"This really isn’t necessary," Buffy seethed, wriggling like a big worm against the ropes that had her mummified and pretty much immobile on the tacky hotel bed.

Spike launched himself at the empty space beside her and made her bounce, chuckling at her sweating efforts to get free. "Not takin’ any chances, luv. Might be snookered, might be a little lacking in the planning part of this escapade, but I’m not completely stupid."

"Oh, I don’t agree with that for even one second. You are totally completely stupid. I mean, come on. You kidnapped a slayer, Spike. You are so going down; it’s just a matter of how far those dust particles will have to float." Buffy gave up the struggle and let her body go limp, all the fight momentarily gone on vacation against the obviously enchanted ropes. "Where’d you get these ropes anyway?"

Spike rolled to his side, watching her with hooded eyes. "That’d be telling." He pecked her fast on the lips, tucked a hand around her roped in waist, and fell promptly into a dead sleep.

Buffy wanted to belt him. She wanted to scream bloody murder and stake him with Mr. Pointy and dance in his ashes. She wanted to tie him up like a pig-on-a-spit and offer him up to feed…well, no one actually, because that was just way too gross. Though parts of him were entirely too lickable, and that clash of the lips he probably would call a kiss was maybe not so bad, in a really disgusting ‘how-dare-a-demon-kiss-me’ way. But she refused to think of that, not when he had her defenceless and on a road trip from hell so he could feed her to his insane ex.

God, it was kinda sad that Spike was turning out to be one of these guys that just couldn’t let go. If Drusilla was making with the nasty and Spike was repulsed by the types of demons she enticed into her bed, then where the hell was his self respect? She thought he’d been so strong—not many master vampires would have had the inner steel to bide their time in a wheelchair while the love of his life was off doing the nasty with someone he hated. And YES, Buffy couldn’t bear to say his name just yet! She’d always thought he was so worthy of respect as an opponent, as an enemy, yet his ability to fall apart at rejection from women screamed of weakness. He should be throwing Buffy at Dru to dust her, not to have the wacko vamp drain her dead.

Nope, it wasn’t on. Besides, he was too plastered to be thinking clearly. She just had to talk him sober and she was sure she could convince him he was making a monumental mistake. And if that didn’t work, she could always slay his ears off with her acerbic tongue.

"Spike, wake up."

He didn’t move. Buffy pulled back her bound lower half and aimed a forceful nudgy kind of kick that somehow made full contact with his…

"Bloody hell, couldn’t you aim a little lower?" Spike growled painfully, rolling back and forth cupping his crotch. "If you wanted some attention you seriously off kilter chit, you could have enticed me better than that. Might have to eat you now so you know not to do it again," he wheezed, his eyelids squeezed tight even as a few bitter tears slipped through. "You know what? You’re driving me up the bleeding wall with your destructo kicks. You’ll completely bust all my bits if you don’t knock it off."

Ooh, busting Spike bits. Now there was an image that gave her warm shivers. Buffy plastered on her most fake smile and licked her lips. Then stopped, her face falling as she had absolutely no clue what she’d planned to do. No way was she going to flirt with Spike, of all vampires, just to go free. It all seemed so hopeless, and despite the being all tied up, she’d sort of forgotten just how dangerous Spike was. Those bites where he drained just enough of her blood to make her malleable regularly slipped her mind too. The more sensitive parts of her body warred with the sections of her brain that still made sense. Spike was evil, bad news and he was going to kill her. That was inevitably his plan, and despite all the hot kissy and grinding, he wasn’t above getting his own jollies while on the way to achieving it. Still, gotta take satisfaction for making any guy cry over the mashing of his privates.

Spike lay back on the bed, eyes closed and knees drawn up as his hands cupped his swollen manhood. He was ignoring her and these ropes were itchy and Buffy felt so tired. The sniffles came unawares and just made Buffy feel even more miserable. God, who did she offend to have to go through this crap on such a regular basis? And when was Spike going to start acting like a decent vampire and punish her in the way most others would? By killing her and adding the glory of the event to stories that made his fierce reputation.

Just as the sobs were about to burst from her throat, a loud rumble of voices—in some language that Buffy was positive didn’t exist in any human world—indicated a possible brawl right outside their door. Buffy looked down at her ropes, still wound as tight as they were when she was first dumped on the bed, and rolled her eyes impatiently. Spike’s moans of pain had begun to recede and he seemed to be falling abruptly back toward sleep.

Then a shuddering thump against the door had him sitting up and snarling. "Bugger off. A vamps got a right to sleep, you pillocks."

