Jubilee - Chapter 3

They played the game on and off the whole of the next day. Time became meaningless in that cottage. There was just them, their bodies, their desires, and their power.

Sometimes, Spike grew tired of the Giles-in-Angel game, and wanted Angel back. He would subtly change his responses, turn from being the one leading to the one who needed comfort and petting.

Giles relished these times the most. He found a deep, previously untapped vein of nurturing in him that welled up, when he held Spike in his arms.

The game, however, had been extremely convenient for him. It had allowed him to refuse certain things he did not want to do on the grounds that he was a human in a vampire body and found them repulsive. He had been incredibly amused to find himself having arguments with Spike about what Giles would and wouldn’t want to do. He was even more amused when he occasionally lost these arguments.

It had started with blood.

As soon as Spike left the bathroom, he had gone downstairs to fetch food for them both. Again, a steaming mug of blood had been offered to him. Blessing the game, Giles had refused, saying it would make him sick, that a human in a vampire body would still have human taste buds. Spike had disagreed. He had given Giles a seductive look. He had lain on the bed and poured a small dribble of the blood onto his almost concave belly.

Giles looked at the small, red pool.

‘What do you think I’m going to do with that. That’s even more disgusting.’

Spike looked angrily at him. ‘I’m not playing this bleedin’ game if you’re just going use it as an excuse not to do fun stuff. Come on, Angel. You’re cheating; you know you are. If Giles was inside you, he’d leap at this chance to suck blood off me.’

‘He most certainly would not.’

‘His dick would be getting hard as he looked at it.’

‘My dick would be. It’s my dick even if Giles is in here.’ Even Giles was beginning to get rather confused with this game. He had a moment of fear, wondering if, eventually, Angel’s powerful brain and body would subsume him completely. Would he stop having his individual sense of being ‘Giles’? What is a personality, after all? Far more to do with genetic inheritance, perhaps, than we give it credit for.

‘Oi, dozy git. Concentrate here. Look, even if you were Giles, Angel’s body would tell him he had to do this. Cus, you know, pet... no blood... no interesting other activities. Small bag of blood needs big bag of blood to feed. Come on, Angel, stop being a cheat, and just drink it, will you. I plan on having your cock tonight, and I want it suitably hard.’

Giles started to crawl over the bed towards Spike. He couldn’t take his eyes off the red stain. Spike watched him with an unreadable look on his face. When Giles started to lower his mouth towards the revolting liquid, Spike caught hold of his head and jerked him down into it. His face became coated in blood. He sat up, spluttering and furious. Spike was giggling and looking very pleased with himself.

‘Sorry, pet, couldn’t resist it.’ He reared up and took Giles’ face in his hands and started licking him. He kissed and licked across Giles’ lips, he nuzzled into Giles’ cheeks, and licked across his eyes.

Spike smiled and took a mouthful of blood from the mug.

With a shock, Giles realised that Spike expected him to take it from him. Spike pushed his mouth against Giles’ forcing entry with his blood-coated tongue. Giles resisted for a moment but, whether the vampire urges from his body were starting to overwhelm him, or whether he just got tired of resisting the inevitable, he opened his mouth and allowed the liquid to flow.

He tasted its metallic flavour. He felt its warmth. It did not disgust him as much as he thought it would. He swallowed.

Spike watched his reactions carefully, smiling. ‘See, told you.’

Giles felt the game was not going quite as he had planned. He pushed Spike onto his back again and rose over him. He couldn’t believe how strong and powerful this body felt. Spike seemed very slim and vulnerable under him. Angel’s body was hard again. He put his hand down to feel this magnificent erection. He couldn’t resist looking at it more. He sat back and took it in both hands, feeling the thickness of the shaft, marvelling at the way it stood proud against Angel’s flat stomach.

Spike watched him with an amused look on his face. ‘Feel your balls, too.'

Giles gave him an embarrassed look but did as Spike suggested. He cupped them in the palm of his hand and felt their weight and the softness of the skin around them. He ground them together slightly and groaned as that familiar tingle shot through his entire groin.

