Taming the Beasts

Disclaimer: I don't own them. Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy do. All hail Joss.
Spoilers/Ships: This is AU. Buffy/Spike/Angel. Xander/Anya. Willow/Tara.
Distribution: Sure, just let me know.
Feedback: Is always nice. DarkRhiannon@aol.com
Rating: NC-17. I mean it. Go away if you're too young.
*Author's Note: What has come before: Truly, if you want to read this, you'd be better off starting with the beginning of Breaking a Slayer. This is the sequel. If you don't wish to do so, however, here is a quick synopsis:

This is completely AU from the ep when Faith took Buffy's body and got it into serious trouble before switching back. Buffy was violently gang raped and left for dead. The Scoobies were all gone for the summer, including Giles, so Buffy had no one to help her.

Spike found her and, for reasons he couldn't truly explain even to himself, he saved her. Once patched up, she sped to LA to try to save Angel from Faith. That went as badly in this AU as it did in the series. She returned to Sunnydale only to discover that her mother had died of a massive aneurysm while she was gone. Kicked out of school, and unable to keep the house, Buffy was living (barely) in a cheap motel and slowly wasting away from self-neglect and severe psychological trauma from the aftermath of the rape when Spike intervened and told Angel what was going on. The two vampires, united in their efforts to save Buffy, slowly drew her back from the edge. During that time, the three slowly became lovers (well as much as Angel's curse and Buffy's traumatized body and soul permitted, anyway).

Spike's price for his help was Angel's assistance in removing the chip that plagued him so. Angel arranged for it, against Buffy's wishes, but something went wrong and Spike wound up in a coma. Angel tried everything to wake his unruly Childe (yes in all of my AUs Spike is Angel's childe not Dru's - that's what he said in School Hard), finally enlisting Buffy's help. She gave Spike her own blood to save him, but in the process, he Marked her as his Mate, much as Angel had done when Faith poisoned him. Tied irrevocably to not one, but two, vampires, Buffy began undergoing strange changes and unexpected side effects, which were intensified by Willow and Tara's spell to allow Buffy to tap into her Slayer strength.

Angel, in the meantime, was attempting to "fix" his soul so that it couldn't leave his body while the demon remained. The spell to do so was quite complicated and involved blood-fasting for weeks at a time and recitation of a short cantrip to focus his will. The spell was having strange effects upon him, as it appeared to bring Angelus closer to the surface of his mind with every repetition. He needed to do three more rituals to finish it, one now, one at the Day of the Dead and one at Yule.

He and Spike were in LA readying themselves for the ritual when Wolfram & Hart attacked, using Voca to paralyze Cordy with visions, and bombing Angel's office. Spike saved Wes but was trapped with Angel in the fire after Angel had done the ritual. Buffy arrived in time to save them both, and she and Angel left Spike to protect Cordy and Wes while they made their way to Wolfram & Hart just in time to stop them from raising the Beast in the box that they had. The PTB's visions passed from Cordy to Spike when she kissed him as she lay dying in the hospital (sorry, but I simply had to do it, St. Cordy was annoying me far too much to live, even in AU). Instead, all of that energy was channeled into Buffy. It drove her consciousness out of her body and she was taken by the lawyers though Angel severed Lindsey's wrist trying to prevent it.

Buffy was tortured by Lilah, but escaped, wrecking havoc on her way out. She had no knowledge of her name, or many conscious thoughts, and pain accompanied every attempt she made to even try to think. She lapsed into the mind of the Beast, because of the way the spell affected her. Angel and Spike found her being attacked by vampires in an alley and saved her. She promptly passed out.

Taming the Beasts

Spike and Angel hovered protectively over the unconscious body of their mate for a long moment as thought and rationality returned to their minds. With Buffy's loss of consciousness, it was as if a door to chaos had been shut within both of them.

Angel held the wounded body of his mate gently to his broad chest, growling just a bit at his childe as Spike leaned in to touch her.

