The Witch, The Warrior, and the Vampire

Now that I have your attention and before you read or don't read the chapter, I wanted to say a few things...

I've been blocked for a solid year on WWV. So I called what was finished Book One and put it away. I received lots of encouragement from many fans, to continue this monster. So this fall I decided I could do it, and that the best way to continue would be to go back to the beginning and work through some of the kinks. So with the aide of Black Dahlia that's what I did. I had Chapter 19 posted and still no idea what to write in Book Two when I realized why I was blocked in the first place.

The reader's wanted Spuffy now. They loved the story (er some of them), the slash was great... or tolerable, but they wanted Spuffy NOW. A cou couldn't write it. There was no way to make the Spuffy be now. 'Cause no matter what Buffy said back in Ch. 22, she just isn't ready. She has to come face to face with what vampires really are. Beyond the demon she slays every night, she has to understand what makes them tick, how they work, why they do the things they do.

So for a year I tried to go on, write the next chapter, let Spike and Buffy make the beast with two backs for the first time since... the Prologue. No matter how hard I tried to get on with Spuffy for the readers, I couldn't do it. It just doesn't work within the story at this point.

With that realization, I opened what was written on the next chapter, got rid of half of it, and pointed WWV in the direction I wanted it to go. And then three chapters came in one week, two in one day actually.

So I'm asking you to trust me and believe that no matter how this monster twists and turns it'll get there. Sometime.

I'll shut up now and let you read. Thanks to the amazing sassangel and Black Dahlia for the betas.

Book Two
Chapter One Need

“Hold on, Anya.” Xander said, as he headed towards the kitchen. In seconds, he was tossing her the keys to the Jeep.

“What are these for?” Anya asked, dangling the key chain from one finger.

“You’re going to drive Dawn to the mansion and I’m going to stay here.” Xander said, as he ushered Anya and Dawn towards the door.

Anya shook her head and stepped out of his grasp. “Xander, honey, I don’t think that’s a very good idea. You heard Spike. He wants to be alone.”

“He will be. I’m not going to bother him, I just want to stay.”

Dawn rolled her eyes and pulled Anya out the door. “Let’s go, before they start having hot monkey sex.”

“Oh, but I like it when they have hot monkey sex, and they haven’t had any in a very long time.” Neither noticed the hungry expression on Xander’s face.

~*~

Hands on her hips, Buffy strode towards the two geeks chained to the wall of Harmony’s old lair. “Oh Buffy, thank God you’ve comShe She mocked as she rolled her eyes.

“Buffy, please, please, let us go. I promise we’ll be good. We’ll do anything you say. I swear on my Red Dwarf DVD collection.”

“And I swear by my autographed poster of Timothy Dalton.”

Buffy twirled her stake as she surveyed Andrew and Jonathon. “I don’t know. I think manacled to the wall as vamp food is a good look foth oth of you.”

“Slayer… Buffy, please don’t leave us here.” Andrew whined.

“But I thought you were my arch-nemesisis.” She smirked and folded her arms across her chest.

“N-n-no that’s Warren.” Andrew stammered.

“Surely you can’t expect me to rescue you. You did try to frame me for murder.”

“We were wrong and I’m sorry. I never meant it to get that far.” Jonathan countered.

“How far did you want it to get? Murder, or rape, or maybe kidnapping, but not all three? Which one, huh? How far did you mean for it to go?” Buffy stalked menacingly back and forth between the two helpless geeks.

“I never wanted any of it to happen.” Jonathan yelled in his own defense.

Buffy stopped pacing in front of Jonathan and stood as close as she could to him without touching. “Then why did you go along with it?”

“Because we’re weak and… and… and… can’t think for ourselves. And yeah Warren used that mind control gizmo on us too.” Andrew supplied tugging helplessly on his chains.

“Shut up, Andrew! Buffy, I don’t know why I went along with it. Teaming up to take over Sunnydale sounded like fun. I never thought we’d actually get anything accomplished. It was just... a way to pass the time.” He tried to meet Buffy’s eyes but couldn’t. Instead, he looked at her nose and wondered if it had always been crooked or if it had been broken recently.

Buffy snorted. “A way to pass the time. Sure. Invisibility rays, mind controoundounds like fun.”

“Let us go please,” Andrew whined.

“I can’t ever remember your name, what was your claim to fame again?” Buffy stalked menacingly towards the most forgettable of the “Evil Trio.”

Andrew blushed and stammered, “I summoned the flying monkeys to attack the school play.”

“And you,” Buffy stepped back towards Jonathan and jabbed her finger in his chest. “After everything I’ve done for you, why would you do that to me? Didn’t you learn your lesson with the Superstar spell? What does it take to get you geeks out of my hair and out of my town? What were you doing out here anyway?”