Spike slid around behind him and pushed him over so he was on his hands and knees. He leant on Giles' back and whispered in his ear, ‘Do you want to experience vampire sex then, Watcher?’

Giles felt a stab of fear in his brain, but it was outweighed by the stab of desire in his belly. He just nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

Suddenly, without any preparation, without any foreplay or warning, Spike thrust into him. Giles howled in genuine pain. He was amazed that this body felt pain so keenly. He had somehow thought vampires would be immune to pain in direct relation to the speed of their recoveries.

Spike put his hands on Giles' back and raked his nails deeply down the skin, leaving bleeding welts from hairline to waist. Again, Giles howled. Spike started to thrust in, each thrust tearing Giles’ channel, each thrust pushing into dry, vulnerable skin. His blood started to flow freely around Spike’s cock, and then Giles felt it. He felt pain turning into pleasure. He felt pain enhancing the pleasure; making him swell, and making him need release. He knelt up and screamed, and the scream was deep-felt and intoxicating. Spike joined him, his screams from the pure pleasure his cock was getting in this bloody, slick hole.

Giles felt strong arms being wrapped around his chest, felt himself being pulled back into Spike’s embrace and then, with a stab of pure terror, felt sharp razor-like teeth being inserted into his neck. He tried to pull away... the instinctive reaction of a human again. He cried out in fear, but the fangs continued to slice away at his skin. Suddenly, the slicing turned to sucking, deep, leisurely sucking that made the blood in his body flow towards Spike’s mouth. Spike kept up the deep, intense riding into his bleeding entrance, as he sucked Giles’ stolen blood.

When he thought he could take no more sensation, no more pleasure, Giles felt Spike change position slightly. He knew that the insistent cock had found that spot, deep inside his channel, he had not known existed, until a cool vampire finger had brought it alive for him.

Giles started to moan in pleasure, and the sound made his throat vibrate against Spike's lips. He heard Spike moan in reply and increase his sucking and thrusting. Giles stretched himself up and took his erection in his hand, as if offering it up to some imaginary person in front of him. He knew that Spike was watching as he fed. He started to work this extraordinary cock, relishing the feel of its girth and strength under his hand. Every time Spike thrust against his soft swelling, Giles pumped the cock, until they become totally synchronous. Eventually, Spike pulled off his neck, took Giles' waist firmly in his hands and began the deep, long thrusts that would bring them both off. Freed from feeding, Spike started a low accompaniment to their fucking, 'Work Angel's cock for him, Watcher. What are you thinking about? Imagining that's my mouth around it, are you? That cock's already been there. Been lots of places. That's right, pull it harder; you can't hurt it. Feel the swell? Fuck, Angel, I'm going to come, bend over.'

Spike pushed Giles down, and he fell onto one hand, his other still working Angel's cock. Reaching around, Spike put his hands on top of Giles'. With a last few urgent thrusts, Spike felt himself pouring out into the tight channel. He jerked from side to side for a moment to milk the last few drops, and then gave his full attention to the cock nearing its release in his hands. He slid one hand down to Giles' balls and squeezed them painfully. Giles howled, and the howling took him over the edge. His sweet release flooded over their hands, ran down onto the bed, soaking them, and pooling into the cotton sheets.

Giles fell forwards onto the bed, not caring that he lay in the dampness of his cum. He was beyond caring about anything, except the feel of Spike still in his ass, and the memory of his overpowering orgasm. His whole body tingled from it still.

Spike lay like a cold, white blanket over him. He could feel Spike's cock beginning to soften in him. He clenched his buttocks a little and heard Spike groan. 'Love it when you do that, Angel. Do it again.'

Giles smiled to himself. He wondered again if Angel's body was somehow on autopilot, remembering things it had done so many times before, or was he just being taken over by it? Even in these most intimate of things, Spike was quite unable to see the truth.

