Seeing Red

Seeing Red: The Rape

Disclaimer: I don't own them. Joss does. All hail Mutant Enemy.

Spoilers/Ships: This is AU. Spuffy.

Distribution: Sure, just let me know.

Feedback: Is always nice.

Rating: NC-17 to XXX for violence, rape and angst.

Author's Note: This is loosely based (and I do stress loosely) on the "Seeing Red" ep of BtVS. What if Buffy had been too hurt to fight back? Would Spike really have raped her? And what would that say about him and them?

Note 2: Many of you wrote after I posted the first/only chapter of this and requested that I continue. I was unsure if I should. I don’t know how Spike can ever redeem himself, nor do I know if Buffy can or should forgive him. His betrayal is so complete--his self-involvement at that crucial moment when he was totally focused on his own pain to the utter exclusion of hers so all-encompassing--that it may be impossible for him to ever make things right in my AU (or, IMHO, in the "real" world of Buffy). If I continue this, I am not condoning his actions, nor can I be an apologist for rapists. (Personally I think they should all be shot in the head like the predators that they are…protect the herd and all that…) But, I wrote Spike under the control of his demon. What if he weren’t? Could she then love him? If the demon, not Spike himself, is to blame, then perhaps…just perhaps he can still salvage something. I have no idea how this will play out, but for those of you who've read my other fics, I will say this. I'm not doing B/S/A here. I'm sticking with canon for season six, with the exception of the changes I made to “Seeing Red.” The only other Spuffy pieces I've written were for The Key (and we all know how that turned out...death, destruction, blood...not pretty. I'm not promising that this will turn out any better). -Rhi

*
Buffy punched a large vampire in Sunnyrest graveyard. He struck back, hard, and dropped her to the ground for a moment before she leapt to her feet and spin kicked him.

"Not bad. How hard you gonna kick when you're blowing in the wind?" she quipped. She staked the vampire in mid jump and he dusted just as he kicked her, sending her reeling backwards. She struck a tombstone hard with her back and broke it in two. It felt as if she'd ruptured both kidneys. She lay there for a moment, in so much agony she could barely move, before she climbed painfully to her feet and groaned, "that was rhetorical.…"

Buffy limped painfully home, desperately grateful that nothing else had come out of the dark to attack her. She unlocked the door to the empty house and climbed slowly up the stairs. Each step jarred her back, sending waves of pain radiating from her damaged kidneys and spine. Looking in the mirror in her room as she undressed, Buffy realized that the only thing that had kept her alive was her Slayer strength. The bruises and fractures in her back from the tombstone would have put a normal human into shock, even if the blow hadn't snapped her spine completely.

She moved one hand hesitantly to her back and felt her spine gingerly. At least one of the vertebrae was cracked, probably more like three and she was sure she'd ruptured the disks. If she could just get to the shower and soothe the ache, her Slayer healing would kick in and take care of things as it always did.

She pushed her arms into her short robe and hobbled to the bathroom, hoping that warm water might soothe the pain that threatened to overwhelm her at any moment. Leaning over was more painful than she'd imagined possible, but she set the water running and started to disrobe.

She was startled by the telltale feeling of a vampire nearby. Buffy gasped. Spike was standing in the doorway (sans leather duster). He had followed her into the bathroom. Buffy was suddenly conscious of how little she had on.

"You hurt?" he asked.

Buffy was so tired and full of pain that she was almost calm, despite her vivid recollection of Spike screwing Anya into the table at the Magic Box, witnessed by all of her friends, not to mention her little sister.

"Get out," she said, emotionlessly.

"We need to talk," he sa He He wanted to talk, wanted to apologize somehow for his actions. That need warred with the demon that lurked, ever inside him. The demon wanted to reclaim its mate. It needed nothing but the hot sheath that offered such perfect bliss, such violent welcome. The demon was rising within him, fighting the intrusive electronic chip in his head that forced him to refrain from violence. He wanted to speak, to apologize for his actions, but what could he say to her?

Buffy was still too tired to care about his emotions or her own. "I really don't," she replied.

Her lack of response fed his anger. "This isn't just about you -- as much you'd like it to be," he sneered.

All she wanted was to soothe her wounded back in the shower. He was in her face, intruding as he always did, forcing her to consider feelings that she couldn't bear to face…actions that she didn't want to acknowledge. "You spoke. I listened. You leave," she said.

