The Story of B

Part Six
Incubus II

++++++++++++++++++++++


She could patrol this place with her eyes closed; she knew every marker, every crypt, and every exposed tree root. She'd become one with the night here - a part of it, just like the trees and the blackened sky. The old cemetery felt more like her home than the house on Revello Drive. These days, no matter where she was headed, she always ended up here.

It was dark tonight, even without all of the trees.

When had she sed fed feeling safer in the dark than she did in the daylight? Safer here - near him - than she felt at home?

Stake joined to her fist, she moved along - not stealthily but relaxed. The outward calm was deceptive. Her mind was anything but relaxed.

There was alwveryvery little activity in this cemetery. Buffy suspected that Spike had meticulously cleaned house ever since he'd made this place his home, obsessively keeping the fledgling population to nearly zero. These days (since he seemed to stay in the crypt so much of the time), she thought that he must keep the 'beasties' at bay by mere reputation. This was the last place she patrolled most nights. She was usually tired by the time she got here and a tired Slayer was a dead Slayer. Even dead on her feet, she could always pick out the golden glow of the tiny candle flames through the grate; see the shadow of the door in the dark like it was lighted.

Tonight, she was early. She'd come here first.

"Look at your friends and tell me you don't love getting away with this right under their noses."

She still hadn't decided whether last night at the Bronze had been real or some kind of waking dream. If it had been real, she should be really pissed-off, ready to kick his ass from one end of the crypt to the other. Obviously, he was angry that she had spent her off time with her friends instead of him. He probably would have been fine with it, if she hadn't looked as miserable as she felt. Despite everything, despite the complications and the conflicts, she knew that he hated to see her unhappy. Last night's aborted sex had been punishment - of a strange but comfortingly Spike-like variety.

Of course, his leaving her hanging like that could have been just another move in a game calculated to bring her to him last night - some kind of siren call/power play thingy. If so, she hadn't played. He hadn't said a lot, but the things he had were half-recognized truths by the time she'd returned home. They'd begun digging away in her brain, burrowing deep. She'd lain awake for an achingly long time, wishing she had someone to talk to about it. About how she felt, or even scarier, about how she *didn't*.

Once, not so long ago, she would have gone to him to talk about it. Barged in with some half-ass excuse. Or maybe just come right out with it. And he would have listened quietly, eyes soft in understanding, then glittering with some secret amusement.

Still, he would have listened. And then he would have talked. Asked her questions, helped her excavate some answers.

They really didn't talk anymore.

Her feet had carried her to the door of the crypt and absently she put her hand on the door to push it open. But she didn't. Instead she just stood, mind churning with confusion and clarity.

Conflicted much?

"The only reason you've lasted as long as you have is you've got ties to the world... your mum, your brat kid sister, the Scoobies."

Once that had been true. She'd known it when he said it. There had been a lot of big truths hitting her like anvils that night. Now, Big Bad Vampire Spike had become her tether. The evil undead fiend behind Door #3 of this richly ironic Dating Game had become her lifeline! How sad (and sick) was that? He'd become her connection to herself, like some priest that acted as a conduit between God and confessee. Spike kept her grounded; he kept her sane. He was her sanctuary, her escape, and her single tie to the world - to herself.

Had to be that shared experience of broken fingernails, bloody knuckles, and dirt sifting down as the coffin cracked open. She remembered how she'd known he would understand that better than anyone.

Who was she kidding? He'd *always* understood her better than anyone else - even Angel. Especially Angel. She and Spike had always had some bizarre something. He'd always been able to see into her. She hated that about him. He had always seen too damned much.

And somehow, she'd come to rely on him, over everyone else in her life: her sister, her now-absent Watcher, and her all-but-absent friends.

She had stood motionless, hand on the door, frozen in time like a fly in amber, willing things to be the way they'd been before. She missed the easiness, the comfortable things about being with him.

Now, instead of the easiness, everything between them was all raw nerve endings and bruised tissue. She was fighting for her life and he was fighting for it too.

She couldn't let him win.

