Taming the Beasts
Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't own them.

Spoilers/Ships: This is AU. Buffy/Spike/Angel. Xander/Anya. Willow/Tara.

Distribution: Sure, just let me know.

Feedback: Is always nice. DarkRhiannon@aol.com

Rating: NC-17.  I mean it.  Go away if you're too young.

*Author's Note:  What has come before:  Truly, if you want to read this,
you'd be better off starting with the beginning of Breaking a Slayer.  This
is the sequel.  If you don't wish to do so, however, here is a quick synopsis…

This is completely AU from the ep when Faith took Buffy's body and got it
into serious trouble before switching back.  Buffy was violently gang raped
and left for dead.  The Scoobies were all gone for the summer, including
Giles, so Buffy had no one to help her.

Spike found her and, for reasons he couldn't truly explain even to himself,
he saved her.  Once patched up, she sped to LA to try to save Angel from
Faith.  That went as badly in this AU as it did in the series.  She returned
to Sunnydale only to discover that her mother had died of a massive aneurysm
while she was gone.  Kicked out of school, and unable to keep the house,
Buffy was living (barely) in a cheap motel and slowly wasting away from
self-neglect and severe psychological trauma from the aftermath of the rape
when Spike intervened and told Angel what was going on.  The two vampires,
united in their efforts to save Buffy, slowly drew her back from the edge.
During that time, the three slowly became lovers (well as much as Angel's
curse and Buffy's traumatised body and soul permitted, anyway).

Spike's price for his help was Angel's assistance in removing the chip that
plagued him so.  Angel arranged for it, against Buffy's wishes, but something
went wrong and Spike wound  up in a coma.  Angel tried everything to wake his
unruly Childe (yes in all of my AUs Spike is Angel's childe not Dru's -
that's the way the series was originally written), finally enlisting Buffy's
help.  She gave Spike her own blood to save him, but in the process, he
Marked her as his Mate, much as Angel had done so when Faith poisoned him.
Tied irrevocably to not one, but two, vampires, Buffy began undergoing
strange changes and unexpected side effects, which were intensified by Willow
and Tara's spell to allow Buffy to tap into her Slayer strength.

Angel, in the meanwhile, was attempting to "fix" his soul so that it couldn't
leave his body while the demon remained.  The spell to do so was quite
complicated and involved blood-fasting for weeks at a time and recitation of
a short cantrip to focus his will.  The spell was having strange effects upon
him, as it appeared to bring Angelus closer to the surface of his mind with
every repetition.  He needed to do three more rituals to finish it, one now,
one at the Day of the Dead and one at Yule.

He and Spike were in LA readying themselves for the ritual when Wolfram &
Hart attacked, using Voca to paralyze Cordy with visions, and bombing Angel's
office.  Spike saved Wes but was trapped with Angel in the fire after Angel
had done the ritual.  Buffy arrived in time to save them both, and she and
Angel left Spike to protect Cordy and Wes while they made their way to
Wolfram & Hart just in time to stop them from raising the Beast in the box
that they had.  The PTB's visions passed from Cordy to Spike when she kissed
him as she lay dying in the hospital (sorry, but I simply had to do it, St.
Corduffy was annoying me far too much to live, even in AU). Instead all of
that energy was channeled into Buffy.  It drove her consciousness out of her
body and she was taken by the lawyers though Angel severed Lindsey's wrist
trying to prevent it.

Buffy was tortured by Lilah, but escaped, wrecking havoc on her way out.  She
had no knowledge of her name, or many conscious thoughts, and pain
accompanied every attempt she made to even try to think.  She lapsed into the
mind of the Beast, because of the way the spell affected her.  Angel and
Spike found her being attacked by vampires in an alley and saved her.  She
promptly passed out.

Taming the Beasts

Spike and Angel hovered protectively over the unconscious body of their mate
for a long moment as thought and rationality returned to their minds.  With
Buffy's loss of consciousness, it was as if a door to chaos had been shut
within both of them.

Angel held the wounded body of his mate gently to his broad chest, growling
just a bit at his childe as Spike leaned in to touch her.