Spike looked at her, loving her despite her scorn, needing her despite his resolve. He whispered, soft and sincere, "I'm sorry."

The sincerity in his voice affected Buffy despite her anger and hurt.

"Not that it matters now. But I needed you to know that," he added.

Buffy was bitter and hurting. "Why?"

"Because I care about you," Spike said.

Her anger awoke from the lethargy and pain momentarily, "Then you might want to try the not sleeping with my friends," she hissed.

Spike wasn't sure how to even react. "That's not... I didn't go to Anya for that. I was looking for a spell," he admitted.

"You wgoingoing to use a spell on me?" Buffy asked angrily.

She never understood him. Still didn't, "It wasn't for you. I wanted something -- anything to make this feeling stop. I just wanted it to stop…You should have let him kill me," he whispered.

"I couldn't," she admitted, reluctantly.

He was hopeful. "Why?"

"You know why," Buffy said, not wanting to put it into words.

"Because you love me," he stated. This had gone way beyond pain and retribution. It was down to the truth now, once and for all.

Buffy truly didn't want to hurt him, but she answered honestly and softly, "No. I don't."

Spike couldn't accept the answer. He loved her, she must love him back! Why wouldn't she admit it? "Why do you keep lying to yourself?"

"I'm not saying I don't have feelings for you. I do. But it's not love. I could never trust you enough for it to become that," she said.

"'Trust... is for old marrieds, Buffy," he said. "Great love is wild and passionate and dangerous... it burns and consumes."

Buffy acknowledge the truth of what he said, "Until there's nothing left. That kind of love doesn't last." She knew it to be true. Look at her parents, look at Angel, look at her whole, stupid, lonely life.

He was moving towards her, desperate and tortured by her seeming disdain for his love and need, her stubborn refusal to face the emotions he knew that she shared with him.

"I know you feel like I do... you don't have to hide it any more..." he said urgently. He moved to kiss her. She gently tried to stop him, not wanting to hurt him any more than she had already.

"Spike…" she said. "Spike, stop this..."

Spike was loosing control, the demon coming to the fore in his desperate need for the slayer of his kind. "Let yourself feel it..." he urged, becoming more forceful in his demands.

Buffy tried to head things off before everything got completely out of control. "Stop it...

It quickly escalated into a very real, very ugly struggle.

Spike advanced towards her and tried to kiss her. Buffy fought him off but he continued, pushing her towards the tub.

"You love me..." he claimed desperately/

"Don't…" she tried to ward him off, but her battered body betrayed her. She stumbled back and grabbed onto the shower curtain, then fell. The shower curtain rings ripped off like gunfire as she went down. She gasped in pain as her back cracked against the edge of the tub, followed by her head as she tumbled to the floor in a daze of excruciating agony.

Spike was on her, pinning her against the back of the tub, oblivious to her pain. His kisses were desperate, forceful. "Let it go... Let yourself love me..." he urged.

Buffy was frightened by his force and still dazed from the fall. Her back was a mass of pain radiating from her bleeding kidneys. She struggled to speak over the pain, groaning, "Stop it... please... stop.…"

He wouldn't listen. Buffy struggled with him, pain shooting through her injured back.

Spike climbed on top of her, desperate and hungry for the feel of her. Her scent inflamed him, the dried blood from her earlier hunt searing his senses and demanding that he drink from her. He'd never done it, never crossed that line, despite his knowledge that he was able to any time they fucked. He'd wanted to wait, wanted her to offer herself to him, hoped that the ultimate intimacy between a human and vampire might be possible for them. Then she'd rejected him, offering him pity in the aftermath of Captain Cardboard's reappearance.

That was it, Spike was sure. The reason she'd left him, left the passion and power of their union, was stupid human worry over what her blithering friends would think. Disgust that she'd tied herself to yet another demon, this one soulless? If he could only remind her of the they'd had together…the power of their coupling…she'd be sure to think again before throwing it all away. He kissed her, caressing her slight body with skillful hands. "I know you felt it... When I was inside you..."

Buffy didn't want to go there. She couldn't acknowledge the pleasure that his every caress had drawn from her. She had to be strong, to stand on her own. Xander was right, Spike was soulless, remorseless, a thing…not a person. He was a demon like Angelus and he would kill and maim and torture just as Angelus had if she allowed him power over her. "Don't," she gasped.

