Breaking a Slayer

Breaking a Slayer: Chapter 16

Disclaimer: I don't own them.

Spoilers/Ships: This is AU. Buffy/Spike/Angel.

Distribution: Sure, just let me know.

Feedback: Is always nice.

Rating: NC-17.

Spike was having a bloody marvelous time. Literally. He lunged at Angel, scything the sword across his sire's bare midsection with a graceful swing. Angel narrowly missed being gutted by the sharp blade, jumping backward at the last moment so the tip just grazed his abs.

"First blood," Spike smirked at his sire, running one finger down the flat of the blade and scooping up Angel's blood. He stuck the finger in his mouth and savored the rich taste like a child stealing frosting. He didn’t get to mock for long, though. Angel retaliated with a parry and riposte that shouldn't have been possible with a broadsword. Vampiric strength and agility made the impossible easy and the two fell to fighting in earnest.

Angel scored the next hit, several minutes later, feinting to the left and actually convincing Spike that he was headed there. Instead, he danced forward on the balls of his feet and licked the blade across his childe's muscular biceps, scoring it lightly, but deep enough to sting.

"Bollocks!" Spike swore, grabbing at the cut for a moment and then rushing forward to punish his sire for the insulting ease with which he'd scored. Angel taunted the smaller male, spinning and kicking his childe's legs out from under him and chuckling as the swearing grew more inventive. "You"You've been spending too much time brawling and no time training," Angel said, disapprovingly. "What did I teach you about slacking off?"

Spike snarked back, "When do I have time to dance around in pansy-ass sword practice, Sire? Too busy trying to off the Slayer…and now a days…well, too busy doing other things to her," he laughed, then swallowed as Angel growled and leapt for him in deadly earnest response.

The parries and lunges flew back and forth in a blur of motion as each master vampire tried to gain the upper hand. Spike was faster, but Angel was amazingly light on his feet. His combination of grace, power and speed was truly formidable.

"Too many of our foes, demon or human, use the sword as a preferred weapon, Childe. I taught you that over a century ago and it still holds true today. Look at the Three or the Assassins. It doesn't do to get clumsy, William. Or you *will* be bloody!" Angel's sword licked once to Spike's left cheek, once to the right in lighting fast strikes that left stinging wounds dripping blood from the jutting cheekbones.

Spike snarled, forgetting for the moment that this was just in play and transported back to his fledgling days when Angelus forced hours of sword practice on him daily and punished the slightest slip with horrific tortures each night. Spike had hated the humiliation worse than the pain. Knowing that his sire could best him at any time and chose to punish him instead…it drove him mad with anger. He'd learned faster than any fledgling of Angelus's…much faster than Penn, who'd only sought to learn the torture, not the finesse.

Spike knew he'd never beat Angel at this, his chosen game. The trick was to change the rules. Spike was a master at that. He glanced around the room, looking for possible tools and found nothing at first. Then his eyes lit on one of Buffy's discarded shirts. He could smell her scent on it from here and if he could, then bets were on that Angel was drowning in it. *Probably why the big lummox is in such a state,* he thought to himself.

He danced backwards from Angel's flitting blade and made his way, as if in retreat, to the shirt. Scooping it up in his right hand, he continued to hold Angel off with his left. Spike lifted the shirt to his nose and took a dramatic breath from it, looking deep into Angel's dark eyes. He stroked down the side of his bleeding face with the shirt, rubbing it sensually across his chest and using the soft flannel to tease his nipples into hardness without breaking Angel's gaze.

Angel stopped dead in his tracks, swallowing convulsively while he watched his childe play with his mate's shirt. Spike licked his lips suggestively, then opened his mouth wider, as if waiting for it to be filled.

Angel dropped his sword and lunged for his childe. Spike dropped his as well, but his lunge was accompanied by a fast right and equally brutal left uppercut to Angel's chiseled chin. His sire dropped like a sack of potatoes from his homeland and sprawled on the floor at Spike's feet. Spike was quick to take advantage of his momentary weakness and leapt for his sire, pinning him to the floor and punching him in the gut hard enough to bruise even vampiric flesh.