Andrew cast his eyes downward and answered quietly, “Setting up cameras to spy on the kids making out.”

Buffy threw her hands in the air exasperated. “Not only are you geeks, but you’re perverted too. Give me one good reason why I should let you go.”

“We’ll leave town.” Andrew immediately offered.

“I know that someone’s spying on youw thw they’re doing it...”

“Shut up Dumbathon!” Andrew hissed and tried to kick his partner in crime. Since they were chained a good six feet apart it was a futile effort.

“Someone-other-than-you geeks, you mean.” Buffy’s entire attitude shifted, the time for joking was over. There was someone out there watching her. Was it the Master? A new enemy? There was only one way to find it out.

Jonathan swallowed and seemed to come to a decision, “Yeah.”

Buffy jerked both set of chains out of the cave wall but left the geeks bound. “Let’s go, boys, I’m gonna let my Watcher deal with you.”

~*~
ee bee beautiful, that wasn’t so bad now was it?”

“Hanging out with Willow is always of the bad. God you’d think by now she’d learn how to not dress like the softer side of Sears.”

“You did good.”

“Whatever. When can I go home to Angel?”

“I told you that already, when it’s over.”

~*~

“You coming in?” Dawn asked, as the Jeep pulled up to the mansion.

“Oh no, I’m going straight back to your house and hope I can catch Xander and Spike having the hot monkey sex.” Anya smiled broadly at Dawn and shifted the Jeep into reverse.

Dawn’s nose wrinkled in disgust as she flipped her hair over her shoulder. “Whatever. I wish you wouldn’t talk about that stuff around me. I’m young and susceptible remember?”

“Well, you have to learn sometime. Have a good night, Dawn!” Anya waved and with a squeal of tires was headed back to Revello.

~*~

Spike placed both hands on the shower wall in front of him and let the scalding hot water beat down on his head. He knew Xander had stayed behind but was ignoring it for the moment. There would be time to deal with his disobedient fledgling later. Right now, all he wanted was to work the kinks out and enjoy a good toss. Groaning, he straightened up and selected a shampoo. A slight hiss escaped when he turned around and the water beat into the hole in his back. Spike rinsed his hair out quickly and turned back around; he randomly grabbed one of the dozen bottles of er ger gel and began to scrub the vamp dust off.

The knots in his muscles were smoothed out by the water and scrubbing. When he was satisfied he was clean he started sniffing the contents of each of the bath gel bottles. The very last one he tried was the one Buffy had used that day. It wasn’t her true scent but a good enough substitute. He poured a generous amointointo his hand, wrapped it around his cock and tried to find the rhythm only Buffy could do. Tight grip on the upstroke with a twist of the wrist, rub the palm over the head, light grip on the way down, repeat. Remembering the way she had felt under him, opening to him completely, took him over the edge in no time at all. Spike turned around and rinsed off quickly before turning the shower off.

He grabbed his towel and wrapped it around waist, without bothering to dry off. Water ran down his body in rivulets as he headed to the sink to remove the taste of Dawn’s blood from his mouth. It was a taste he had hoped to never know. Now that he did, he wanted to erase it from his mouth and hopefully his mind. His inconsistencies confused even him sometimes. How was it possible to want the blood of the woman he loved and then be sickened by the taste of her sisters? Shouldn’t he want it too? He was a vampire after all; drinking from loved ones was commonplace, normal behavior.

Dawn always raised emotions in him that he couldn’t quite figure out. His feelings for her were as strong as his feelings for Buffy, but they were... different. He’d never felt that way about anyone. Something in his chest loosened when they were together. The thought of her being hurt... He spat out the last of the toothpaste and shrugged off his thoughts. He was tired and he still had to deal with his fledge. Sighing, he opened the bathroom door andmblembled over Xander, who had been waiting in the hallway the entire time.

Spike snarled at Xander, grabbed him by the throat, lifted him over his head, and slammed him into the doorframe. “Thought I told you to leave.” Spike slammed him against the doorframe again. “What’s it gonna take to get you to mind me? Do you want me to be like Angelus? I’ve tried it nice and it seems to me you respond better to cruel.”

Xander opened his mouth to answer, but Spike was squeezing his throat so hard he couldn’t enough air. Without any warning, Spike let go. Visibly pulling his temper in he retrieved his dirty clothes from the bathroom floor and tossed them at the younger vampire before he went downstairs, dressed only in his towel, to the kitchen for a snack. A quick inspection of the refrigerator turned up three-day-old pig blood. The smell turned his stomach, but he dutifully heated some for himself. An inspection of the pantry turned up a box of Weetabix; the microwave dinged and Spike put his snack together.