She managed to push him off and scuttled desperately for the door, like a wounded animal.

He caught her leg in a bruising grip, scrambling back on top of her and pinning her wrists down. "You're going to let me inside you..." he insisted, desperate to keep her there, to make her acknowledge the bond between them.

She was terrified now, hurting and momentarily unable to stop him. "Please..." she said.

Spike was equally terrified, afraid that he'd lost her, that she'd never stay with him if he allowed her to leave now. If he could only convince her of his love…
"You'll feel it again, Buffy..." he growled.

"Spike, stop..." she gasped.

He tore at her robe, getting it open. "I'll make you feel it..." he gritted, lost in his need and not noticing her anymore except as the object of his own desires.

Buffy cried out in agony as he pushed her aching back against the floor and tore her robe open with rapacious hands, "STOP!"

Spike pushed Buffy hard to the floor against the bathtub, unseeing, unaware of anything except his need to be seated within her. Her face twisted in pain as she tried to push Spike away.

Buffy cringed away from him on the floor, still in shock from the awful blow to her already battered kidneys. The pain radiated out from her back, subsuming all thought and rendering her helpless in the demented onslaught of Spike's vampiric strength.

Spike brutally pinned her down, ripping at his jeans with one hand as he spread her legs with his knees. He would have her, take her, claim her as a vampire should take its mate and then everything would be right. She would see how foolish her qualms were in comparison to the pleasure he could wring from her body. He finished with the snaps and zipper of his jeans, freeing his hardened cock with one hand. The other still held Buffy pinned to the floor, as he had pinned her to the sheets of his now-destd bed bed in the crypt where they'd trysted so often since her renewed life.

She was meant to be his, Spike thought desperately, positioning himself at the entr to to her body with one hand as he kept her pinned with the other. No one else could make her scream the way he could, no one could make her writhe in helpless abandon beneath their talented body. She was his for the taking and he pushed himself forward, breaching her dry cunt with one powerful thrust.

Buffy screamed in hopeless agony as another pain added itself to the riot of sensation her body labored under. Her head throbbed where she'd cracked it against the tub, and dizziness warred with consciousness as the world swam in and out of focus. Buffy shook her head, denying what was happening, denying that this could be done to her, even as she felt Spike thrust again and again into her now bleeding hole.

Eyes closed, mind awash in sensation, Spike was in ecstasy, seated deep within his lover's gorgeous body. Now she would respond to him, now she would share his desperate need and longing for her. She could never deny him again. He pumped in and out of her unresisting flesh, pressing hard kisses to her neck, chest and breasts as he rode her. Moving within her again was perfection, her inferno scorching his cold, dead flesh as he increased the pace, fucking her with abandon. He spent himself finally, wondering as he did so, at her lack of response. Had he missed her coming? Surely not, she was vocal and amazing when she came, screaming his name teartearing at him until bruises formed on his white flesh.

Spike opened his eyes and looked down into the tear-filled green-hazel eyes of the Slayer. Buffy lay beneath him, agony etched on her beautiful face, with tears of pain streaming from her eyes as she clenched her teeth until her countenance assumed a rictus-like expression.

Spike stilled himself in shock. She wasn't responding, she was laying there as if he had…he pulled away from her suddenly, looking down at his still-hard cock. It was covered in blood from Buffy's wounded cunt, and she shuddered as he pulled away, as if it caused her pain.

Buffy pulled her legs together, crossing her hands over her wounded sex and curling into a ball against Spike's intrusive gaze. She shuddered with pain and grief, unable even to cry at the violation of her body and spirit by this once-almost-trusted ally and -- dare she even think it -- lover. Her shattered spirit and burning cunt stole her breath, as she began sobbing in hopeless pain and betrayal.

Spike pushed himself to his feet, looming over her slight body and she winced from his regard. He tucked his bloody cock back inside his jeans and reached one hand out to Buffy in supplication and fear at what he had done.

"Ask me again why I could never love you," she whispered in tones that spoke of pain beyond bearing and betrayal so vast he could never regain her.

Spike looked down at her, realizing how far he just crossed the line. "Oh god. Buffy... I didn't --" Spike could muster no response, the weight of his actions crashing down on him. Buffy lay motionless, her eyes slick with pain, fear and rage from being violated.

Spike clenched his eyes closed, attempting to shut out the incriminating sight before him. Then he ran, hiding from his demon and his former lover, the woman he loved beyond reason and had now violated beyond any forgiveness or understanding.