Never should have kissed him. Never, never should have done all the rest. He knew where she lived now. He'd said it and she believed it. He'd proved it time after heart-stopping time. He had a taste for it, obsessive as it was.

And so did she.

Everything had changed.

But things never stayed the same. She knew that. She and Spike had moved on to something else. They were on the next level - something dark and thrillingly dangerous.

And sad.

She used to be able to lean on him. Not much. Just a little. Let him have her back sometimes. Expect him to watch over Dawn for her when she couldn't. Count on him to understand when no one else could or would.

Now she had to watch her own back, because she had to be tough, on guard, in control or she'd lose herself in this. Never knew when he might slip in.

No, no slipping here.

It was all so complicated.

She missed the simplicity of the quiet conversations on her back porch.

She missed his sense of humor. Didn't see much of that anymore. Now the only time things weren't tense between them was in the languor immediately following sex - and sometimes not even then.

She missed *him* -- and the way it used to be when she first came back. And she could never tell him that.

He already knew that she needed him for sex. Hell, he knew that this was the best sex of her life - the bastard. She suspected it was the same for him. When he danced with her, either with his fists or with his cock, it was the most intense thing she'd ever experienced. Vampire and Slayer locked together in a dance they couldn't stop. And they were the only ones who heard the music, knew the steps.

When she was with him, when he was touching her, she could completely let go - instinctively knowing that *whatever* she dished out, fair or foul, he could take it. This wasn't Riley. This was Spike. She could trust that.

Absently, she realized she was tracing the grain on the door.

What he could never know was that she ached for the safety and comfort just being with him had provided once upon a time. When she had been with him, she had felt his love - no matter what she said to the contrary. And that was way too much information, way too much power for him to have.

Besides, *she* didn't love *him*. She just loved how he made her feel. And that wasn't the same thing as loving someone - as being in love with someone. No. Not at all. If he suspected, he would misunderstand, and she would never be able to end this. He'd fight her every step of the way.

She needed to end this. She couldn't be with him, but she couldn't stay away.

If things could just be like they were.

If she could just talk to him again.

So complicated. How had it gotten so complicated? They'd been friends.

"You'll never be friends. You'll be in love till it kills you both. You'll fight, and you'll shag, and you'll hate each other till it makes you quiver, but you'll never be friends."

She turned and walked away.

++++++++++++++++++++++++

She was trapped somewhere between waking and the oblivion of unconsciousness, in the twilight of sleep. Her bed didn't feel right. Felt wrong. She whimpered. Everything felt wrong.

She felt the bed shift. Spike eased over to her and whispered soothingly as if she were a little girl.

"It's all right. Shhh..."

And in that moment, everything that was wrong went away. She was safe. Someone else could slay the demons.

"It's all right."

She sighed silently as he settled in next to her.

"...our little secret."

She was glad he had come tonight. She had needed him to. At that moment, she loved him more than she'd ever loved anyone.

She turned to him then, to thank him for being there. Slid her arms around his neck as she kissed him tenderly. Needed him so much. Needed the completion he gave her. The kisses became more ardent, urgent. He made her weak with hunger.

Suddenly, they were in his crypt. She was riding him, devouring him with her eyes and an intense concentration that bordered on anger. His blue eyes were clouded with desire and something else she couldn't name and didn't really care to delve into. All she knew was that she was flushed and hot at the sight of him lying under her. She wanted to punish him with hard sex and harder kisses.

His wrists were encircled with bracelets of silver.

So wet. And he was so hard. How could he be so hard she could feel it all the way through her body like this? His brow was furrowed as she tried to wring every bit of life from him that she could.

A slight shift and she was sitting astride the girl. Same vantage point. Calmly, she asked the same question Spike had asked her a few days before.

"Do you trust me?"

The girl's soft dark eyes were shining in worship. Buffy felt strangely detached from her. She snapped the handcuffs into place and dropped the girl's arms back over her head.

The girl came. It was short, sharp.

