy.”
Maybe, but he wasn’t wrong. “You and me, we’re not like the rest, sweetheart. When we spar, it’s not to kill, not to slay. It’s a sodding tap dance, a toed walk on a chemical line. There’s passion in it, desire, unspoken truths. But there’s no bloody malice, only pretense.”
Spike stepped back toward her, rocking back on his heels as he looked within her eyes. “Come on, Slayer, you know you wanna dance.” He bent forward, his gaze dropping to her lips and she gasped, her palms pushing at his chest without any real strength. “You want me to stop?”
He looked up, his gaze colliding with hers, and wasn’t surprised to see the need in her eyes, the silent want, the curiosity of what might happen if she let him kiss her. Spike did, slowly lowering his mouth to hers. One second, two, three more passed before her lips opened beneath his, the moist heat inside her mouth calling to him like a moth to a flame.
He groaned, wrapping his arms around her waist, hauling her against his chest as he dipped his tongue into the heated cavern, tasting her as he had in his recent dreams. She didn’t disappoint, her tiny, powerful hands curling into the front of his shirt as her tongue battled his for dominance. He won, though just barely, teasing her with little flicks then long, sensual strokes that made her gasp aloud again, low moans tearing from the back of her throat as she clutched at his shirt in her fists, as if she expected him to pull away from her at any moment.
Not bleeding likely.
Spike backed her up against the alley wall, hands sliding over the wrinkles of her shirt as he cupped her breast in his palm, squeezing it in his hands until she gasped his name against his lips.
He smiled, slipping his hand beneath the material, running it over the smooth expanse of her belly, careful to avoid the wound he knew to be on her right side, before moving upward, beneath the lacy cups of her bra. Her nipple hardened against his palm and he ached to watch it pucker, to see the depth of color rise in her pale skin as she responded to his touch.
“Wanna put my mouth on you,” he whispered, exploring the edge of her lips with his tongue. “Will you let me, pet? Will you let me get you off?”
She trembled at his words, her eyes shooting open to stare into his. “W-what?”
“Wanna kiss you some more, Slayer. Want my mouth here.” He squeezed her with his palm, licked his lips as her eyes rolled back in their sockets, her head falling against the brick of the building. He smiled and lowered his free hand to cup her through her leather pants, rubbing the damp leather gently but firmly. “Especially want it here, at the heart of you.”
She met his eyes again, and didn’t stop him as he lifted her shirt up over her breasts, exposing her body and the bandaged wound still bleeding at her side. His nostrils flared, his true face itching to burst forward, his fangs tingling with the anticipation of slicing through her skin.
He dropped his hands and pushed away from the wall, away from her.
“Go,” he ordered roughly, the erection at his zipper protesting his abrupt stop. “Now, before I lose my head and take what you’re offering to me.”
She blinked up at him; he turned his back on her.
“S-Spike?”
“Won’t repeat myself, Slayer.” He fought to calm himself, to ignore the blood lust zipping through his head, and turned to face her again, well aware that his eyes blazed amber fire as he met hers. “You stay any longer, ducks, and we’re gonna bloody dance. That what you want? You ready to dance in my arms, to fly apart beneath my body?”
Fear colored her eyes, rose into every facet of her face. Sodding Christ, but he loved it! Bloody craved it. His whole body desperate to feel it as it erupted around him, beneath him. He wanted her to fear him, to fight him as he took her to new heights, showered her with new sensations, branded her with exactly who and what he was.
He hardened his gazed and stepped forward; she shot around him as if Lucifer’s hellhounds beat against her heels. “No,” she said at last. “That’s not what I want.”
A lie, but one he’d give her. Tonight, at least. Happened again, though, he wouldn’t be so generous, not with her. Never with her.
Spike watched her reach into her pockets and take out the money she promised him, holding it out to him with a trembling hand. He took it, his fingers brushing alongside hers, and her eyes widened, flashed with barely banked arousal.
What the sodding hell was he doing giving her an out? She wanted him, now, here, and she might never feel that way again. Could he live with that? With the thought of never having her, never feeling her undulating against him?
“You better go,” he told her, fisting the money in his hand and dropping his arm back to his side. “Sure Soldier Boy will be out looking for you soon.” If not the rest of the bloody gang.
She nodded and turned to go; she stopped only a few steps away from him, speaking to him over her shoulder without looking him in the eye again. “Thank you, for what you did just now. We both know you didn’t have to, that I would’ve…let you do what you wanted.”
“Yes, but you would’ve staked me for it afterward.”