Spike raced into the crypt, stopping and standing with absolute stillness in the center of the chaos that Buffy's last visit had caused. His eyes snapped open. He couldn't shake the images of his attack upon her. He stalked over to his alcohol stash, poured a glass of vodka with trembling hands andsed sed it to his lips.

Images of Buffy gasping for breath, Buffy in pain, Buffy crying silently beneath him whirled through his head and Spike exploded, his emotions boiling over. He crushed the glass of vodka in his hand. He stood there seething, at war with himself, trembling, lost. "What have I done? Why did I do it? What has she done to me?"

Spike looked down, ashamed. "We were never together. Not really. She wouldn't lower herself that far. Why do I feel this way? Love? Is that what this is? I can feel it. Squirming inside my head. The chip. Little Jiminy Cricket, gnawing bits and chunks."

Spike put his fingers to his head, probing harshly as if he could gouge the chip out with his bare hands. "Everything used to be so clear. Slayer. Vampire. Vampire kills Slayer, sucks her dry, picks his teeth with her bones. That's how it's always been. I've tasted the life of two Slayers. But with Buffy…" he hated himself. "This isn't the way it's supposed to be. It's the chip. Steel and wires and silicon. It won't let me feed. And I can't be the man she wants. I'm not even a monster, I'm nothing." Spike's self-loathing hit an all-time low.

"Things can change…If you make them. She thinks she knows me. She thinks she knows who I am. What I'm capable of. She has no idea. I wasn't always this way. It won't be easy, but I can be like I was. Before they changed me. Before... Then she'll see who I really am."

Spike smiled darkly, his eyes dancing with secret schemes. He grabbed a nearby duffle bag -- and started throwing his belongings into it.

The Trials

The front door of Buffy’s house was hanging open. Xander hustled in, his face bruised and lip bleeding. "Buffy? I found Warren." He glanced into the living room and the dining room. Empty. "Actually, ace ace kinda found him -- " He froze in place. Spike's leather coat was draped across the banister at the foot of the stairs. Xander's face darkened and he grabbed the coat, climbing the stairway angrily.

Buffy was curled on the floor against the tub in her torn bathrobe. She had finally turned the water off, too shell-shocked to do anything bit ait and stare.

Xander stormed in with Spike's coat, totally pissed. "This what you call not seeing Spike anymore --" he ranted, then stopped dead as he looked at Buffy…really seeing her now. The torn robe. Her eyes red from tears. *No!* "What did he do?" he asked softly, not wanting to hear the answer that he suspected. "Did he…hurt you? …Buffy?"

Buffy stared dully at Xander. He was talking. She heard him, yet the words seemed incomprehensible. He was…he was asking about Spike, he had Spike’s coat. She tried to reply. "He..." her voice trailed off as she noticed a steadily darkening bruise in the shape of his hand on her thigh. Self-consciously she covered it with her robe, feeling vulnerable and naked in front of Xander.

It didn’t matter that she hadn’t answered him. Xander already knew the answer before he asked the question. That piece of shit vampire had taken what she didn’t want to give anymore. She had come to her senses (in Xander’s opinion) but that undead bastard had forced her, taken what Xander had always wanted but never had. And he had hurt her. "Son of a bitch," he swore, heading for the door, intent on staking Spike before the night was over.

"Don't." Buffy’s voice was so soft that Xander didn’t even register it at first. He paused, shaking with anger.

"Please," she begged softly, each word breaking in her thready voice. "Just...don't."

Xander stood there, paralyzed, his fury giving way to concern for his friend. How could he help her? He didn’t know how. What could he possibly do to stop the pain that shrieked silently from Buffy’s tear-stained face and tightly clenched jaw?

The downstairs door banged shut and Buffy jumped skittishly to her feet, clutching the robe protectively around her tiny form. Xander tensed as feet pounded up the stairs.

Willow appeared in the doorway, flushed with researchy excitement. "Hey, I think we finallt sot something --" She saw Xander's battered face and Buffy's condition and became concerned. "What happened?" she asked.

Buffy looked down at the floor and then imploringly at Xander. *Please let him keep his mouth shut for once.* "Nothing." Buffy wiped at her eyes and turned to Willow. "What did you find out?" she asked, desperate for something, anything to take her mind off what had just happened.

