BONDING EXPERIENCE
by perletwo
"Oh my god. Oh." Buffy backed slowly into the vampires' nest, putting distance between herself and Spike, whose eyes never left her. "oh no. Are you out of your *mind*?"
Spike walked forward slowly. "It's not so unusual," he said softly, closing the distance. "Two people ... in the workplace ... feelings develop..."
"NO! No. No. Feelings do *not* develop!" she snapped, panicked. "No feelings!"
"You can't deny it. There's something between us," he said, still soft and hypnotic.
"Loathing! Disgust!" She began hunting for an escape route.
"Heat. Desire," he shot back. "Something's - happening to me, Buffy. I can't stop thinking about you. And if that means turning my back on the whole evil thing -"
"You don't know what you mean! You don't know what feelings are!" she cried.
He stiffened. "I damn well do! I lie awake every night! This is real here. I *love* -"
"DON'T!" Buffy's hand shot up. "*Don't* say it. I'm going."
Spike stared after her as she made her way to the door. "BUFFY!"
She threw open the door, and just as she did something hit her in the back. Something stinging that grew into a fiery burn, short-circuiting everything.
She awakened to find herself chained to a post in the vampires' nest. Her head ached mightily, which was not helped when her memory cleared and panic returned. She lifted her chin painfully opened her eyes, squinting at the light at first.
Spike was sitting on an upturned crate directly in front of her, eyes wide and dreamy. He wasn't breathing, which alarmed her even more. Her Slayer senses could make out the tension coiling in his muscles and a rising energy inside him. {{Psyching himself up,}} she thought. {{But for what?}} "Spike? What happened?"
His eyes refocused on her at the sound of her voice. He held up a tazer, set it down on the floor beside the crate. "This," he said distantly. "Threw it. Didn't want to do it this way, y'know..."
"Do *what*? Spike, what're you -" Eyes wide, she watched him rise slowly to his feet, and her voice died off when he pulled out a sharp hunting knife. "...oh no..."
"...you made me do it like this, y'know..." He advanced the few steps toward her, knife blade weaving loosely in his grip.
"...Spike..." She could feel her breathing coming in harsh pants. {{The chip,}} she reassured herself. {{The chip will zap him if he tries to hurt me. Won't it?}}
He stopped a few inches away from her and lifted the knife, grip tightening. He turned the palm of his other hand toward the blade and sliced a vertical line down the length of his index finger, blood welling along the edges of the cut.
Spike held his bloody finger up to her mouth, gripping her jaw with the other hand to force her mouth to open around it, knife blade turned away from her throat. He slid the long finger all the way in to the back of her palate, forcing her lips to close around it with his other hand, and triggered her gag reflex to make her swallow.
The accidental swallow carried some of his blood down her throat, and it triggered a sucking reflex and made her consider the taste of the liquid coating her tongue. Coppery, and surprisingly warm, and intoxicating like liquor...
She saw his eyes close and found herself sucking the blood out harder, head swimming. Her own eyes drifted shut and she savored the sensation of his emotions flowing into her with the blood. Love, and tenderness, and passion, and blind devotion were enveloping her, and she reveled in them.
He pulled the digit out, shaking his hand, and Buffy felt a tiny moan of disappointment escape her when she realized the cut had healed by the time the motion was completed. His head tilted, studying her dilated pupils and slightly glazed expression. "D'you believe me now?"
"...yes..." her voice was very small and far away.
He switched hands on her jaw and let the knife blade swing back and forth in front of her, watching her pupils follow it. He dropped the knife to the floor and repeated the motion with two fingers. Her eyes tracked them perfectly. "D'you trust me, Buffy?"
"...yes..." No hesitation at all. Despite himself, he felt his face light up at the word, and she reflected the smile back at him. He leaned in and kissed her tenderly, and she arched forward into the kiss.
"I need you to say something for me, Buffy." Her eyes stayed fixed on his. "Need you to say, 'I claim you as my mate'." He hesitated. "An'...I need you to mean it, love."
Her eyes reflected a momentary confusion. Just when he was afraid he'd lost her, he heard her soft voice emerge, almost inaudible. "I...claim you...as my mate."
His breath caught. "Don't be afraid," he said, gently stroking her hair back away from her face, and she nodded. "You need never be afraid of me again..."
Buffy saw his face draw ever nearer, human mask dropping away. His fangs slid easily into her waiting neck, and she gasped at the sting, but forgot about it at the first glorious pull of his mouth. She nearly swooned from the intensity of it, and moaned when the fangs slid out of her.
He licked softly at the twin punctures, cleaning them as they healed. Then he lifted his head, eyes shining in his human face, and met her dreamy gaze. "I claim you as my mate," he said in a low, firm voice, and a small thrill shot through her.