Forehead pressed against his, Buffy found herself beneath Spike, as he pushed into her. They matched each other move for move, stroke for stroke, straining tensely for release. They fit together so perfectly. She wanted him so much.

She drove the stake toward his defenseless sleeping form - down to his unbeating heart.

And watched the girl's eyes open widely as Buffy impaled her on the hard, wooden stake.

Her eyes were bright blue.

Buffy was panting when she woke. She looked around wildly to get her bearings and realized she was still wearing the turtleneck she'd had on when she returned from the woods.

Dream. Just a dream.

Nightmare - or Prophecy Girl dream?

Either way, she'd killed that girl twice now.

She shook her head to clear it. Never staked Spike. Never staked that girl. It had been an accident. Spike had said so. And he was there.

At least, she thought he was there.

But she'd thought he was here too. In her bed, making love. Even in her dream, she'd felt the love in it. She'd kissed him as if he were her lover - glorying in his touch, his mouth, his love.

But she'd never once handcuffed Spike to his bed. Never had seen that girl before tonight.

Right?

She *had* killed that girl though. Her eyes narrowed in remembrance. Killed her and left Spike to clean up the mess.

That was the part that was impossible to understand.

Buffy couldn't believe she had done what Spike had told her to. That she'd come home and climbed in her 'comfy' bed just like he'd said. When had she started listening to Spike? It wasn't right to have left that dead girl in the woods to be cleaned up like some 'mistake.' What was wrong with her?

Wrong. That explained it. All wrong.

She should never have listened to Spike. Spike wasn't a part of the human world and its human laws. He had his own set of rules. Rules that could be broken when the need arose. She knew that. She'd always known it. Why had she forgotten?

Because she'd wanted to. She hadn't wanted to deal with that dead girl any more than she wanted to deal with the escalating pile of bills on the table or Dawn's increasingly bad behavior.

Well, this time she had to deal. Giles had been right. And it wasn't too late to go to the police. Somehow explain what had happened - that there had been some kind of accident.

Spike's rules were not - and could never be - hers.

She had trusted him tonight to take care of her in his own way. She knew that Spike was trying to protect her. Didn't doubt that for a second.

Pushing wisps of hair back off her forehead with shaking hands, she remembered the dream. Thought about the rush of satisfaction she'd had as she'd plunged the stake toward Spike's motionless chest.

Who was going to protect Spike? Or Dawn? Or any of her friends? From her? From Buffy?

She'd killed a human tonight. Not a vampire, not a demon. The Slayer of undead evil things that go bump in the night had taken a soul from the world before its time.

She very deliberately got up and put on her leather coat.

Her life had been a nightmare since she came back from the dead. She thought she might just be waking up to it.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

She'd taken a deep breath as she'd rounded the corner of the alley. The police station was lit up - obviously one of the busiest 'after-hours' establishments in the Hellmouth. She'd been arrested once before - or had been about to be anyway - when Kendra had died.

Kendra's death made her think of Drusilla. And Drusilla had made her think of Spike. Spike had kept her from being arrested last time.

"What do you think you're doing?"

Anger surged within her, but she clamped down on it, just as she had had to do with the fear earlier when she'd made the decision to come here. To walk into the police station and turn herself in for a crime she wasn't sure she even remembered.

She'd already been through this with Dawn. She was so not going through it again with him! She replied in a cold voice that brooked no argument.

As he had in the woods, Spike once again grabbed her from behind. But this time, as he bodily removed her from the scene, he tossed her across the alley in frustration and something bordering on disgust.

He was spitting out his words precisely. She hadn't heard him sound so cold, so British in years. Talking to her as if she was a child. Reasoning with her, telling her what she could and couldn't do. She was getting angry again.

Then, all of his coldness fell away as she told him to let her go.

"I can't. I love you."

Loved her? He picks now to say it? In the alley by the police station? Not that she'd wanted to hear it anyway. Just another thing to use to get her to do what he wanted, not what she needed to do.

He'd stopped her from getting arrested the first time because he wanted Drusilla back. And now he was stopping her again? Because he *thought* he loved Buffy?