*

Spike stood alone in pitch blackness, his shirt stripped from him, clad in pants and barefoot. He moved about like an anxious panther. A demonic voice spoke.

"You understand, then."

"Yeah, yeah," Spike said in a bored tone. "It's not like you haven't been clear about it, oh great mysterious one. This is a test. I don't get what I want unless I pass said test. That about the size and shape?" He was tired of waiting, afraid of thinking, ready…no eager for action, any kind of action, to wipe the horrible images of Buffy from his head.

"Yes," said the voice.

Spike continued, "And since you got your pad decked out gladiator style, and no number two pencils have been provided -- I guess we're not starting with the written.

There was no response.

"Well? Spike asked impatiently. Then a sound drew his attention and he turned, to see he was no longer standing alone. There, facing him in the darkness, was a very large fellow. It seemed he was made entirely of muscles. Spike sized him up. "Ah. Here we go, then. Just me and the walking action figure. I'm venturing this would be the Kill-or-be-killed type situation, then?"

"To the death," the voice agreed.

Spike squared off with Muscles. "Right," he grinned. "Here we are now. Entertain us."

Muscles just smiled wickedly, and his fists burst into flame. They were the only illumination in the cave, eerily lighting the two combatants.

Spike swore, "Oh, son of a bitch!" as Muscles hit him in the side of the head with a flaming fist so hard that he spun and hit the dirt instantly. He scrambled onto his back, scuttling backward like a crab.

Muscles moved in, much faster than Spike would have thought possible, and punched him again with his flaming fist. It burned the vampire like sunlight or holy water, singeing flesh and torturing nerve endings. Spike welcomed the pain gladly, reveling in his own suffering. If he hurt enough, he might make up for what he’d done to Buffy.

Muscles landed blow after blow on Spike’s smaller frame as the vampire fought back with less than his usual vigor. She’d been unable to protect herself from him in his blindness, too hurt to knock him away as was her wont. He would suffer as she had, he thought to himself, purposely repressing the demon and fighting to keep from game face with difficulty. It went against all of his instincts as a vampire, but then, those instincts were why he was going through this, weren’t they? Those instincts had betrayed his love, destroyed any chance he had with the woman he craved more than blood.

Spike fell hard onto the dirt floor of the cave. He was badly beaten, and his body bore multiple wounds and scorch marks. Barely able to lift his head, he spat blood, climbed shakily to his feet, and gritted, "Had enough?"

In answer, a flaming fist cracked him square in the face. Muscles started to pound him. It was nearly over. Spike took another flaming fist to the stomach and doubled over in agony. Another shot headed for his face. Spike held up a bare palm and caught the punch. His flesh sizzled. "Ow! Badmove, badmove, badmove..." he groaned in pain.

He backed up. He was going to have to fight back before Muscles killed him. Muscles approached him, death in his eyes, and went for the killer blow when Spike grabbed him and rolled. Spike leapt to his feet and barely managed to kick him right in the family jewels. Muscles went down. Spike leapt upon him and snapped his neck.

It was over. Spike barely managed to get to his feet, but finally did it. He stood, ringed by the flaming torches and wiped the blood from his mouth, wearily triumphant. He staggered forward.

"Looks like local boy loses," Spike sneered.

"So it would appear," said the voice.

"Good on me, then. So? I get what I came for? I passed, right?" Spike asked, glad that he’d taken the amount of abuse that he had. Perhaps it was enough to make up for some of what he’d done.

"Indeed," said the voice. "You have passed the first stage of the test."

Spike was relieved. "Right, then I... wait... first stage?" *Shit, there’s more than one? I’ve got nothing left!* "Bugger!"

The torches dimmed and a huge demon appeared with a rush of foul air. It had two heads, one more hideous than the next. It towered over Spike’s smaller build and growled from both mouths at once. He leapt at it, not giving it the change to score on him with the razor sharp claws that sprang from its paws with a snickt.

Spike punched the first face of the demon as hard as he could and felt its jaw shatter under his vampiric strength. He darted away, but not quite fast enough. Its claws sliced his arm, drawing blood from the deep wound. Spike ignored it, spinning into a kick to the thing’s midsection that knocked it back away from him.

The demon howled its fury and sprang for him.

"Shit!" he swore, trying to back away but coming up against the wall of the cave. He was pinned. The demon gouged his chest, raking its claws across the pale white skin there and leaving behind huge tears in his muscles. Spike screamed in white-hot agony. He reached for its left head and ripped at it, tugging and wrenching at its neck.

