Chapter Text
“Have I mentioned how sorry I am?” Willow’s quavery voice sidled through the dimness of their dorm room. Buffy wanted to be angrier with her best friend. Like, fire-level angry. But more cookies than even a Slayer should eat and the sheer guilt radiating off of Willow was enough to blunt it all down to a still-warm back burner.
“You have,” Buffy said with a sigh, “only about every hour on the hour.”
“I just… I feel so bad. And yeah, sure, Giles went blind and Xander nearly got killed, but that’s kind of normal. You had to kiss, um, Spike. Which, major ew, right?”
“Major,” Buffy said automatically.
Willow made that little whimper of guilty sadness, and Buffy could see her curl up a little bit in on herself in her bed. The red numbers on the clock read out 1:03 AM. Thank God, she’d managed to schedule her classes to be entirely in the afternoon. Well, no Willow had helped her do that, pointing out that to be a Slayer and be in college, it made sense to give herself more time to sleep.
It had been pretty great actually.
“But it wasn’t all bad,” Buffy said quickly.
“Wait, really?” The disbelief was thick on Willow’s voice. “I mean, I guess he’s handsome? In a punk rock kind of way? Good bone structure, if you’re into that sort of thing, and he said…”
Buffy’s face scrunched up. Was Willow trying to, no, no, don’t go down that road. Sure, she’d been full on making out with Spike (oh god, so gross, so, so very gross), and he’d been whispering horrifyingly naughty things in her ear, and her fingers had curled in the hair at the base of his skull. It had been soft, once she’d cracked through the gel with her nails. Soft and had looked kind of… cute? It had curled up a bit.
“No, not like that, Wils. It was just… I mean there is one thing. His hair is actually curly, and no, don’t ask. But the hair near his neck? If it’s not gelled, it looks like a baby ducktail.” The image in her mind’s eye made her lips stretch into a grin. It was so hilariously adorable, and she just knew Spike would hate (loathe, recoil, positively seethe) at being called cute and/or adorable. Maybe she could find a way to call him that without it backfiring on her.
Willow’s giggle-snort forestalled any plans in that direction. “Spike with a baby ducktail. Ha! Spike the duck, a little baby duckling Spike,” Willow giggled to herself, sounding half sleep already.
“Yeah,” Buffy agreed, her own eyes drooping as Willow blearily and gently laughed herself to sleep. The last thing she heard was Spike as a duckling, before sleep claimed her.
After that, neither girl saw the flash of light.
***
Spike strained against the ropes around him and the chair. Tied up again. Honestly, that had been the best part of that sodding spell the little red witch had put on him: he’d been free. Well, as free as his own moronically besotted brain had allowed him to be. Holding the Slayer’s hand as if he were some bleeding moronic college boy.
God, how he wanted to tear into her. End the spell or whatever had rendered him fucking helpless and sink his teeth into her throat and drain her dry. He bet she’d gasp so prettily when he did it.
Like how she had when she’d had to come up for air. He’d been able to kiss Dru for ages, but of course Dru had always wandered off with the pixies or gotten bored or they’d fucked good and hard. But the Slayer, she’d gasped and sucked down air, so obviously, deliciously affected. Her cheeks had been flushed, her lips bruised, eyes that little bit unfocused, but when she’d looked at him again, oh fucking Christ, she’d been hungry.
He’d wanted to feed her, no! Wrong. Wrong, that was wrong. He wanted to feed on her, that was better. Yeah, feed on her.
Sodding fucking spell. Getting his head all turned around.
And his cock.
God, how he hated being tied up like this. At least in the bathtub, he’d had options.
He strained again, and yes! He felt something slip. Oh, there was a bit of slack. He could scarper, and fuck it, he was getting out of town. Screw all of this. He’d find a warlock and get himself all better and never come back. Wait until this Slayer died and go after the next one. Next one wouldn’t be near so bloody annoying.
The ropes had given way, yes! Spike inhaled air he didn’t need, and then grinned. Or… tried to. Something felt… wrong. Was it just him, or was the Watcher’s flat a bit bigger than usual? And the chair.
Oh no. No no no nonononono!
Not another fucking spell. Fuck, he hated this town so bloody much. He couldn’t help it. He let out a scream.
It sounded, horrifyingly, like a quack.