Buffy descended the stairs, in a dark green dress of some rich, soft fabric that accentuated her curves and was very flattering. Her hair was carefully upswept in a style that she wouldn’t have had the first clue how to do during her Slaying days. Riley was waiting for her at the bottom, his arms crossed impatiently over his chest.
He was not even looking at her.
When she reached the bottom, he spared her a glance, muttering, “Finally. God, Buffy, how long does it take? For all the time you took, I’d have expected…” His voice trailed off, shaking his head as he turned toward the door, with a dismissive “forget it” sort of gesture of his hand.
The statement he didn’t finish stung her. *For all the time you took, I’d have expected…* Buffy knew that he had been going to say, “more”. *Great,* she thought, swallowing back the hard lump that rose in her throat. *Just the way I need to start this *wonderful* evening…with a kick to the self-confidence by Mr. Tactful. Why isn’t anything I do ever good enough for him?*
The ride to the auction in the classy, expensive black car that was Riley’s newest mode of transportation was smooth and comfortable – and utterly silent. Buffy’s heart ached with the distance between her and her husband. She had known when she married him, in some part of her that she had tried her hardest to ignore, that she didn’t love him. But she had cared about him, and had believed that over time, those feelings could develop into love.
But they had not, even after all this time.
So why did the increasing fear that *he* had stopped loving *her* hurt so bad?
They reached the building where the auctions were held, about once a month or so, and a valet in a black tuxedo opened her door for her and took her hand to help her from the car. She smiled at him automatically as Riley came around the car to take her arm and lead her inside.
*Go through the motions, smile, look happy,* she chanted in her head, nodding and smiling in greeting as they passed several people that they knew, on the way to the special reserved seating set aside for them.
Once seated, Buffy sat back with a small sigh of mingled relief and resignation. For a couple of hours at least, she could just sit back and not have to worry about making small talk with pompous, self-involved people she despised, who pretended to know her and pretended to like her, simply because of who her husband was.
Instead, she got to turn her attention to the disturbing inhumanity of the scene before her.
The center of the large room was a wide open circle, empty when the auction was not taking place. At the moment, it was completely filled with well-dressed people, strolling about, looking at the merchandise up for sale on this particular evening as they mingled and strengthened their considerable social connections.
Arranged in rows of small lots, each lot numbered, was a wide assortment of different breeds of demons. Those that were less similar to humans, the ones that best fit Riley’s description of all demons as “animals”, were locked in cages for the protection of the shoppers.
The vampires and other species more closely resembling humans were bound by heavy chains at their necks or wrists, attached to sturdy posts set firmly into the stone floor. There was no chance of their escaping or doing any damage to their current or prospective human captors.
Of course, all of them had already been fitted with the behavioral modification chip technology that Riley had perfected, so even had they somehow managed to break free of the impossibly strong chains that bound them, they would have posed no danger to anyone.
After playing the role of the dutiful husband and seeing that Buffy was seated comfortably, Riley made his way down to the main floor to mingle with his peers and check out the evening’s merchandise. Buffy hated even coming to these events at all, and the last thing she wanted to do was go down to the floor and look at the monsters. As it was, her repressed Slayer senses were screaming for release from the overload of the presence of so many demons so near to her.
She watched as Riley meandered his way through the crowd, away from her – always away from her.
*Am I that repulsive?* she wondered for the thousandth time, her eyes falling to her hands, resting in her lap as her tears threatened again. *He used to want to be with me all the time…now he can’t wait to get away.*
But the fact that she was struggling to deny was her relief that he *had* left. With him had gone, if only for a few minutes, the unbearable strain of pretending that everything was okay – normal – when it was very much *not*.
She glanced back up, idly surveying the floor. Suddenly, she did a slight double take, returning her gaze to a lot right next to the wall of the arena, very near to her actually, that had caught her attention. Chained in the center of the lot was a vampire.
A platinum blond, male vampire.
His back was to her, but she stared at him, hoping that he would turn and she would get a glimpse of his face.
*Couldn’t be him,* she told herself. *There’s gotta be thousands of vampires out there with peroxide blonde hair. Well, hundreds…okay, at *least* more than one!*
Despite the distinctive hairstyle on the familiar frame, she thought that it would simply be too great a coincidence if it really was Spike down there. After all, he had taken off right after the Initiative disaster, and no one had heard anything of him since. Buffy had assumed that he was on the other side of the world by now.
Of course, Spike never could stay away from Sunnydale for long – and he always ended up paying for it.