"That's for the cut on my right cheek," he panted, "and that's for the cut on my left. This is for fucking me in front of the Slayer," a right jab to the chin…"and thi…" his voice was halted as Angel's large hand grabbed Spike's muscled neck and propelled him backward into the wall.

Angel lunged for his childe and slammed him into the wall again, embarrassed and enraged that his childe could distract him so easily. He lifted Spike's smaller frame and held him against the stone wall, grinding his naked back into the rough surface and drawing blood. The scent was intoxicating…filled with rage and suppressed desire; familiar famscenscent and the elusive but powerful tang of the Slayer, as well.

"You taunt me at your own peril, Childe. I did not give you permission to drink from my mate," Angel growled dangerously as Spike hung in his huge hands. "Nor did you ask my permission to fuck her. Or eat her. She is mine, I claimed her, I marked her, and you may not trespass against my will. I care not whether the bite was yours…the result is the same. I can scent her blood in you, Childe and I AM NOT PLEASED," he roared. He bit viciously into Spike's neck, tearing at the white flesh with no regard to his childe's pleasure or pain.

This was challenge and response, pure and simple. No childe could drink from a mate without permission. It wasn't done. And it wasn't up to the mate…not in vampire clans. Angel might not be the scourge that Angelus had been, but the instincts were the same and when challenged, the result might be the same as well.

Spike sagged in Angel's grasp, unable to contest the issue with his sire drinking so forcefully from him. Automatic, ingrained response made him submit, and even his alpha identity shuddered away from contesting another's mate. What he had done was punishable by death, should his sire demand it. And yet, he couldn't regret tasting Buffy. She was so strong, so alive, despite her inner turmoil. Her blood was the richest he'd ever tasted and its strength flowed through his veins now, changing him in ways he'd never anticipated. He felt as if he'd gained a century's worth of power from the tiny taste he'd had of her. Now he knew how Angel had become so strong. Hells, his sire had drained her to the point of death after Faith had poisoned him, according to the Slayer's friends. Only multiple transfusions had saved her. Spike could only guess at the power that Angel had gained from that forbidden feast.

At last, Angel lifted his head, his mouth dripping blood that he licked languidly from his lips and chin. He let Spike slump to the floor, and paced to the swords, walking back and cleaning them on his childe's jeans before replacing them carefully in the weapon trunk. Each gesture was confirmation of Spike's place as beta male, and each slight enraged him further. Yet he could do nothing to retaliate. Angel held all the cards. The Slayer would do what Angel wished, Spike knew, and until the thrice damned chip was out of his head, so would he. He sighed and leaned his head back against the wall, wondering how he'd gotten himself into this mess and how he could ever get out.

*

*If I drink any more damned tea, I will float away to mother England,* thought Giles to himself. Tea, along with polishing his glasses, was his automatic response to stress. Well, that and a spot or two of something in the tea, to help sooth anxious nerves. But he'd felt uneasy drinking in front of Buffy, as if that sought to negate her pain somehow. She deserved more from him, God knew, so he simply brewed more tea whilst she recited the events of her summer in hell with a steady voice that was much too calm. Clearly, she was still traumatized by the events, one only had to look at her appearance to know that. Giles had never seen her hide in plain view before, but that was precisely what his Slayer was attempting to do.

She'd cut the golden hair that drew so many admiring glances from males, old and young…cropped it to the point of androgyny. The earrings she'd always worn were gone, along with the rings with which she'd loved to festoon her hands, despite his warnings that they might impinge on her slaying. He knew now why he'd failed to recognize her at the airport…even her demeanor had changed. The prancing strut of a confident teenager in her prime had given way to a hunch-shouldered, wincing mien that screamed "don't notice me." Giles had no idea how to deal with this, nor, indeed, whether Buffy was even aware of the signals she sent out.

He did know that his very touch made her extremely uneasy. He'd felt tension in her the moment he'd hugged her to him near the window; and once her crying had worn off, she seemed exceedingly uncomfortable if he moved too near her. Giles wondered how many people she'd been near in the past two months…certainly it couldn't have been many from Buffy's reaction to him. He kept his observations to himself, making a mental note to record them in his Watcher's diary later that day, while they were still fresh in his mind. He had to find a way to help his young Slayer…she seemed on the verge of breaking…a fate that could be catastrophic to them all.