She met his gaze then, her own haunted and filled with recrimination. “No, I wouldn’t have.” She blinked and averted her gaze, walking out of the alley and turning the corner, out of his line of sight.
Bleeding hell! He was going soft.
Something needed done about that, but he doubted he’d do it any time soon, not with the gratitude in her eyes still swimming around inside his head.
“Some big bad, you are,” he groused to no one, adjusting himself. He waited a few more minutes then followed behind Buffy, careful to stay back far enough that she didn’t sense him behind her. It was only once she was safely inside 1630 Revello Drive that he let himself think about what he’d done in letting her go…and why.
Demons might not feel love as a normal being did, but it didn’t mean that they didn’t feel it at all. That he didn’t feel it. Because he did. For her. For Buffy.
He said a silent prayer it didn’t get him killed one day and turned to head home, content that his girls were safe, least for tonight.
She didn’t want to get involved with another vampire; she feared she already was, though.
But that didn’t mean she wouldn’t fight it, deny it as fiercely as she could whenever she got the chance. Because she couldn’t love him. She wouldn’t.
“Buffy? That you?” Riley asked, his dark head peeking up from the left side of her bed. “How’d it go tonight? You get what you wanted out of Spike?”
Oh yeah, and then some. “It went fine. He…cooperated, for a change.”
“That’s good. But you got in a couple of good hits, right?”
She nodded and walked to her closet to undress. “Yeah, I got in a couple of good ones.” But so did he, she thought frowning as she lifted her shirt up over her head, her breasts still tingling from where he’d branded her with his skin. “I may have even broken his nose,” she lied, feeling her cheeks heat with the weight of guilt. “It looked bad when I left him.”
God, what had she been thinking? Letting Spike touch her like that? He was evil. He was a vampire. He…was kinda hot, she admitted morosely, popping the snap open on her pants. Had he really touched her like that? Had he made her body sing for him, ache for him?
“Buffy? You okay? He didn’t…try anything, did he?”
Buffy stumbled as she kicked out of one boot, turning to face the man on the bed with wide eyes.
“What? Why would you think that?”
Riley sat up in the bed, lifting a shoulder, his eyes watching her, studying her. “I’ve seen the way he looks at you lately, Buffy. It isn’t how a predator looks at his prey. I think he wants you.”
“Ew, no way. Spike doesn’t want Slayers; he kills them. He told me about it tonight.” Among other things. “I think you’re imagining things, Riley.”
“Maybe, but you’re not just a Slayer, Buffy. You’re also you, an incredible woman any guy would be lucky to have in his life, or unlife, in Spike’s case.” His brows furrowed, disbelief etched into his gaze, tenseness alight inside his posture. “You sure he didn’t try anything? Nothing at all?”
Buffy shook her head, finished dressing in her pajama tank and shorts, and headed for the bed, kneeling on it and fighting back a cringe as he reached for her, his hands holding her much the same way Spike had only a half hour before. “I’m sure,” she repeated softly, closing her eyes as she laid her head against Riley’s chest. “But even if he had, I wouldn’t have let him get away with it. You know that.”
Riley chuckled against her, his large, callused hands skimming her bare skin beneath her shirt. “Yeah, I guess I do.” He kissed the side of her neck and moved away, patting the mattress next to him. “Come on, let’s get some sleep. Another night of rest will help you heal.”
Yeah, but it wouldn’t erase the memory of Spike kissing and touching her.
What would she do if she dreamed of him? If she called out his name in the middle of her sleep?
Riley would never forgive her for lying to him, or for letting Spike get through her defenses the way she had.
Buffy frowned, climbing beneath the covers to join Riley in bed.
Maybe she’d ask Willow to perform that forgetting spell she wanted to do last year after all. Might be the only recourse she had to fight her attraction to Spike, especially now that he’d reminded her of his taste, and his touch.
“You’re shivering,” Riley murmured, wrapping his arms around her, pulling her back against his chest, tight enough to make her claustrophobic. “Didn’t you wear a coat tonight?”
She had. She’d worn many things tonight, but none of them had protected her. Not against Spike, and not against herself, either.
“I’m fine, just tired really. It’s been a long day.”
Riley nodded against the top of her head and draped his legs over hers. “Get some sleep. We’ll talk more in the morning.”
Unless she called another man’s name out in her sleep, she thought mournfully.
Buffy drifted into a fitful sleep, one where Riley tried to kill her for lying to him and Spike stepped in to save her, despite the pain it would cause him to do so. When she awoke the next morning, his name hovered on her lips but thankfully, the man sleeping next to her never heard her utter it.
*FIN*
Originally posted at http://seasonal-spuffy.livejournal.com/433720.html