Spike growled back, momentarily challenging Angel's claim on the woman who meant so much to him--to *them* he admitted, reluctantly. Buffy had, somehow, come to mean more than unlife…more than the hunt or even the kill. Buffy was, Spike realized, more crucial to him than anything had ever been. With that thought, his human mask slipped back on and he brushed one gentle hand across the Slayer’s matted and blood-spattered hair.

Rising gracefully to his feet, Spike looked at Angel. "I'll get the car," he said, ceding care of their mate to the elder vampire. "You bring the Slayer. We’ll get her to hospital right quick."

Angel met the deep blue eyes of his childe and nodded, ruefully acknowledging Spike's claim upon Buffy and his right to be concerned for her. *She needs him,* Angel thought, climbing to his feet with no difficulty under Buffy's slight weight. He watched as Spike raced away into the dark and knew deep in his bones that his childe loved and needed Buffy as much as he did himself.

*Powers know, she needs us both,* he thought, staring broodily down at the pale and tired face of his soulmate. She'd been shot, she'd been tortured, and if he wasn't severely mistaken, the spell that he'd seen Wolfram & Hart cast upon her had affected her in dire and unpredictable ways. She hadn't spoken a word when they found her. Even given her battle with the vampires, she should have said something, anything, when they arrived. Instead, she'd only growled. His mate was a mess in more ways than just the physical.

Spike raced back to the alley in the dark convertible. Angel waited at the corner with the bloody body of their mate pressed possessively to his chest. He climbed carefully into the car and Spike could see he was trying not to jostle the tiny woman in his arms.

"Take us to the hospital, please, Childe," Angel rumbled, his hands clutching Buffy as gently as if she were one of his now-burned antique Ming vases.

Spike drove quickly but cautiously to hospital, stealing glances at his sire and their mate as he did so. She was healing rapidly, he could see, but more importantly smell. The blood that had run from her shattered collarbone had clotted over with alacrity. Though he was used to seeing the Slayer heal faster than a human, Spike was shocked at just how fast her body was recovering.

"Sire," he said urgently as they sat at a red light. "She isn't…she's diff…she's not right, is she?" His voice cracked on the last word, as if he were still the fledgling that Angelus had created over a century ago instead of the Master vampire he'd become.

"No, Will, she's no' right," Angel admitted, his accent slipping back toward the warm burr of his native land instead of his usual American idiom. "They bespelled her, an' now I can feel her soul but canna feel her thoughts. Tis as if she doesna have them."

Spike nodded agreement. "And we, when she was awake, it was as if the demon had erased my thoughts, Sire. I couldn't think, couldn't reason. It was all instinct."

"Aye and the same for me, Will," Angel admitted. "Angelus is partially bound, but still, I felt him take the lead. I had to fight him for any control at all," he said worriedly.

"What if she..we've got to break the spell, that's all," Spike stated, more confidently than he actually felt. The light turned and he sped quickly to the ER entrance.

"Call Wesley," Angel ordered as he climbed painstakingly from the car, careful not to jar the unconscious woman cradled like a child in his arms. "He has the scroll. Perhaps he can help us with her." He walked quickly round the car and caught Spike's eyes for a moment before leaning down toward his childe. "Thank you for not fighting me on this Childe," he whispered hoarsely.

"I know you only want what's best for her, Angelus," Spike muttered, looking away from those compelling brown eyes, "just remember, I care for her, too," he said, reaching one hand to stroke their mate's ashen face.

"I know ye do, Will," Angel rasped. "And I love you even more for that, my boy. Thank you."

He turned and strode quickly into the hospital. Spike cursed and grabbed for the cell phone, swiping at his eyes with the back of one filthy hand. *I'm not crying. I'm the Big Bad, for fuck's sake. Bugger them all.* But one tiny blonde and a hulking dark vampire had ripped their ways into his undead heart and he knew that even if he could, he wouldn't leave them for all the blood in China.

To be continued…