He turned, making Spike's cock slip out, and Spike slide off him. He took the cursing vampire in his arms and spooned him back against his chest. He remembered back one month to that other bed when he had held Spike like this. He had nurtured so many inhibitions, they had been like a skin covering him. Well, he had shed his old skin now. He was free.

Was he brave enough? Did he dare?

He licked Spike's neck, tasting his skin. He nuzzled in some more. When would it happen? How did it happen? Should he think about blood? Should he imagine biting some soft human and taking that sweet, fluid? He thought he was only nibbling with blunt human teeth… before he knew it, his mouth was filled with blood. As he moved, he sliced. As he bit, he opened skin as if a razor. He had put this body into its Vampiric form, and he had not even felt the change.

Spike turned onto his back at the feel of those beloved fangs opening him up. He pulled Giles around and made him open up another wound on the soft front of his throat where he was most sensitive. When he felt the fangs pierce gently, he moaned in pleasure, and pulled Giles' hips to him, so they lay, groin pressed into groin.

Giles had never really understood before the connection between the blood play and the sex. The vampires he had seen had seemed somehow dry and lifeless… like the dust they had become when he had staked them. Now, in Angel's body and with Angel's perceptions, he saw how intricately the two acts were joined for these powerful, evil, blasphemies. It was all blood. It was just blood. Had someone said that to him? He seemed to remember Spike trying to tell them all this, once. No wonder he had not had the words to describe this act to humans.

How could you explain this?

It was like taking the host…,a feeling that perhaps God might actually exist within you. Spike's blood did not taste at all like the foul stuff they had taken from the mugs. This was sweet and made his heart swell and sing within Angel's body. It was magnificent. Angel's body recognised the blood as his childe's. Giles was completely convinced of this. Angel's body was beginning to talk to him, to whisper its secrets at him and, loudest of all the quiet words, was that this blood carried the love of his childe to him. Giles felt tears prick at the corners of his eyes. He was sucking on love. He was lying on love. Love was underneath him, swelling and moaning. Love was in his arms, as he crushed this slim body to him.

Eventually, Spike pushed him away, putting a hand to the wound in his neck. 'Enough, already, Angel. I want some more fun tonight.'

Giles felt the blood on his lips and on his face. He knew his face was a mask of Spike's blood. When he tried to smile it cracked and pulled on his skin. This made him laugh outrageously; he was desperate to go and look in a mirror to see the effect, but knew he had lost that privilege. He flung himself on his back, cupped his hand over Spike's penis in a familiar way, and lay there, chortling to himself every so often.

'You know you've totally blown the game now, don't you, Angel?' Spike turned on his side again, moving Giles' hand so it lay on his backside, instead.

'Why?'

'Come on, pet. I might have been able to get the old guy to lick blood off me… might have been able to get him to enjoy a bit of pain, but no way, no way, would I have got him to bite me. I mean, be serious, Angel. Took us days to learn how to do it, didn't it. Do you remember how long it took me before I could go into game face?'

Giles thought it wisest to make a non-committal grunt to this. This was treading on dangerous ground.

'Anyway, I'm bored of that game now. Just want you.' Spike illustrated his wanting by taking Giles' finger and pushing it towards his hole. 'Play with me a bit, please.'

Giles couldn't believe it. He was hard again. No in-between time. No working up to it. Just those words from Spike, and he could feel Angel's cock slapping against his belly.

He pushed Spike onto his stomach and knelt behind him. He worked his hand into the crack of Spike's ass. He rubbed it over Spike's hole, pushing with his thumb at the soft, puckered skin. Spike groaned and put his hands under him; clearly his cock had recovered equally well.

'What do you want me to do?' Giles still felt he needed Spike to take the lead. He was afraid this was not what Angel would need, but he couldn't help his nervousness.

Spike didn't seem to mind and became quite vocal with his descriptions of what he wanted Giles to do. He talked him through the whole procedure.