“Are you going to stand there an’ stare at me all night, Harris?” Spike had his back turned but could feel the younger vampire lingering in the doorway.

“What? Oh no, I... let me a baa bandage on your back.” Xander tossed the dirty clothes down the basement stairs.

Spike shrugged and started to eat, while Xander got the supplies ready. Spike’s eyes crossed at the taste of pig, he’d been living on a diet of human for too long. The promise of an all-Slayer-all-the-time diet in the near future heartened him enough to tolerate pig for the time being.

“Is there anything I can do to make this heal faster? It looks like it hurts a lot.” Xander asked, as he laid the gauze, bandages, tape, and scissors on the kitchen island.

“See if it’s got splinters. They make it hard to heal.” Spike suggested, as he crumbled the Weetabix into his mug of blood.

Xander delicately probed the wound with his index finger but found none. “Spike?”

“What?” The blonde vampire’s voice was gruff and it made Xander even more hesitant than he had been before.

“I wanted to apologize.” Xander whispered reluctant to continue, unsure of how Spike was going to take what he had to say. He took his time taping the gauze over the hole in his sire’s back, he couldn’t escape the feeling Spike’s injury caused to curl and twist in the pit of his stomach.

Spike snorted. “Damn right you should apologize. If I was Angelus, I’d flay you for disobeying a direct order like that. As it is…”

“That’s not what I wanted to apologize for, but I’m sorry for that too. I’ve changed my mind about some stuff and want to apologize man to man.”

“Don’t you mean vamp to vamp?” Spike asked, after he finished his blood.

Xander finished with nursing duties, found a mug and poured some of the pigs’ blood into it. His nose wrinkled in disgust in an unconscious imitation of his sire, but he put it in the microwave anyway.

“Use the ‘warm drink’ button. Shit’s not edible ‘less it’s the right temperature.” Spike offered. This was Xander’s first meal of blood that wasn’t human or his. He couldn’t wait to see the boy’s expression after he tasted what he’d be living off of for eternity.

“Thanks.” Neither vampire spoke again until Xander had his blood heated. He sat down at the island across from his sire, Xander took a sip from his mug and immediately spit it out, face contorting with disgust. “How do you live off that shit?”

“Do what you have to do to survive. Now, what did you want to say?” Spike grinned evilly. He was right; the expression had been well worth the blood spit all over the kitchen. “Think you ought to clean up that mess.”

Xander quickly drained the blood, even though his face was screwed up in disgust the whole time. He found the paper towels and started cleaning up the spattered blood while he tried to build up the courage to say what he had to get off his chest, and hopefully elsewhere too.

“When I felt you get hurt tonight I thought I would die.” At Spike’s questioning look Xander took an unneeded breath and forged ahead. “I felt it through our bond and it brought me to my knees. I took off after you without even checking to see if Anya was safe.”

Spike shook his head in disbelief; he couldn’t believe the whelp had done that. “Shouldn’t have done that, should always keep Anya’s safety ahead of mine.”

“I couldn’t think, Spike, I couldn’t breathe, all I could do was get to you as fast as possible. It felt like years before I got there and then I just lost it. The vamp who’d gotten you was celebrating killing you and then everything went black. I don’t have any idea what happened until after the stake was out.” Xander’s voice was heavy with emotion.

Spike fought the urge to caress and soothe Xander. He could tell the boy wasn’t finished talking, and he didn’t want to interrupt. Plus, Xander had made it perfectly clear, on several occasions; he didn’t want a sexual relationship with him.

“I’ve never felt so scared and helpless in my life. I can’t do this without you, Spike, and I don’t want Angel to take your place.”

Spike growled at Angel’s name; he couldn’t help himself.

Xander grinned despite himself at Spike’s reaction, threw away the dirty paper towels and found the disinfectant. He sprayed it liberally over the island and started wiping it again. “I need you. I need you and I hate it, but I still need you. I’ve been fighting you and me, and I’m tired of it.” He threw the paper towels away and stood behind Spike, gingerly caressing the skin around his wound. "I’ve been fighting the demon, denying what it wants ‘cause I wasn’t like this before I was turned. Seeing you with a stake in the back made me realize just how much I need you. The blood isn’t enough Spike, I need you. I need you in me, on me, around me.” The tentative caress became firmer and Xander rubbed himself against Spike’s back. “Your hands, your arms, your fangs, your cock. I need you.”

A bolt of lust shot through Spike strong enough to make him shudder. He turned around on the stool and faced Xander. Brown eyes clashed with blue. Spike ran his hands down Xander’s arms while he stood. In one movement, Spike had Xander in his own arms and was undulating against him like a wave. In a voice thick and heavy as tar Spike replied, “All you had to do was ask.”

