Playing to Win

Overcoming and Overcompensating

Disclaimers and summary in chapter 1...

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The next morning found Buffy and the gang once again gathered in Giles’s living room. It was kind of nice having the original gang all together in one place hunting down the big bad again. Anya and Spike were somewhere else, causing thoughts of gratitude ranging from the briefly flickering annoyance of Giles to the full blown guilt from Xander that he was a little glad that Anya wasn’t there. Spike’s absence was also producing quite the range of reactions. Outwardly, all agreed that it was much more pleasant without him, although Giles wished he were there only so he could help, in his non-helping way. Secretly though, Xander was terrified that Spike would be able to tell he’d had a dream about him, Buffy was annoyed that she was going to have to hunt him down to help with her little “problem” – now that she had a plan, she was anxious to get it done and out of her system – and Giles and Willow wanted to watch the sparks fly, for purely academic interest, of course.

”The strange thing about this is,” Willow brought up, shaking thoughts of Spike triangles out of her head, “that none of these girls have been reported missing in the past few weeks. So either they’ve been held a lot longer, or they’ve been brought here from somewhere else.”

”Like ‘BYOS’, bring your own sacrifice?” Xander joked, earning the expected groans and glares. “Well, it is the hellmouth – this is not your average neighbourhood BBQ, I think,” he continued, despite the looks everyone was shooting him.

”So, what does this mean, then?” Buffy interjected impatiently, “Are there going to be more girls disappearing? What’s doing this? And more importantly, how do I kill it?”

”Killing? Now this sounds like my sort of conversation, and I wasn’t even invited,” Spike spouted, walking casually through the door to settle into one of Giles’s chairs and helping himself to a biscuit along the way.

”You realise, of course, that you’re still not invited, right?” Xander asked, nastily.

”Ah, Harris, keep your unrequited lust to yourself, and just fill me in on the latest nasty that I get to kill,” Spike retorted, savouring the word “kill”, flicking his tongue over his teeth.

”Girls, dead, or we think so, with necklaces and other trinkets covered in blood all that’s left of them,” Buffy stated succinctly, for her.

”Well, then, I’ll help; if I can’t be bad I might as well do something besides be bloody useless,” Spike replied, surprising everyone, while mentally checking off #8 of his newly revised plan - Get on the Slayer’s good side by doing all sorts of nancy good guy stuff.

”Oh I have some suggestions for you…” Xander threatened.

”Oh yes, Xander, I’m so glad you’ve reconsidered my idea – I’m sure Spike would be glad to try some new things with us,” Anya burst out enthusiastically.

”Er, yes,” Giles stuttered before continuing in a sarcastic tone, “now, if we are quite done discussing your sex lives, we should move on to research.”

”Well, actually,” Spike started, with a smirk and a look of mock interest.

”Well, actually,” Buffy interrupted, “I need to go patrol, and Spike,” Spike looked up with an innocent expression, “you’re coming with me… now!”

This last part was spoken as she saw that he was about to make one final comment. She grabbed him by his coat, noting to herself how nice he smelled, surprisingly fresh and soapy clean for a vampire that smoked and wore the same clothes every time she saw him, and drug him out the door. She closed the door on a group of rather surprised faces and turned to a slightly puzzled looking Spike, who was secretly congratulating himself on a well done plan. Buffy, meanwhile, was getting a bit nervous (about her own agenda).

”So,” Buffy hedged nervously.

”So,” Spike returned, looking down and biting his lower lip, equally unsure of what to say. He was tempted to reach into his pocket and pull out his plan, on which he had jotted down foolproof lines to win his way into the slayer’s bed, but stopped himself just in time. He instead adopted a last minute smirk, hooked his thumbs into his waistband provocatively and said…

”Right, kill things, let’s go… kill things,” he got out, distracted by the way Buffy was nibbling on her lip.

”Yeah, good idea – killing is good, ‘cause demons, bad,” Buffy found herself itching to just throw him down on the ground right there and either beat the hell out of him or… just stare into those blue eyes that were regarding her hotly.

Spike tilted his head and couldn’t help reaching out to touch her, to feel her heat under his own fingertips again, but his hand met with empty air as Buffy shook herself and stalked purposely into the night. He shrugged anllowllowed.

They walked in silence, now in the old warehouse district where Spike and Drusilla had originally set up, occasionally glancing in the other’s direction until the silence was broken mercifully by some sounds of struggling and the unmistakeable sounds of chatty evil.

”… and then, do you know what I’m going to do to you, little wormy human thing?” a demon that Buffy could only describe as “ucky” was torturing its victim, a very frightened cheerleader, with both its threats of violence and its terrible stench, which was a cross between a swamp and a landfill.

The cheerleader’s requisite football captain boyfriend was out cold a few meters away. Ignoring him, Buffy stepped up to the demon, trying not to breathe through her nose, which caused her to make these cute little wheezing sounds. Spike smiled at her expression and the tiny, hisses she made every time she caught a bit of the smell, and then stopped when he recognised this particular demon.

”Bugger,” Spike exclaimed ruefully under his breath.

”Huh?” Buffy queried, turning her head to look at Spike, allowing the demon to backhand her.