Just as his head regained the snoozy side of the pillow, the door exploded off its hinges and some kind of giant rock-like barged through, taking the wood frame with him and looking extremely comical with the incomplete rectangle dangling from his head and shoulders.

It bared its teeth at a relatively unconcerned Spike and Buffy realised the idiot was too drunk to notice the danger. That or his ego had swelled out of all proportions.

"Get the bloody fuck outa my room, mate. Paid for it an’ all. Bloke deserves his rest after his car’s been bashed in royally."

The grey looking thing merely bared its teeth and roared in Spike’s direction before tossing the doorframe to the corner and stumbling awkwardly over to the bed. Buffy’s eyes widened as she saw the calculating look it gave her and the ropes that made her anyone’s bitch. Spike was really going to be vampire flambé when she got done with him.

"No way," she screamed as the thing swatted at Spike and its big granite-like arms sent him flying to the side to leave a rather large and crumbly dent in the wall. Spike just moaned as Buffy was plucked from the bed like a slayer-filled burrito. This moronic beast better not be thinking she looked tasty. Spike was so going to pay for this.

Buffy felt the air whiz passed her face as she was tossed over the demon’s bulky shoulders, her hip bruising painfully as the bone rubbed against the seemingly stone-like body. The lack of hero to the rescue—because thanks to Spike and his idiot plans keeping her all tied up with apparently somewhere to go—she was in dire need of one pretty soon.

"Spike, get your ass up here now and—" She hit the floor hard as a white Spike-shaped blurr catapulted Mr. Stoney through the wall, ten inches right of the desecrated door way. "Crap. You know Management will make us pay for that, don’t you?"

Spike stared at her incredulous, his face all grazed and blood pouring down his cheek from a cut below his eye.

"Not bloody relevant right now, luv." He spat blood on his opponent’s chest, his face being way too high for Spike’s shorter frame to reach without doing a very girly jump first. With a rousing roar, Spike launched himself again at the demon and began to punch it hard. The thing barely grunted before it slammed its fist down on Spike’s head like a club, almost smashing his skull in but definitely crushing a few vertebrae.

Spike swayed dizzily, turned around in a circle, giggled and finally fell face first into the floor. Buffy whimpered, knowing she had no chance of getting the useless idiot to help her now. He’d already been three sheets to the wind when they’d pulled up at the hotel. Now with a major concussion and the rising sun, she knew she had no hope.

Buffy had no concept of how she did it, but somehow she struggled upright. Strangely enough she’d managed to push the bed so far against the opposite wall in her effort to stand that the bathroom was fully blocked off. Jumping on the spot like a demented kangaroo, Buffy released a banshee wail before springing onto the very tired mattress and launched herself without warning at a surprised Boulder demon, her legs swinging with all the speed and power of an enraged slayer. His head hit the floor with a thud, rolling slowly to lie beside Spike, it’s now unfocused dead eyes staring an unconscious Spike in the face.

Buffy slumped on the floor in a bruised cocoon, panting and gasping in air so as to distract herself from the rumbling announcement of others further down the corridor.

"Spike," she hissed, wiggling her butt across the floor to violently nudge him with her fashionably worn in sneakers. "Wake up you pathetic excuse for a master vampire. I could have dusted you right now and all you’d know is the sound of wind in your crumbling ears. Now get the hell up and get us out of here." She was beyond pissed and when she got home this nightmare was going to be completely erased from her mind.

Buffy ignored the rumbly butterflies tickling inside her belly at the husky moan that heralded Spike’s return to consciousness. That was really going to be something else she made him pay for at some later date. Preferably when she’d trussed him up to look like a silk worm on steroids. Spike wobbled as he pushed himself to his feet, his head cradled in his hands as he fell back a few steps and collapsed on the bed.

"Fuck." He obviously was too wiped out for conversation and Buffy just continued sitting on the floor, glaring at him and feeling huffily impatient that he was such a freaking light-weight.

"You do realise Stoney’s friends are just down the hall and are going to come and eat us alive if you don’t get a grip and get us the hell out of here?"

There, that sparked a bit of life, even if it was just to allow Spike to slither to the floor. He looked worried, uncertain, and then irritated as he took out a huge shiny knife and grinned at her manically. Obviously he’d cracked—along with his head.

Eyes wide, heart beating too hard, Buffy contemplated how much strength she had left in her super-duper-power-double-bound kick. The light glinted off the blade and Buffy shrunk back in sudden fear. When it came to the reality of staring death in the face, it was so much less fun than she thought it would be. Particularly with the inability to fight back.

Oh boy, now she’d done it. She’d always known it was going to be Spike. Now that the reality was here, it just really really sucked.