As she watched, a well-dressed young woman approached the lot, and Buffy felt unreasonably irritated as she obviously looked the vampire, who was clad only in a pair of worn blue jeans, up and down in a lustful way. She felt her temper rising inexplicably as the girl made what was obviously a suggestive, mocking comment, leaning in dangerously close to the vampire, whose owner had foolishly chosen to chain him by the throat, leaving his hands free.
Buffy watched in amazement as the vampire lunged toward the girl, simultaneously morphing into his game face and gripping her arms, pulling her very close to him to whisper something in her ear. Then he released her and changed back just as quickly, laughing as the girl stumbled backward in fright, losing her balance and nearly falling to the ground.
Buffy found herself suppressing a laugh as she watched the scene. If there had been any doubt left in her mind as to the identity of the vampire she was watching, it vanished when he tilted his head back challengingly and raised two fingers at the girl in an obscene gesture.
A distinctly British obscene gesture.
Suddenly, it didn’t matter to her anymore that the last time she had seen him, he had almost gotten her and her friends all killed; that all seemed a lifetime away, anyway. He was someone familiar, a reminder of a long-lost life that she missed desperately, far away from the wearying pretense that she existed in now.
Without really knowing why, she rose from her seat and headed gracefully down to the floor.
Spike was still laughing at the expression on the spoiled little rich girl’s face – yeah, that would teach her to mess around with a master vampire! -- when he felt the sharp crack of a whip across his shoulders. He flinched involuntarily at the flash of white-hot pain, as his master came quickly up behind him, furious at the little display, and at the fact that the potential buyers who had witnessed it were now steering clear of this particular lot.
The much larger man seized a handful of his hair and yanked his head back hard, snarling in his ear, “You worthless little piece of crap! If you go home with me today you’re going to regret it, do you understand me?”
Spike didn’t bother trying to hide the smirk that rose to his lips in spite of the pain. This particular master was a violent man, with a violent temper, and he did not usually make a habit of doing things that he knew would anger him. But the look on that silly bint’s face when he had whispered his suggestions in her ear – well, it was bloody worth it!
Almost.
“You’d better hope you didn’t scare all the buyers away, vampire!” the man snarled, releasing him with a shove and following it up with a backhand blow that sent him stumbling, struggling to keep his footing as stars danced before his eyes.
As the haze that blurred his vision began to fade, he could make out the vague form of a person standing in front of him – a woman. As his vision cleared, his eyes moved slowly from the ground up, taking in the gorgeous dark green fabric accentuating a flawless feminine frame, and raised his eyes to look her in the face.
He froze in recognition when he saw her standing there in front of him, taking in the scene calmly. He and the Slayer had not exactly been on good terms the last time he had seen her, and he had fled Sunnydale again, certain that she would be coming after him any minute to stake him for his betrayal.
But that was years, and eternities, ago – in another life, it seemed. Now, an unneeded breath caught in his throat as he took in each familiar line of her expression, and was carried back to another time – a time which, though turbulent and confusing for him, had been infinitely better than the present.
“Buffy,” he said softly, not even really realizing that he had spoken, until his master interrupted his reverie, demanding furiously, “*What* did you call me?”
Fighting back her irritation at the man’s reaction to her name, Buffy quickly stepped forward, the movement catching the man’s eyes, and only then making him aware of her presence. Looking a little self-conscious, he took a step away from the vampire, clearing his throat nervously.
“Can I help you, Ma’am?” he asked, respectfully, and Buffy realized that he recognized her. With a sigh, she reminded herself that there was probably no one here who did not – human or otherwise.
She kept her expression cool and smiled slightly as she asked, “Having problems?” Her tone was one of mild amusement as she glanced between the man and his slave.
Embarrassed by her having noticed the previous scene, the man stammered quickly, “N-no, no, Ma’am, no problem, really. This…*thing*…” he spat out the word in disgust, glaring at Spike, “…doesn’t know its place!” He smiled cruelly as he reached out and gripped Spike’s hair painfully, yanking him closer to him, in a wordless warning to good behavior in front of this very important lady.
Spike had kept his eyes and ears open during the past couple of years in which he had been enslaved, and he knew that the Slayer had been moving up in the world. He had not expected to ever see her again – yet here she was, in all her infuriating glory, smirking at him with laughter in her eyes at his predicament.
*Spiteful little bint,* he thought to himself, feeling irritation rising in him with his shame at having her see him in such a helpless position.
*Course, it’s been worse, mate,* he reminded himself. *You could be chained to a soddin’ bathtub!*
“It responds well to negative reinforcement, though,” the man went on, oblivious to the silent interaction taking place between the slave and the powerful woman standing before them.
