darkdreamer

Thanks to my wonderful beta, Tamakin :)

Chapter 59
Mind Games

“Please stay with me!”

Spike heard the hoarse, desperate words torn from his own throat, but felt oddly detached from them – as if he had already known it was too good to last. He lay on his back on the bed he and Tara had been sharing, gazing pleadingly up at her where she hovered above him – always above him – smiling sadly into his eyes.

“You know I can’t, Spike,” she whispered in a knowing voice, “and you know why.”

His eyes welled with tears, and he lowered his gaze in shame, nodding slowly. “I know. You need…more. You need someone who’s…who’s…”

As he spoke, he lowered a hand self-consciously to rest over his unbeating heart – or rather, over the spot where it had been. He drew his hand away, puzzled, when he felt the cool, sticky moisture that coated it, gazing at the red fluid with mild surprise as he finished his statement in a haunted whisper.

“…whole.”

Tara nodded with an apologetic grimace, her soft grey eyes drifting to his bloody hand for a moment before meeting his gaze again and agreeing, “I need more than half a man, Spike.”

Spike could not look at her, overwhelmed with shame at the truth he heard in her words, the knowledge that he could never again be what she needed. As she began to speak again, he raised his eyes hesitantly to hers, vaguely noticing out of the corners of his eyes that the bright red stain had begun to spread, soaking the white sheet that covered him, from somewhere around his waist – noticing, but again, not surprised.

After all…the ‘half a man’ concept was the product of his own mind. It stood to reason that his dream consciousness would interpret it in the most literal way possible.

And he was somehow aware of the fact, despite the realism of the scene – this *was* a dream.

*William the soddin’ Bloody, indeed…*

“She’s coming,” Tara whispered, her voice suddenly hushed and apprehensive, as she glanced nervously over her shoulder. “She could be here any moment, Spike.” She paused, shaking her head as she added softly, “And I won’t share you with her.”

“She’ll always own me.”

Tara stared at him for a long moment before nodding and replying simply, “I know.”

She was quiet for a moment, raising a tender hand to caress his cheek, and he closed his eyes, leaning longingly into the touch – a touch he knew he would never feel again. Her words, barely a breath, struck a painful chord in his heart, and he felt himself collapsing inside, breaking down again, with the knowledge of her impending abandonment.

“I’ll miss you…”

He had always known it couldn’t last.

He could never be…enough.

Spike felt the warm, gentle pressure of her lips on his, and instantly responded, thirstily drinking in every last scrap of affection she might offer him, in the moments before she left him for good. He yielded to her kiss, seeking in it a reassurance he knew that she could not offer him.

She vanished in the next instant, leaving his lips and body bereft and tingling where she had touched him. A cold sensation of fear gripped him as he realized that he was alone…and *she* always seemed to find him when he was alone. He was helpless, broken, damaged – incapable of defending himself against her inevitable attack.

And Tara had left him to her.

“Hey, Baby.”

The Slayer appeared in the doorway of the bedroom, lounging idly there for a moment before sauntering the rest of the way into the room, a satisfied smirk on her lips, her eyes cold and glittering with malicious anticipation.

He froze, his throat going dry with fear, as he scrambled backward until his back was pressed against the headboard in a vain attempt to escape her advance. He noticed with a sort of detached interest that with her appearance, his absent lower half had reappeared, and the bloody sheets were once more pristine white.

Buffy noticed the direction of his puzzled gaze, and smiled knowingly.

“I have your missing pieces, Spike,” she informed him. “I took them a long time ago…and I don’t plan on ever giving them back. The only way you’ll ever feel whole again…is with me.”

Spike shook his head in denial of her words, whispering, “No…no, you…you don’t make me whole…you make me…less…”

“You were already less,” the Slayer countered with a sneer as she closed the distance between them, stopping at the foot of the bed and leaning over, bracing her hands on the mattress as she met his eyes with a cruel smile. “You were already a whore…already nothing. Can’t really take anything away from nothing…can you, Spike?”

“She…makes me more than nothing,” Spike ventured a whisper, still shaking his head, his shattered heart desperately clinging to the hope that Tara had birthed in him.

In an instant, Buffy was no longer at the foot of the bed, but kneeling on it, directly in front of him, leaning down to invade his space, her lips inches from his ear as she pointed out in a smug whisper,

“But she’s not here…is she?”

Spike flinched violently, knocking his head painfully against the headboard in a vain attempt to get away from her. Before he could move, however, he suddenly found that he was no longer on the bed, in the warm lighting that he had come to associate with safety and security. To his horror, he realized that he was back on the cold, stone floor of Buffy’s basement, his naked body spread out before her, chained, helpless…and blind.

Her small, soft hand was searing against his cold, shivering flesh as she trailed a slow hand up his side suggestively, and he felt her hot breath against his ear as she whispered taunting words of possessive malice.

“You’re mine, Spike,” she reminded him. “No matter what you try to do…how much you want to…you’ll never escape me. You’ll always belong to me. And no matter how far you go…you’ll never leave this room.”

Spike cried out in fear and pain, jerking violently against his bonds as he felt the tingling, electric sensation of her hand stroking the carved mark on his thigh, the symbol that marked him as hers. Tingling became burning, and to his shame and humiliation, Spike suddenly realized that his body was responding instinctively to her, as much as it ever had. His heart loathed her touch, but his body had been trained to desire it.