She landed a few feet away with a grunt. Before she could pick herself up Spike rushed in, a fury of fangs and leather, and proceeded to pummel the demon into the pavement, literally. The cheerleader stood by, the look on her face making it obvious she wasn’t sure if she should run or start a cheering section. With a last disinterested glance at her boyfriend, who still hadn’t moved, she seemed to decide on the former and took off running for home. Spike didn’t notice as he seemed determined to rip the fungus covered demon into many mushroom-y bits.

The fungus demon could only garble what seemed to be insults. Buffy couldn’t make out most of what he was saying over the ringing in her ears, but she thought she caught the words “Drusilla” and “take another of your women”. She was reminded of when Harmony said that Drusilla had left Spike for a Fungus demon, and this creature seemed to fit the bill for that. She was also very convinced that Drusilla was insane for choosing this thing at all much less over a fine piece of work like Spike. Buffy noted that the vampire in question seemed to be holding his own quite well. He was also holding the demon quite well, or rather what was left of it; as he tore clumps of it apart they just melted into sticky goo. Spike somehow though had managed to avoid getting any of it on him.

”Stupid, buggery… taking my… wish I could kill him again!” Spike muttered angrily.

He kicked the pile of goo once more for good measure before noticing Buffy staring at him.

She licked her lips.

He cocked his head.

She breathed deeply.

He looked at her.

Plans and lust went flying.

”Closer, softer, wetter,” were all Spike’s brain could come up with as Buffy wrapped herself around him.

”Closer, harder, rougher,” was all Buffy was thinking as she ground herself into him, onto him, sliding up and down his body.

His fingers painfully grabbed into her back and ribs while all she did was hiss, “yessssss,” as her hands clutched desperately in leather. She could feel it stretch and almost tear, and she realised that’s what she wanted. Buffy wanted the pain, the tearing and ripping pain, to run through her, leaving nothing behind.

Spike attacked her throat with lips and blunt teeth with a ferocity that had Buffy scared for a moment that he really would rip her throat out. She felt a rush of fresh lust at the thought.

They stumbled backwards, a tangle of feet and limbs that held so much graceful power yet humbled to the clumsiness of passion. Buffy felt an extra jolt as his hard body crashed into a wall behind him. She brought one hand up to rest on the rough brick. She drug Spike’s head up to hers and scraped her mouth across his, biting at his lips and thrusting her tongue against him in an angry battle. He growled into her mouth before catching his hand under her bottom to rub himself more vigorously against her hot center. He spun them around, but when he tried to slam Buffy’s body back up against the wall, they instead fell through the empty space of the doorway and crashed to the floor.

Spike took Buffy’s ntarntary shock from falling to shrug ofs cos coat and rip open her cotton wrap-around top. Her breasts fell into his hands, and he squeezed then as harshly as he thought the chip would allow. Buffy’s moan and wince encouraged him to put his mouth to the matter at hand, but first he grabbed her hand she had wrapped around his back and brought it down to his cock, which was straining against his jeans.

He was rewarded with a painful scrap of her nails against the sensitive head through the material before she pulled down the zipper. She felt the material rip in her haste to get him out. All she could think of was getting him inside her, to stop thinking about being lonely and brown eyes that stared at her as her blade slid into flesh.

Suddenly it was all too much.

”I can’t… I can’t do this, not now, not with you…” Buffy protested as she threw Spike across the room.

Spike his head in disbelief before grinding out, “you, what?! No! You started this,” he waved his hands in a vaguely obscene gesture.

He could not believe she would do this; his cock was throbbing, and all he desired at that moment was sliding into her wet heat and possibly, now, chaining her to the wall and whipping her bloody. He would do anything to keep memories of brown eyes and ethereal beauty shrouded in delicate madness from driving him mad. And the more recent thoughts of brown eyes in a more masculine face and a mouth that he wanted to do nothing but shut up, preferably by kissing it or putting to good use sucking him off. Fine, the slayer wanted to be a bitch about it? Spike could take care of himself.

”Fine, then slayer,” Spike announced nastily, ”I can get myself off, but if you would just lie there and look like you’re in pain, it would turn me on even more – in fact, if you want to be a real doll, you can get yourself off as well.”

That did it. All one hundred pounds of pissed off slayer and blonde girl came hurtling toward, co, combining slayer side kick and punch combinations with a slap and scratching technique of an offended woman. Spike grabbed her by the arms, ignoring the warning twinges of the chip in his head, and held her away from him.

”You bitch!”

”Asshole!” Buffy rejoined scathingly

”Cock-teasing bitch!” Spike came back, too furious to speak almost.

”You used that one already, you pathetic, worthless vampire,” Buffy retorted.

”Yeah, well this ‘pathetic, worts vas vampire’ got you so hot I could smell you from across town – even now you’re about to come…” Spike trailed off as it finally dawned on him, “that’s it; you get off on the pain – you want me to hurt you.”

”No,” Buffy denied, trembling from fury and lust, “I want to hurt you, a lot.”

”Well fine then, luv, make it hurt, but make it good,” Spike replied, “if you think you can…” he challenged.

He was cut off by another desperate kiss.

”Hurt me, kill me, whatever,” Buffy said, soberly, looking at him fully, “just make it all go away.”

”Make what go away?” Spike asked, gently now.

”Everything.”