'Lick me, Angel. Use your tongue on me… yeah, that's it, now push it in. Shall I come up like this? This make it easier, yeah, I'm spread wide now, aren’t I? That's it. Push it right in, and move it around, breathe on me, Angel. Bring back your breath, and use it on me, oh, yeah, love the feel of that. Find my spot for me… no, not yet… try some more… use your fingers instead… come on, Angel, you've been in there thousands of times, please, find it… oh, fuck… yes… more… put more fingers in… and more… press, stroke it, press it again… ahh… yesss… now your cock, please, Angel… pull out and use your cock… yes, yes, yes, more, harder, harder, thrust, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck me, harder, side to side, yeah, hit me, please, Angel, hit me too, like you always do, yeah, harder, thrust and hit, oh, oh, I'm coming, are you coming, Angel… come for me, luv, oh, fuck… yes, so cold inside me, keep working me, don't stop, every drop, Angel, I want every drop, so cold… pull out and suck me off now… yeah, take me in, oh… Angel, I'm coming, sorry, so quick… ahh, yessss.'

Giles swallowed Spike's cum with even more relish than he had swallowed his blood. Both Angel's body and Giles' thoughts wanted this salty, exquisite fluid. He used his tongue lightly over the tip of Spike's spurting cock, just letting the jet of opaque essence shoot against the side walls of his mouth and pool in the back of his throat before he swallowed in great, urgent gulps.

Spike fell onto Giles when he was spent; he wrapped their limbs together, twisting himself up in Angel's body. Giles was amazed that Spike actually thought either of them could sleep like this. He realised, with a pang of utter loneliness, that that was the thought of man who slept alone every night.

Spike's head lay on his chest. He put his face into Spike's hair and breathed him in. He knew he was failing badly with his plan for revenge. Perhaps it was only Angel's body thinking these thoughts, but Giles actually thought that he might be falling in love with this creature lying in his arms. The creature that thought he was his sire.

'You comfortable?' Spike's voice sounded sleepy and replete with sex.

'Yes. I am. I don't think I've ever been so comfortable.'

'Wonder where Giles is. Do you think he made it? Maybe he died. Should have taken me up on my offer to turn 'im.'

'I think that if he had known what it was to be like us, he would have done.'

'Hypocrite.'

'What?'

'Angel, you spend the whole time refusing to play vampire with anyone. 'Cept me, course.'

'Why do I do that?'

'Cus you're a pillock, I guess.'

'Can't be, I'm your sire. I chose you, so I can't be that stupid.'

Spike lifted his head and looked strangely at Giles. 'Whose revisionist history have you been fucking believing?'

Giles felt a wave of fear run through his body like a tidal surge. 'What do you mean?' Had he somehow blown this whole plan on a simple thing like mentioning their history together? God, had Spike actually been telling the truth when he told Buffy that he had, in fact, been sired by Drusilla?

Spike laid his head back on Giles' chest and, as his voice faded into sleep, said quietly, 'I picked you, Angel. I let you take me… I wanted you… still do… always will….'

Giles closed his eyes. Relief seeped in, reanimating the parts of Angel's body that had seemed to almost shut down in fear.

He hitched the blankets up over them both and felt himself falling into a deep, lifeless sleep. It had been a full night. He felt he deserved it.



Giles woke late into the following day. He had never slept a day away before. It was almost dark outside. Spike had gone. Giles felt bereft, his arms empty, his body lonely. He had a stab of fear that it had happened again. That just as he had found Spike, he had lost him. But he remembered he was not Giles; he was Angel now. Spike would not leave Angel. If he was sure of anything, Giles was sure of that. Spike needed Angel. Spike loved Angel, and would not leave him. He proved his own logic right when he heard the front door open and close quietly and light footfalls coming up the stairs.

Spike slipped into the bedroom, saw that he was awake, so instead of sliding quietly back into the bed with him, bounced on him, playfully.

'Ow.'

'Hah. The Kraken wakes at last.'

'What? How long have you been up?'

'Most of the afternoon.'