“Slut,” Buffy whispered in his ear. “Dirty, disgusting little whore. You like it…because you know you deserve it.”

“No!” Spike choked out the word desperately, struggling to escape her hand as it shifted from his thigh inward. “No…no, I…I don’t…don’t l-like it…”

“But you *do* deserve it,” Buffy knowingly insisted. “You deserve to be nothing but my slave…my whore…my…my…”

Her voice trailed off, sounding distant and distracted, though Spike could not see why due to the blindness she had inflicted on him. Then all at once, she was no longer behind him, but in front of him, and a few feet away, when she spoke again, not to him this time.

“What the hell are you doing here? I didn’t want you here!”

“Well, here’s a lesson that’s *way* overdue for you, Buffy…you can’t always have what you want!”

The sound of Tara’s voice sent an overwhelming sense of relief through Spike, and he felt his body begin to shake with it as he listened breathlessly to the developing confrontation.

“You’re not supposed to be here!” Buffy insisted, confusion and frustration in her voice. “I *own* him…and therefore I own the right to his dreams. *I’m* in control here, and I did *not* want you here! You aren’t supposed to be in his dream!”

Tara’s voice was low, calm, and tinged with a subtle triumph as she countered softly, “Who says we’re in *his* dream?*

Buffy let out a startled cry, and there was a brief sound of a scuffle, followed by a crackling sort of sound that Spike thought was probably the release of some kind of magic.

And then, the light flooded back, not in a harsh, overwhelming way, but in a bathing glow of blessed relief. Just like that, Spike was back in the bedroom at the Hyperion, sitting on the foot of the bed, fully clothed and whole again. The pain emanating from the mark had vanished, and he felt safe and warm and perfectly at ease. The door to the room was securely shut, and Buffy was nowhere to be seen.

And Tara was there.

She stood in front of him, holding his hands gently in hers and smiling reassuringly into his eyes.

“It worked,” she told him unnecessarily. “She’s gone.”

“Not for long,” he cautioned her, his voice low and apprehensive. “She’ll push her way back in…”

“And we’ll push her out again,” Tara finished for him, her voice firm in her determination not to let the Slayer win this. “This is a whole different playing field now – one where she doesn’t just automatically win.”

Spike nodded hurriedly, drawing in a deep breath and letting it out in a shaky rush. When he felt her soft, steady hand resting gently on his hip, he glanced up at her uncertainly, reassured immediately by the warmth and affection in her eyes.

“See?” she murmured, glancing pointedly down at his lower body, whole once more. “She’s not the only one with the missing pieces.” As she spoke, she raised her hand and brushed a feather-light touch across his chest, where the hole in his heart had been minutes earlier.

Spike swallowed hard, struggling to maintain control over his emotions, averting his eyes as he felt them fill with the undeniable evidence of said emotions. Tara’s firm hand under his chin tilted his head gently upward again until he was meeting her eyes, which were intent and solemn.

“And that first bit? Before either of us were here? We’re going to talk about that later, Sweetheart.”

Spike opened his mouth to object, to deny the obvious, but was spared the awkward attempt by the heavy sense of foreboding that came over them both at that moment. Though the door was closed and locked, he glanced toward it anxiously, his hands going instinctively to Tara’s waist in an automatic desire for contact, comfort.

“She’s coming,” he whispered, dread in his voice.

“Yeah. And then she’s leaving.”

Tara’s voice was hard, unyielding, her eyes narrowed in fierce determination as she glanced around the room, which suddenly seemed to be shaking around them. A sound like thunder filled the air, before the Slayer appeared before them again, her arms crossed over her chest as she cast a cold smile in their direction.

Instinctively, Tara shifted so that she stood partly between Buffy and Spike, her body tensing in preparation to react should the Slayer make a move.

“Okay, I give. What trick is this?” Buffy demanded. “How are you doing it?” When no one responded, she shrugged, taking a casual step closer as she admitted, “Okay, it *is* impressive, gotta say…I’m the only one who’s supposed to be able to do this whole dream-controlling thing. And yet – here you are. What’s your secret?”

“Key word -- *secret*,” Tara muttered. “As in you don’t need to know. What you *do* need to do is get out, Buffy. *Now*.”

The Slayer gave a harsh laugh of surprise as she moved even closer, a pleased smirk crossing her lips as Spike visibly tensed behind Tara, his breath quickening with fear at her increasing nearness.

“Nope,” Buffy replied brightly. “Like it or not, Tara…Spike’s dreams are *my* territory now. And I’m not going anywhere. I don’t know what you’ve done, but I’m gonna figure it out, and stop it. I’ll have control of his mind again, witch…”

As Buffy spoke, she finally closed the distance between them, and one lightning fast fist shot out toward Tara’s head. With a swiftly spoken Latin word and an outstretched hand, Tara froze the fist in mid-swing, a slight smirk playing about the corners of her full lips as Buffy stared incredulously at her frozen limb, struggling to free it from what appeared to be nothing more than thin air.

“No, you won’t,” Tara declared, her eyes blazing with protective fury.

With a second quick spell, Tara sent the Slayer flying backward, slamming painfully into the far wall and collapsing to the floor with a groan of pain, as Tara finished in a low voice of triumph.

“And this is *my* mind…bitch.”

TBC...