The demon shrieked in anguish as he ripped its head from its body and threw it back rd trd the cave in which he’d started. He growled low and fierce, reaching for its other head. The thing seemed stunned by the loss of one head and screamed in inhuman agony as he repeated the process with the second head.

Then all was silent. After a few moments, Spike pushed the thing’s body to the floor, ripping its claws from his chest as he did so. He walked through the inky darkness toward the light, squinting. He was filthy, bruised and bleeding copiously in places. "Right then. That was a bloody doddle and a piece o'piss..." he said defiantly. He tossed the head to the ground, then dropped to his knees, exhausted. "Got any more ruddy tests, ya ponce? I'll take anything you throw at me. If it'll get me what I need to take care of the Slayer, give her what's coming to her, you just bring it on. Bring on the whole--"

He froze as he saw something on the ground and swore under his breath. "Bloody hell." He gritted his teeth and tensed, preparing himself as hundreds of stinging, biting insects of various sizes, colors, and species swarmed up his torso. They crawled onto his head and face, up his nose...and he screamed in anger, frustration and fear.

He tried to rip them off of his face, but they swarmed even faster, rushing into his mouth as he screamed. He forced himself to stop, to ignore the hideous prickling of their stinging, the crawling sensation all over his skin. He began crushing them between his wounded hands, slowly and steadily, grateful that at least he didn’t have to open his mouth to breathe.

It took forever. There were thousands and they ate at him like physical manifestations of the conscience that he shouldn’t have as a demon. Everything in him cringed from touching them, but he continued ripping them from his face, his eyes, ears and nose, keeping his mouth closed tightly against their egress. He wavered, falling into the mass of them in pain and exhaustion and they swarmed over his body, covering him under their mass of foul, stinking carapaces. He struggled back to his knees, then lurched upward, stomping them under his bare feet while pulling them from his body.

They were in his jeans, crawling into the wounds inflicted by the other demons, he couldn’t get rid of their creeping, biting, stinging bodies. He would die, eaten a bit at a time, humiliated and brought low by this insignificant, pissant horde.

*No!* he thought and fought harder, stomping and whirling with tired grace as he tried to destroy his Lilliputian enemies. He fell, finally, crushing the last of them beneath his body like a giant falling from a dead beanstalk.

He lay on his back, beaten and bloody, close to dead. The demon of the cave moved and loomed over him. Spike opened his eyes wearily and looked up at the figure of his tormentor. He deserved still worse, he knew, and resigned himself to face it and prevail, no matter the odds. He would walk through the fires of hell to make amends to Buffy if that was what it asked of him.

"You have endured the required trials," said the voice, and he started in surprise, then tried to cover.

"Bloody right I have," he said weakly and pushed himself up to address the demon of the cave. "So, give me what I want. Make me what I was... so Buffy can get what she deserves."

"Very well," said the demon. It reached a gnarly hand to his bare chest. "Your soul is returned to you."

As the hand touched him, Spike felt blinding agony like he’d never before experienced rip through his entire body. He threw his head back and screamed in hopeless agony. *It is good,* he thought, before all thought left him. *This is what I deserve.*

This endless suffering was exactly right.

The Aftermath

Buffy stalked silently through Sunnyrest Cemetery, patrolling after a double-shift at the Double-Meat. God, she hated that place. The grease, the sweat, the vapid workers and endless, meaningless tasks sucked the vitality out of her. It had to end. Everyone told her she was better than that, smarter than that, but Buffy herself doubted it. She remembered Angelus's cruel comments: "It's not about you...it's never about you. And you keep falling for it over and over." He'd told her on more than one occasion that she was too stupid to stand against him for long.

She remembered college with sadness. Classes that actually interested her, intellectual challenges that she could stretch herself to meet. Even when she was dead tired from fighting Adam's minions, she'd felt more alive there than at any time since Willow had brought her back from the dead. Now, now she walked through life in a haze, putting out the fires of Xanderstupstupidity, Dawn's insecurity, or Willow's madness and facing a future with nothing in it but more boredom, pain, horror, and death.