'Oh, what have you been doing?' Giles was suddenly acutely aware that he had not prepared this cottage for Spike to be exploring. He had intended him to be manacled into the other bedroom. He had not tidied away the evidence of his ownership of this place, although, as he used it so infrequently, there was not a lot of stuff around.

'I'll show you, shall I?'

Spike took Giles' hand and pulled him off the bed. He walked backwards with him, smirking at his worried expression.

'I've been exploring, Angel. And guess what I found? Your little room full of tricks. You are one very, very bad vampire.'

Giles stopped. 'What do you mean?' He knew exactly what Spike meant. Spike had obviously found the things he had brought to exact his revenge. He knew Spike was leading him into the small torture chamber he had prepared in the second bedroom. He felt his bowels shift in fear and knew it was his human side reasserting itself from its arrogance last night.

Spike seemed pleased, though, by this turn of events. 'Come on, luv. I'm impressed. How you organised all this for me, I have no idea. But you have completely excelled yourself this time.'

'You like it?'

'Duh… does a bear fuck in the woods?'

'I think that's shit, Spike.'

'Nah, this is the same bear that fucked Harris.'

It had not slipped Giles' notice that in the middle of this bizarre conversation, Spike had manoeuvred him into the bedroom.

Spike led him over to the centre of the bare room. A set of wrist manacles dangled from the central beam. The wood was over three feet square; an enormous beam of oak that Giles had been sure even Spike would not be able to free himself from.

Spike stood under the manacles and held up his wrists, almost as if in prayer. His eyes were excited, the pupils dilated.

As if in a dream, Giles lifted his arms to click the restraints around Spike's wrists.

'Hey! No!' In a movement faster that Giles thought possible, even for a vampire, Spike snapped the manacles around Giles' wrists, leaving him naked, stretched and exposed in the centre of the room.

'Come on, Angel, you didn't really think I'd let you torture me again, did you? Fuck, mate, took me weeks to heal last time, remember? You said it was your turn next.'

'Spike, no. Whatever I said, I was wrong. I don't want this now. Please let me go. This has all been a huge mistake.'

'Hey, what's up, Angel… besides me, that is?'

Giles had a moment of pure genius. 'New game; remember… Watcher in Angel… Watcher doesn’t want this. Please, Spike.'

'Hey, you're good, Angel. That almost does sound like fear. But then you were tortured by the inquisition, weren't you? You know what's gonna happen. And you taught me all I know, so, don't worry; this is going to be fun. We can go back to new game later. So, what do you want to start with?'

To Giles' intense shame he felt tears of fear running down his face. Spike had his back turned and was rummaging in the box of tricks Giles had borrowed from the black museum in the Council's headquarters. He wondered if Spike would find some of the very instruments the priests had used on Angel centuries ago. It would be just like the Council to hunt them down as important relics of the vampire culture that so fascinated them. Giles did not feel quite so fascinated by that culture now.

He struggled against the manacles for a while, but gave up, knowing it was useless. He'd had them prepared for Spike, and knew they would not give.

Spike suddenly turned around, holding something behind his back. 'I think we need to get into the mood, Angel, what do you think? Little smell of blood first?' He produced a razor, one of the old fashioned type with a bone handle. He came towards Giles.

'Don't. Spike, I am your sire, and I'm asking you not to do this.'

Spike looked at him quizzically. 'God, you're not even trying, Angel. You begged much better than that when I did this for real with Marcus. Come on, pet, get into the spirit of the thing, I know you love it, but, please, pretend to hate it a bit more than that, or it's not fun.'

Giles decided to help him out and screamed as loudly and as long as he could when Spike used the razor to open him up from the hollow of his throat to the wiry curls surrounding his flaccid cock.

Correct that… his stiffening cock.

Last correction… his totally erect, throbbing cock.

Giles looked down, saw the blood like a river leaving his body and screamed again. The pleasure of this pain totally overwhelmed him. He felt himself working against it, fighting it, and that fighting took him to a new place. It took him to a place that was hot, vital, alive, and replete with blood.