This was hard enough as it was. Loving Angel hadn't stopped her from pushing a sword through his body to save the world, had it?

What made him think his love was more important than hers had been?

The anger and fear that she'd been holding down surged up and swallowed her.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


There *had* to be something wrong! Buffy Summers would have never done what 'she' did last night.

But Tara had said there wasn't. She trusted Tara. Tara would have kept looking if there'd been any room for doubt. Tara was a book researcher - the college brain. A real student of the old moldy texts.

Tara's soft eyes reminded her of her mother's. She didn't deserve Tara's pity, didn't deserve Tara's soft hand on her hair. Didn't deserve anyone's.

How could she have done it?

She'd never forget the demon disappearing to reveal the barely-recognizable face that had looked at her with such sadness. And forgiveness. Like she'd been a wicked child.

She thought idly of that old movie, "The Bad Seed." If the resurrection hadn't gone 'wrong,' then what had happened to her?

She'd beaten Spike's face to a bloody pulp. It had been a Glory-style beating. But instead of calculated to torture, it had been an outpouring of fear and rage and frustration.

It had been punishment.

Had she been punishing Spike or herself?

She knew she hadn't physically crippled him. This was Spike, not some fragile human male. No, she hadn't crippled him, put him in a wheelchair or anything like that.

What she'd done was much worse.

She should have gone back to that alley, even if she'd discovered he was gone anyway to tell him that she hadn't killed that girl. Katrina. She was sure of it now: she hadn't killed Katrina. She should have gone to the crypt after she'd met with the Scoobies to tell him she hadn't done it and about the time-wonky demons Anya had told them about. She should have gone to him before she saw Tara today to tell him she was sorry for everything she'd said, everything she'd done.

That would have been the right thing to do. The 'Buffy' thing to do.

But she wasn't right. Spike had told her she was 'wrong.'

And now she knew she wasn't. So why didn't she go see him, talk to him, tell him-

Tell him what?

What could she possibly say to him now?

She'd been so scared. And he had been there in front of her, egging her on, going into gameface. Sounding so much like the old Spike she had hated so much. Taunting her to fight.

"Put it on me. Put it all on me."

And at that moment, that was all she'd wanted to do. Let someone else take it, the way she had been taking it for years. Taking it on the chin. The gut. The heart.

"That's my girl."

That was when things had gone crazy. She was not his girl. She hadn't been anyone's 'girl' since Angel. Not Riley's, not anyone's. Spike needed to know that, remember it always.

She'd had to kill Angel, even when she knew that she was his girl, would always be his girl.

And here was this soulless thing calling her that. Angel had at least had a soul. Angel loved. You couldn't love without a soul.

Right?

She'd gone to him once after a beating like she'd given him last night. Seen the damage, the pain. It had been impossible to see him like that and not care a little. Even if it was Spike.

She didn't think she could walk in there and look at him, knowing that this time, she'd done it to him. Done it with her own two little Slayer hands, knowing all the time that he'd just been trying to help because he 'loved' her.

What could she say anyway? 'Sorry' didn't really cut it. And how could she explain something that she didn't even understand herself?

She couldn't face him. Couldn't look at him - or at what she'd done.

How could he have forgiven her when she couldn't forgive herself? She didn't deserve it. Didn't deserve anyone's forgiveness. hy hhy had he let her do it? Keep doing it?

That scared her more than anything else. That he'd *let* her punish him like that. The things she'd said - the things she'd done - and he hadn't said a word, hadn't raised a hand to defend himself. Just taken it. On the chin. The gut. The heart.

She thought about the dream again. About the stake driving toward his defenseless body.

He would let her kill him, wouldn't he? If she needed to do it, he'd let her - anything for her.

"I may be love's bitch, but at least I'm man enough to admit it."

There was no way she could go there and see him right now. Didn't know if she ever could. How could he ever forgive her for what she'd done?

Deep down, she knew that he'd forgiven her even while she was beating him blind.

But how would she ever forgive herself?


That was the real question, wasn't it?