The First Stage

Chapter 1: A Most Radical Idea

Disclaimer: Blah blah, no credit for me, blah. Ya’ll know the drill.

Feedback: "To coin a popular Sunnydale phrase - duh!" OK, I’ll put it too ya’ll like this: if you have nothing to say, I have no use for you, go away, d rea read my shit. (no offence meant, but really, critiques are the main and sometimes only reason we fanfic authors post this stuff in the first place, so say something about it for Christ’s sake.)

Lead in: This first chapter is set in season Six a few hours after Buffy left at the end of "As You Were" (the Riley-screws-everything-up epp.) This is the initial point where things begin diverging from what happened in the show.
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The flame danced teasingly before his eyes, flickering wildly several times before resettling into an alluring non-rhythm. Suddenly vivid images flashed painfully through his mind…


She held the candle poised several inches from the point on his chest where dribbling wax formed tiny pools of searing bliss before solidifying on the surface of his cool, achromatic skin. It was the most cliche thing to do these days, but she could always make anything seem like the very conceps hes hers alone. She never missed a beat in those times; when, with the simplest of tortures she took him to the peak of mad ecstasy and dangled him precariously over its edge. No, it was those moments of desperate erratical need that she chose to force a slower, steady pace.


Blinking repeatedly, Spike brushed the unconsciously shed tears from his angular cheeks. *Damn that bitch!* he thought, suddenly overwhelmed with fierce anger. With a swift, powerful sweep of his arm Spike sent the candle flying off the half charred nightstand it had been resting on. Then, just as quickly as it’d come, his rage abandoned him completely, leaving him feeling all the more empty within.

*Why?!?* Spike wondered desperately, burying his face in his hands. *Why the bloody hell does thinkin’ ‘bout shaggin’ her make me like this? Isn’t it supposed to be lust when all a bloke can think about is bangin’ his girl? Not that I can say she’s my girl anymore. No, her little gingerbread boy took care of that nice and good! Soddin’ prick!* He allowed himself a few moments of detailed fantasy that mostly concerned the dismemberment of a certain government agent (who’d managed somehow to FURTHER screw up his unlife,) before reining in his imagination and pulling his mind back to his prior thoughts. It was really beginning to bother the vampire.

He’d been puzzling over the thought for a while now. Since the first time Buffy had jumped his bones to be precise. When he’d come calling all the times after that, he hadn’t gone to her just for her body, just for the gratification she more than afforded him. There was something more that he couldn’t quite put his finger on. It wasn’t a mushy, lovey-dovey something; Spike honestly doubted they’d ever even get close to being "lovey-dovey" with one another, but there was definitely depth between them and he was positive it wasn’t completely one-sided. Spike was more than aware that he was very much in love with Buffy. The thing that stumped him was the particular intensity that came only when they made love. Intensity of emotion; emotion that had nothing to do with his body and everything to do with, strangely enough, his demon.

Thoughts like these tended to confuse and frustrate Spike, not because he was unintelligent, in fact William the Bloody had been a very educated, if untalented, man of his time. More, it was because he felt things with a poignant fervor that neither words nor thoughts could fully grasp and when his feelings needed examination, the process was not an easy one for him to either endure or conduct.

The only thing Spike knew for sure was that time was running out and his patience was NOT paying off. Buffy was beginning to re-crenellate those walls that she’d been putting up against lovers since Angel turned evil and if he didn’t do something quick to at least stop this process, she’d lock him outside the gates with no hope of ever touching her again. It was a thought he quite simply couldn’t bear thinking.

Those last words she’d said to him had bitten deep, but they were far from final. She was not gone for good. Not yet, anyway, but she was already beginning to rebuild all the battlements that he’d finally managed to breach. Yes, his bouncy-hairdo little mason was forging those walls pretty quickly, but there would be instances in the future; times when she would falter on her righteous path. She WAS human after all. If not physically anymore, then mentally and spiritually for sure, and that’s what counted here.

*And for every misstep, every little stumble, I’ll be there,* he thought bitterly, *there to laden you with guilt and spur you right along your little road away from me. Shag me and you’re mine for a few hours, then wham! You’re off and further from me than ever!*

Then, suddenly, a most radical idea occurred to Spike. The question was, could he actually make himself do it?