Spike came up and licked up the deep wound he had made, lapping up the blood, opening the sides of the cut more to probe in with his tongue. When he could not get in far enough, he used the razor to make small tributaries off the main river of blood. He used long licks, following the run of the blood. He fell on his knees, as his tongue reached the insistent erection that the pain had swelled for Giles. He took the razor and held it to Giles' cock. Giles looked down and knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that if he had been in a human body, he would have lost it at this point. The cold wash of fear through his bowels had no effect other than to remind him that he was vampire and, therefore, invulnerable to Spike's invention.

Spike cut a ring all the way around the base of Giles cock, his touch so delicate that he only cut the skin. It still hurt like hell, and Giles knew his tears were flowing freely now. His quiet moans of pain, however, turned into a hiss of anticipation when Spike's tongue replaced the razor. He licked around the cut he had made, using the tip of his cool tongue to bathe the pain. Then he sat back and cut again, this time running the blade up Giles' cock from the ring he had made to the tip. He cut slightly deeper this time, but Giles' screams turned to moans when, again, the tongue immediately followed the blood red trail, taking the pain away with its sweet saliva. Spike cut and licked repeatedly. Each time there was pain, but it was always followed by exquisite pleasure, as each cut was followed by Spike's mouth. Giles came to pray for the mouth and bless the blade when he saw it, for the pleasure it would later bring.

By the end, Giles felt as if his cock would explode through the split skin and leap into Spike's mouth of its own accord, so desperate was he for relief.

At last, Spike cut across the tip. He opened up the tiny slit with the point of the blade and, before Giles could send his scream out into the night, Spike followed the blade with his whole mouth. He plunged down on Giles' cock; he flicked his tongue across the bleeding tip; he rode, slick on the blood. Giles felt himself swelling on pain. Pain fed his imminent release: pain and pleasure in equal amounts. No, pleasure more… Spike had just let the bleeding tip run over the back of his throat. Giles lost himself to the release this brought for many minutes. He thrashed in the restraints. He lifted his legs up and wrapped them around Spike's head. He pushed his cock down Spike's throat; he jerked his groin against Spike's face, felt those soft, enticing lips rubbing against his wiry curls. Then he heard a soft plop sound and realised that Spike's cock had exploded as well, the two vampire bodies, once more, in tune with their release.

His cries of ecstasy rent the air.

When he had swallowed and sucked out every drop of Giles' cum, Spike pushed the legs off his shoulders and rose back up the bleeding, naked body. He licked into the wounds once more, rolling his face around in the blood that covered Giles' chest. When the cuts started to heal, he opened them up again, sometimes with the razor, sometimes with his own fangs.

He cut down and across in a parody of a cross. As the blade passed over Giles' heart he paused, then cut deeply into the flesh covering that precious, dead organ. Giles' howling and twisting against the manacles aroused Spike again.

Without acknowledging Giles in any way, Spike placed his hands into the hole he had made. Giles looked down, uncertain what was to follow. When he felt the separation of his ribs, he screamed, as much from fear as from pain. It had no effect on the demon trying to reach his heart; Spike continued to pull apart the protective shell, until the dead organ was within his reach. Spike had promised him the inquisition, but this was older, more vicious than even that obscenity. Like other blond-haired creatures that had once travelled across a sea to rape and pillage the innocent inhabitants of this green land, Spike spread Giles as a blood-eagle sacrifice to his pleasure.

Only now did Spike raise his blood-coated face to his victim. He looked at him, grinned demonically and pushed his mouth into the huge hole in Giles’ chest. With a terror beyond what he had ever known, Giles felt Spike lick at his heart.

He stilled his thrashing.

He started to weep openly now, for he was hard again. How? What was this body he had taken and thought he could master? He felt like a child trying to ride a tiger. This body overwhelmed him with its power. It was ferocious and frightening in its urgency.