“I just did.” Xander’s voice was husky with desire.

“How do you want me?” Spike asked as he licked along Xander’s collarbone. It was one thing to admit to wanting sex, but what if the boy only wanted to be made love to, or what if he wanted to be dominated; Spike had to be sure exactly what Xander wanted.

“Wh-what do you mean?” Xander managed to stammer as his knees went weak; he managed to stay standing, barely.

“You want it hard and rough?” Spike ran both his hands through Xander’s hair got a handful and pulled. When the long column of his throat was exposed, he licked it from top to bottom and whispered in Xander’s ear, “Or soft and sweet?” Xander thrust against Spike’s hip and Spike spun him around, pushed him against the wall, kicked his legs apart and sank his fangs into the younger vampire’s shoulder drawing just enough blood to taste before he let go. “Or do you want me to top you?” Spike released his hold on Xander and walked back to his stool at the island and lit a cigarette. “Tell me what you want, Xander, and be clear; this is the last chance you have to decide what kind of relationship this is going to be. After this the decisions’ mine.”

~*~

Buffy was walking quickly towards the mansion, practically dragging Andrew and Jonathan by their chains behind her. She kept a wary eye out for vampires even though she was positive there weren’t any around. Approaching headlights forced her to allow the two boys to catch up. She stood facing them, hoping against hope it wasn’t the police. How would she explain geeks on leashes? As the car slowed to a stop beside her she knew she was busted. Buffy wracked her brain trying to come up with an excuse, any excuse.

“Buffy?” The cultured voice of her Watcher brought a smile to the Slayer’s face. “What have you got there? Vampires for questioning?”

“Not hardly. I saved these two from getting snacked on. Turns out they have some information for us.” Buffy jerked the chains hard and led the boys to the car. “Don’t you boys?”

“Yeah, I guess we do.” Jonathan answered for both of them.

“Well, squeeze in, we’re headed back to the mansion.” Maggie rolled her eyes and moved to one side of the car.

“What are you going back to the mansion for; there’s no way you’ve patrolled the town.” She scanned the blank faces of her Watcher, Maggie, and James for answers.

Giles got out of the car and held on to both of his Slayer’s arms. “Buffy, I don’t know how to tell you this.”

Buffy jerked out of his grasp eyes widening in anxiety. “Tell me what?”

“The sun was out for several minutes. There’s no way any vampire could have survived it.”

Buffy took off running extending her slayer senses for Spike. He couldn’t be dead. He couldn’t, not now. Not when she needed him most, not after he’d gotten staked tonight and she realized what he was coming to mean to her. And--oh god. Xander. She ran faster than she had ever run before. She just wished she knew where to go.


“
“After this, the decision’s mine.”

Some part of Xander knew what Spike was doing; he was trying to set boundaries and rules both of them plus Xander’s soul could live with. After the emotional turmoil he’d been through tonight, he knew for a fact that he didn’t need or want any boundaries. He needed Spike. Xander closed the distance between them and ran a finger just above the towel, tracing up from the washboard abs to the dusky nipples. He stared into Spike’s eyes for a long minute before he finally whispered, “I want you, I don’t care how.”

Spike was still for so long Xander thought heone one something wrong when he noticed a deep guttural sound coming from Spike he’d never heard before, it made his body go sweet, tight, and hot all at once. “Right then.” Spike crushed out his cigarette and stood up abruptly, towel loosening on his hips. “Don’t say a word, go downstairs, strip, lie facedown on the bed and don’t move until I tell you to.” Neither vampire moved for a long time Spike finally bared his teeth at Xander and pointed to the door. Xander turned and silently did what he was told.

~*~

No matter how hard she tried she couldn’t sense Spike or Xander. Fear and anxiety stripped Buffy of her strength and she finally fell to her knees on the sidewalk. It was pointless, running like this, not knowing where to go. Tears swam in her eyes but she refused to let them fall. She concentrated fiercely on her breathing, trying to slow it down, regain control, decide what to do, when for the second time in one night a car slowed down beside her and a voice asked, “Buffy?”

The Slayer’s head shot up, “Anya!”

“Buffy what are you doing there on the ground? Are you injured?” Anya put the Jeep in park and quickly got out of the Jeep and tried to check Buffy for injuries.

Buffy grabbed the arms that reached for her and squeezed hard enough to crush human bones, gritting her teeth against the tears she managed to ask, “Where are they? Did the sunlight kill them? Where the they?”

Anya managed to extricate herself from Buffy’s grip and grinned wickedly at the Slayer, “They’re at home, probably having hot monkey sex right about now. Wanna go watch?”

Go ahead give it to me. But I warn you now, flames will be ignored and probably deleted.