*

Angel moved the furniture back to its usual positions in the great room, studiously avoiding the gaze of his childe. He'd lost control of the demon again. It was becoming an almost daily occurrence, and one that he could not seem to stop. Spike had always been his most difficult childe, and Angelus had gloried in his punishments, devising new and ever more painful methods for controlling his feisty fledgling. The past warred with the present as the demon warred with the soul, and Angel himself was unsure of the outcome.

He paced back to his childe and offered a hand to him. Spike glared at Angel for a long moment before accepting the offer and pulling himself laboriously to his feet. Angel didn't offer his neck to his childe, that would negate the point he'd made earlier, but he did guide the slighter man to the kitchen, where he prepared more blood for them both.

Spike gazed inscrutably at his sire as he sat and sipped the warm liquid. "So, Peaches, when are we going to LA to get this bloody chip outta my skull?" he queried.

"We need to make sure that Buffy will be all right before we can go anywhere," Angel said, not meeting his childe's eyes.

"Should be easy, now that the Watcher's back. He'll take her under his wing and we can scarper off to see that doc of yours. Unless you've decided to welsh on your word, that is, Peaches," Spike sneered.

"I keep my word, Spike. You'll have the chip out. What you do after that is up to you," Angel gritted, unwilling to admit how much he feared the outcome of that surgery.

"I'll believe that when I see it, Sire. Ah, well, innit time for the Slayer to be returning?" Spike asked, trying not to sound too concerned and failing miserably.

"I think we should go check on her," Angel rumbled, worried that Giles could have handled his volatile mate in exactly the wrong way and wondering how Buffy had reacted to her Watcher's return.

They finished the blood and headed upstairs for fresh clothes to replace their blood spattered jeans. That done, the vampires vanished into the night… predators in search of the one who preyed on them…a strange state of affairs, indeed.

*

Buffy remained crouched on Giles's couch, holding her empty tea cup in both hands as if trying to draw some last warmth from the cool china. She wouldn't meet his eyes and had retreated into monosyllabic responses to his questions. Exhausted from his trip, all Giles really wanted at this point was his bed, but he was unwilling to shoo the Slayer out into the night as if he didn't care for her. She seemed unwilling to leave him, so he stood to make yet more tea in hopes it might keep him awake.

His door opened unexpectedly and he looked up to find Angel looming there in the dark, with Spike like a reverse shadow trailing behind him. Angel glanced down at Giles from under brooding brows. "May we come in, Giles?" he asked politely but gruffly.

"You've already been in here, both of you. I haven't invoked the ritual."

"I didn't mean that, I was just…trying to be polite," responded the dark vampire. The lighter one didn't bother with politeness, he just elbowed his sire aside and glided into the room, his sharp eyes fixed on the slumping slayer.

"Here, Pet, what's all this then. Would'a thought you'd be home hours ago. Watcher givin' you a hard time?" he asked, glaring at Giles for a moment before moving to kneel at Buffy's feet.

She reached one hand to him and Spike grabbed it between his own, rubbing as if he could warm her…a clear impossibility. "He's been fine, Spike, really. I just had…a lot to tell him."

"I bet," Spike snarked. "So Rupes, how does it feel to know you failed your Slayer…again?" he asked angrily.

Giles had no response, indeed, could not seem to process the sight of Spike kneeling before the Slayer. Rupert would have sworn before this moment that Spike would happily kill Buffy and dance in her blood or at the very least, stand by and cheer as she died. Instead, the blond vampire seemed to be doing his best to care for her. Giles's whole world seemed to tilt on its axis. "Th "That's enough, Spike," growled Angel. "Buffy is tired, it's time to get her home. Rupert, we're keeping night hours, lately. Buffy needs her sleep, she's been up too long as it is. You can come by the mansion tomorrow near twilight to see her, if you choose." The brooding vampire didn't give Giles so much as a by your leave,t sct scooped the unresisting Slayer up in his strong arms and slipped from the room. Spike trailed them and slammed the door behind him as he left.

"Good heavens," Giles said to himself, finally heading to the brandy bottle. "Now I know why active Watchers should never go on holiday." He headed upstairs with snifter in hand, weary bones aching for his familiar bed and conflicting thoughts pounding through his tired brain.

To be continued.