He felt a hand move down to his balls. With that lightest of touches on his soft sac, and the merest flicker of a tongue on the vessels of his heart, Giles' cock exploded once again, this time up onto his chest. The cold sperm hit Spike, too, washed over him, as he nuzzled and fed from Angel's heart.

Giles needed to take himself away to a quiet place to internalise this experience, to ponder its meaning, but he could not. He was hung up like meat in an abattoir. The obscenity of his position suddenly hit him. There was no pain for a while, only blinding anger, white fury against this demon that abused him thus.

Spike felt the change in his prisoner and groaned, 'That's it, Angel, fight me. Oh, God, make me suffer for this, too.' As he spoke, Giles felt Spike's second release splash against him, two trails of vampire cum running down his belly and catching in the wiry curls like dewdrops.

The pain returned, sharp exquisite pain from the still bleeding cuts. Giles hung his head. The pain exhausted him, unmanned him. All ecstasy gone from it now… it had pumped out with his release.

But Spike had only just started.

He moved on from the razor to the whips.

The whips were so painful that Giles thought the razor had been mere foreplay to the agony they gave him. Spike took the whips to his back until the skin peeled to nothing. Then he came to the front, and Giles knew the whip would be laid on the most painful place he could imagine being lashed. Spike brought the whip down on Giles' still bleeding cock. He laughed as he did it, glee demonising his features.

'Do you feel it yet, Angel. Have you passed over yet?'

Giles could manage no more than a groan. 'What do you mean, Spike?'

'The pain, pet. Have you crossed its path yet? Are you there?'

'Where, for fuck's sake, where?'

Spike stopped his arm and tipped his head on one side, looking at him. 'To the place where we always go, Angel. To life.'

'Life? No, I don't want this anymore, Spike. I don't care. I don't care anymore; please, let me go.'

Spike only redoubled his efforts. By the time he was finished, there was more of Giles on the floor than there was left dangling from the manacles. But Spike was right. He had passed over. For the last few minutes, before he passed into unconsciousness, Giles had felt Angel's body come alive again. The heart had seemed to beat. The skin had seemed to warm up. He could hear his humanity only a hand's width away… if only he could stretch out and take it. More pain… with more pain he knew he would be able to reach it. He begged Spike for more and saw in Spike's eyes the knowledge that he had made him feel it… this bringing of life from pain. He had played on the dark side and been seduced by the power.

He had warmed and fed the dead with his pain.

Giles knew that Spike was watching him walk through the flames as they warmed him.

'More, more, Spike, more… please.'

So Spike continued to raise and lower his arm, bringing the long whip down on Giles until he saw the body slump into unconsciousness.



Giles knew nothing after this for four days. He stayed blessedly unconscious.

He did not feel the strong, loving hands removing him from the restraints. He did not feel the blood being forced down his throat, pint after pint of the healing liquid. He did not feel his bones being gently eased back into place and soft cloths being bound over his wounds to ease them and make them whole.

He woke to the feel of Spike asleep alongside him and sight of dust motes circling in the tiny streaks of sunlight coming in through holes in the curtain.

He looked down at his body. It was covered in red welts, but they were old-looking and healed. There was very little pain. He lay back down and thought about what had happened. He had gone there. He had gone to the place where these reanimated creatures could feel alive again, and it had been very, very good. It was like passing through a barrier of fear. Giles thought that now nothing would ever make him fearful again. He had seen the fear running from his body with the blood Spike had drawn with that whip, and it was all gone. No more fear. Only a feel of power so great he felt in tune with this body at last. He felt as if the person he was, the… Rupert Giles he had been… had at last matched the power of this body. He was at home now.

He turned his head. He thought he heard soft footfalls on the stairs, but that could not be.

He saw the door open, heard a light whispering… felt a rush, as if he were being dragged by the tide across the shingle of the bay, out into the deep, deep waters.

Then he saw no more.

Spike turned in the bed and hugged the body next to him. 'Welcome home, luv. Where've you been? It's been a bloody good game, hasn't it?'

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