“ ‘It’ does?” She seemed to be suppressing a laugh, her eyes sparkling with teasing mirth. And why should he notice her beautiful, sparkling eyes when she was mocking his suffering? he wondered, furious with himself as much as with her.
Buffy broke eye contact with Spike to look up at his master, and corrected dryly, “You mean ‘it’ does what you say when you beat the crap out of ‘it’.” he smirked wickedly back down at Spike and added, “I’ve found that to be true.”
He hated this, her casually discussing him with his master as if he was not even there, and he hated *her* because he knew she was doing it because she knew he hated it. And he really couldn’t say any of the brilliant remarks that sprang to his mind, for every single one of them would have gotten him beaten senseless for disrespecting the bloody “lady”!
He glared back at her in furious frustration, as his master frowned in confusion.
“You – you *know* this…creature, Ma’am?” he asked her, hesitantly.
“You might say that,” she smiled, not taking her eyes off Spike.
“But I’ve found that violence isn’t always necessary. There are other ways.” She was genuinely trying to help, so she was surprised and irritated when Spike sneered at her, a wealth of expression in those sapphire eyes that both mocked her concern for his well-being and suggestively asked what “other ways” she might have had in mind.
Her eyes widened in shock at his nerve. Behind her, she heard the sounds of the auctioneer coming to the podium, the crowd quieting somewhat, and knew that the auction was about to begin. She needed to get back to her seat.
“On second thought,” she said suddenly, looking back up at Spike’s current master, shrugging her shoulders carelessly, “Do whatever works for *you*.” And with that, she turned and walked away without giving Spike another glance.
Returning to her seat, she found that Riley was already there.
He smiled at her and held up the bidding card he had gotten for her. She had never once bought a slave of her own at one of these auctions, though Riley still always got her a card, and it was understood that she could bid at any point if she wanted, and money was no object. Although Buffy didn’t work, and all the money they had came from Riley’s pursuits, he recognized, if only privately, that he would not be where he was if not for Buffy, and his money was hers to spend as she wished.
“Where’d you go?” he asked her in a tone of mild surprise as he smiled up at her. It was as much affection or concern as he seemed to show lately.
“I got bored,” she said casually as she shrugged and sank back down into her seat, automatically reaching to take the bidding card from his hand.
She stared down at it without seeing it as she thought over the little encounter she had just had. She felt a little guilty for her parting words, though she knew she wouldn’t have said them if she hadn’t known that the auction was about to begin, sparing Spike any more actual harm from the man who would no longer be his master in a few minutes.
Why did she even care? she wondered. Spike was not only a soulless vampire, but a soulless vampire who had tried to kill her or have her killed many times, lied to her and betrayed her, and nearly gotten her killed the last time she had seen him. Why should she care what had happened to him? If he got beaten, staked even, it was no more than he deserved – right?
Why wasn’t she sure?
And she *certainly* shouldn’t feel guilty for laughing at him, she told herself firmly. After all, it was normal to laugh at the misfortune of one’s enemy – wasn’t it? And he *was* her enemy. He was. Always had been.
She thought back to the first time she’d ever seen Spike, when he had informed her openly of his intention to kill her, and unwittingly began the dance that would follow them through the next three years. She remembered the fire, the passion and challenge of being the Slayer and facing down an enemy who was truly equal to her in skill and strength.
She had almost been sad when he had gotten chipped, though she never would have admitted that to him. Gone was the single opponent she had known that she had never been able to *truly* defeat – at least, not in a permanent sense. He had been crippled, restrained – and it was almost…disappointing.
As the memories washed over her, she longed for those old days, before all of this. Now she had no one to fight with like that – no *need* to fight anymore – but she also had no one to talk to, no one to remind her of what she had once been.
In those few moments down on the arena floor, speaking not a word more than her name, he had brought it all back to her – the power, the challenge, the awe-inspiring fact of who and what she was – the Slayer.
A wave of sadness hit her as she realized that that fire fanned by the memories was already fading; she was already beginning to slip back into her quiet little “normal” shell.
If only she could hold onto that long lost feeling that seeing Spike had reinspired in her, just a little longer!
Suddenly, her eyes widened, as the bidding card in her hand came into focus with a blinding clarity, as she turned it slowly over and over in her hand. She froze as a crazy idea occurred to her, and she repeated her previous thought in her head…if only she could hold onto it…
She smiled slightly. Maybe she *could*.
[Reviews - 815]
-
Table of Contents [Report This]
Chapter or Story |
Chapter or Story | 
Chapter or Story
Has been viewed 5845 times
- Text Size +
-
Table of Contents [Report This]
Chapter or Story |
Chapter or Story | Chapter or Story - Text Size +