Spike had...no she wouldn't think about him, about the times he'd touched her with astonishing tenderness, held her when she cried. How could a demon have done that? Buffy had pushed him away when Spike tried to tell her of his love. He was a demon, how could he love? She'd seen the demon in his eyes that terrible day in her bathroom, seen it subsume any remaining trace of William. She'd felt the change in him, the change that he'd allowed because he'd finally given up trying to be a man for her.

What had shocked Buffy more that day than anything else was the fact that she'd ever let the passion between them, for there was certainly passion, descend into such violence. It had never been one-sided. She'd left him with bite marks, bruises and cuts just as he had left her. She'd demanded that violence...it was necessary for her to feel pain with him every time in order for her to accept the mind-bending pleasure that he could give her and not feel guilty for taking it from him. At least, she'd told herself, if he hurts me then I'm paying for it, paying for my betrayal of Angel, my neglect of Dawn, my ignorance of Willow's need and my failures. Pain was the coin with which she paid for her pleasure. It always had been.

That glorious night with Angel had been paid for with death, pain, and destruction. The one night with Parker had been paid for with the pain of rejection. The lackluster loving of Riley had been paid for with Angel's despisal and her own abandonment. Love meant pain for Buffy...always. It didn't even have to be sexual. Her father's departure, her first Watcher's death, her friendship with Pike, her mom's death, Giles's abandonment, even Dawn's existence had all been paid for in pain. And now she'd paid for Spike. Paid him with pain inflicted upon him mentally and physically, and paid for her pleasure with her own pain. It was only right, after all. She had no business doing anything but slaying. It was her calling, her duty, her life. Nothing else was hers to take or give, her gift was and would always be death. Nothing more, nothing less.

*

William woke. The cave was dark and deserted. His body felt light...emptied and discarded. Why it would feel that wayn thn there was actually *more* in it, now with his soul sharing space with the demon, was simply one mystery among many.

William knew now that the struggles in the cave had been much less about physical punishment than about facing his demon and controlling it. From the violent physical strife of the first fight, so similar to that which he and Buffy had inflicted upon each other, he had gone on to face the two heads of his own nature, and then his crawling disgust at hisionsions in raping her. His own dichotomous nature was constantly at war with itself, had been since he was made. He'd loved Drusilla with a tender passion that, more often than not, she rejected. She'd wanted violence from him, pain, torture and anguish. It was the way her "Daddy" had treated her and it meant love in her twisted mind.

It had taken the fledgling Spike years to accept that Dru would never change, that she couldn't change. Angelus had warped her, then frozen her mind and personality at the point of their greatest harm. Dru was broken, pure and simple. So Spike grew used to bleeding for her, to having holy water poured out upon his suffering body for her pleasure, and to inflicting similar harm upon her when she forced him to. Her demands and nature shaped their love and determined its expression. But love her, he had. He'd traveled the world with his dark princess--his ripe, wicked plum--and he'd been as faithful as a demon could possibly be.

Then Angelus had returned, care of one night of passion with Buffy, and the first thing Drusilla had done was run to her Daddy. He knew she'd not meant it as ayalayal, knew that she was incapable of constancy in her ever-shifting reality. Yet it had hurt him, scarred him deeply, that she could throw away 120 years together just like that.

Harmony had been less than nothing...a silly bint with nothing to say and no hold on his affections. She'd been...convenient. Spike winced as he thought it, remembering Buffy throwing those words back at him. He'd hurt her badly, that morning after their first night together, he thought with more clarity now that his soul was resident for the first time in over a century, in his unchanging body.

He remembered the look on Buffy's face when he'd crowed about fucking a Slayer being even better than killing onhe hhe had lashed out at him in response, with her usual deadly force, and he'd been deeply hurt by her words in return. Hurt and pain, they'd fed on them, using each other mercilessly in the process.

Spike had known that Buffy was lost--practically catatonic after her return from Heaven. But he'd thought, hoped, that she would see his love for her and somehow come to value what he wanted so badly to give her. Affection, lust, passions als all of those things, but he'd wanted more. He'd wanted her trust.

The return of his soul wouldn't give him that, he knew. He wasn't sure if he could ever win her trust. But he could try. He could help her. Even if she didn't want his help, even if she rejected it and him over and over. He 't 't getting any older...he had time. He could seek redemption in helping the Slayer. Redemption for all of the sins that blackened his soul now that it had returned to his demonic body. And he would, he promised himself as he climbed shakily to his feet and stumbled one hesitant step at a time from the cave.

*I will help her!* he swore.

-fin-