Spike stepped back away from her and sat back down on the crate, posture relaxed. He noted that her eyes kept tracking his movements. They beamed foolishly at each other for a few moments, then he leaned down and picked up the tazer again.
"Buffy?" At her nod, he continued. "Don't be afraid, now. I just need to put you back to sleep for a bit, all ri'?" She nodded again, and he rose and walked over to kiss her again.
Once she was fully engaged in the kiss, he brought the tazer up between them and zapped her just under the sternum. She went limp and he caught her, one hand unfastening the chains.
"Oh my god. What happened?" Joyce opened the door to admit Spike, carrying an unconscious Buffy in his arms.
"It's okay, she's okay, Joyce, don't worry, it'll be fine," he said, starting up the stairs, Joyce following. "One'a the vamps hit'er with a tazer. He got a fang into her a little ways before I could dust him, but he didn't get much of her blood, I promise. Other one's dust too."
He put her down on the bed, and Joyce began fussing with her daughter, pulling her clothes loose and checking her vitals. "You're sure she's okay?" she said skeptically.
"Just stunned is all. She'll wake up right as rain, an' quicker than most would, I expect." He sat down at the foot of the bed. "An' she probably won't want to be seein' me here when she does. If I just hadn't turned my back to deal with the other one -"
"Don't do that, Spike." Joyce turned and put a hand over his. "I'm grateful you were there. It could've been much worse if you hadn't." He nodded and rose.
"I'll be pushin' off just the same, I think. Take care'a her."
Joyce followed him out the bedroom door. "What about you? Were these the ones that, that killed all those people on the train? Are you *sure* the bite -"
Spike pulled her into his arms abruptly for a tight hug. "She'll be just fine, mum, I promise." He gave her a peck on the cheek and left.
Buffy wandered aimlessly through her classes the next day. She reported to Giles that she and Spike had found evidence that the two vamps they'd fought had been feeding in the area surrounding the train depot, but nothing to link them to the carnage.
Late that afternoon, she sat at her dressing table, fingering the new scars on her neck. Blood pounded through her temples like a drumbeat, and she grabbed a stake and ran out of the house.
The few vamps that crossed her path at sunset quickly wished they hadn't. Buffy was working herself up into a fine rage. How *dare* he do - do - whatever the hell it was he did to her? Put her in a blood thrall? Work some stupid vampire ritual? *Violate* her with his fangs?
Well, it wouldn't work. She was sure of that. She was the Slayer. She'd show him. She'd been immune to Dracula and she'd be immune to him too. Now, if only she could find something good to kill, to take her mind off...
...off the throbbing ache at the base of her skull and the hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach, and the anxious flutterings up and down her spine that had been there ever since she woke up that morning. Dracula's blood thrall had been nothing compared to this.
...But that didn't mean she wasn't going to beat it! It meant nothing. It was temporary insanity. Aha! The thrall gave her a loophole. Didn't it?
The throbbing in her temples grew stronger, and her throat closed up with tension she couldn't identify.
Looking up, she saw her footsteps had brought her to Spike's crypt. Ah. I'll just go in there and *tell* him it didn't mean anything...
She busted the door open, and the pounding in her head exploded into white-hot rage.
Before she even realized what she was doing, Buffy had yanked Harmony off Spike's lap and thrown her into the far wall with vicious force. {{***MINE,***}} she thought furiously, and the vampiress exploded into a cloud of dust.
"Well," Spike said mildly. "That was awfully sudden, Slayer." She looked up, disoriented, rage draining away.
He was sprawled in his armchair, barefoot and shirtless, a visible bulge distorting his fly from Harmony's ministrations. His hair was sticking up in wild curls where she had been running her fingers through it, and another shot of rage stabbed through her and ebbed just as quickly.
"Long overdue is what I'd say, actually," she said shakily.
"Mm-hmm. So tell me, what brought this sudden burst of righteousness on?" He grinned cockily, rising to his feet. "My turn next, Slayer?"
"She - she's a killer," Buffy said, trying to think it through on the fly and retreat backward from his predatory advance at the same time.
He kept backing her toward the wall. "Wasn't doin' anythin' terribly evil right this minute, was she? 'Cept for puttin' her hands on me..."
"That...that wasn't...A menace. She's a menace."
"Mm-hmm..." They were almost to the wall.
"She tried to hurt Dawn..." She couldn't stop trembling.
Her back hit the cold stone, and his hands came up on either side of her, pinning her in place with his intent gaze. "And...?"
"...and...she had her hands on what's mine," she said, meeting his eyes defiantly. "You're *mine.*"
He growled and yanked her forward for a savage kiss, and her arms tangled around his neck, clutching at his hair and spiking it up further. He pushed her back up into the wall and broke away, eyes gleaming ferally. "And you're *mine,* Buffy. We - are - *bonded.* Mated." He nipped at her lower lip. "Get used to it, love."
She let out a low growl and dragged him down for another kiss.