Spike growled back, momentarily challenging Angel's claim on the woman who
meant so much to him…to *them* he admitted, reluctantly.  Buffy had, somehow,
come to mean more than unlife..more than the hunt or even the kill.  Buffy
was, Spike realized, more crucial to him than anything had ever been.  With
that thought, his human mask slipped back on and he brushed one gentle hand
across the Slayer’s matted and blood-spattered hair.

Rising gracefully to his feet, Spike looked at Angel.  "I'll get the car," he
said, ceding care of their mate to the elder vampire.  "You bring the Slayer.
 We’ll get her to hospital right quick."

Angel met the deep blue eyes of his childe and nodded, ruefully acknowledging
Spike's claim upon Buffy and his right to be concerned for her.  *She needs
him,* Angel thought, climbing to his feet with no difficulty under Buffy's
slight weight.  He watched as Spike raced away into the dark and knew deep in
his bones that his childe loved and needed Buffy as much as he did himself.

*Powers know, she needs us both,* he thought, staring broodily down at the
pale and tired face of his soulmate.  She'd been shot, she'd been tortured,
and if he wasn't severely mistaken, the spell that he'd seen Wolfram & Hart
cast upon her had affected her in dire and unpredictable ways.  She hadn't
spoken a word when they found her.  Even given her battle with the vampires,
she should have said something, anything, when they arrived.  Instead, she'd
only growled.  His mate was a mess in more ways than just the physical.

Spike raced back to the alley in the dark convertible.  Angel waited at the
corner with the bloody body of their mate pressed possessively to his chest.
He climbed carefully into the car and Spike could see he was trying not to
jostle the tiny woman in his arms.

"Take us to the hospital, please, Childe," Angel rumbled, his hands clutching
Buffy as gently as if she were one of his now-burned antique Ming vases.

Spike drove quickly but cautiously to hospital, stealing glances at his sire
and their mate as he did so.  She was healing rapidly, he could see, but more
importantly smell.  The blood that had run from her shattered collarbone had
clotted over with alacrity.  Though he was used to seeing the Slayer heal
faster than a human, Spike was shocked at just how fast her body was
recovering.

"Sire," he said urgently as they sat at a red light.  "She isn't.. she's
diff..¦she's not right, is she?"  His voice cracked on the last word, as if he
were still the fledgling that Angelus had created over a century ago instead
of the Master vampire he'd become.

"No, Will, she's no' right," Angel admitted, his accent slipping back toward
the warm burr of his native land instead of his usual American idiom.  "They
bespelled her, an' now I can feel her soul but canna feel her thoughts.  Tis
as if she doesna have them."

Spike nodded agreement.  "And we, when she was awake, it was as if the demon
had erased my thoughts, Sire.  I couldn't think, couldn't reason.  It was
all…instinct."

"Aye and the same for me, Will," Angel admitted.  "Angelus is partially
bound, but still, I felt him takin' the lead.  I had to fight him for any
control at all," he said worriedly.

"What if she..we've got to break the spell, that's all," Spike stated, more
confidently than he actually felt.  The light turned and he sped quickly to
the ER entrance.

"Call Wesley," Angel ordered as he climbed painstakingly from the car,
careful not to jar the unconscious woman cradled like a child in his arms.
"He has the scroll.  Perhaps he can help us with her."  He walked quickly
round the car and caught Spike's eyes for a moment before leaning down toward
his childe.  "Thank you for not fighting me on this, Childe," he whispered
hoarsely.

"I know you only want what's best for her, Angelus," Spike muttered, looking
away from those compelling brown eyes, "just remember, I…care for her, too,"
he said, reaching one hand to stroke their mate's ashen face.

"I know ye do, Will," Angel rasped.  "And I love you even more for that, my
boy.  Thank you."

He turned and strode quickly into the hospital.  Spike cursed and grabbed for
the cell phone, swiping at his eyes with the back of one filthy hand.  *I'm
not crying.  I'm the Big Bad, for fuck's sake.  Bugger them all.*  But one
tiny blonde and a hulking dark vampire had ripped their ways into his undead
heart and he knew that even if he could, he wouldn't leave them for all the
blood in China.

To be continued