1. Chapter 1

It takes about five seconds after Buffy slams the door shut for Spike's morning to get worse, a brick popping out of the wall above the newly-cracked door at cracking him on the skull at the same time as a shaft of sunlight slants through the hole and burns him. Spike yells as his skin hisses and smokes, and he jumps back out of the sun, hitting the wall behind him with enough force to break it open and show the woman who'd been walled into it. He shakes his hand and peers at the corpse, less withered and decomposed than he would have expected in a house this age. Long tangled hair, too dirty to tell the actual color, spills across the floor, obscuring most of the dead woman except for the flashes of silver at her leathery wrists, fingers, and throat. He's leaning in to take them off her, not like the beautifully crafted pieces will serve her well now, when her eyes flash open. She doesn't seem to see him as she drags in a gasp that sounds more painful than a breath is supposed to be and kicks away from her tomb, knocking into him with a ragged scream.

She's still mostly skeleton, so Spike barely moves, choosing to simply wrap his arms around her so she won't hurt herself as she flails and gives out those pathetic half-gasp half-screams that are more squeaky bray than anything else. She flails harder against his grasp but he doesn't let go, murmuring to her that she's safe now, that she'll be okay, that he'll take care of her. He's seen more than one new vamp like this after digging themselves out of their graves after being forgotten or lost by their Sire, and he'd held Dru like this on more than one occasion in the midst of a nightmare of the torture Angelus had put her through. It takes a few hours before the woman goes limp in his arms, exhausted and trembling, and he finally loosens his hold on her. She doesn't move, but then he hadn't really expected her to, not for a little while at least. She shudders against his arms, chest heaving, and he realizes that he can feel a heartbeat under his wrist where there hadn't been one before. He watches her stretch a hand out in front of her, blackened with dirt and mold and whatever else had crusted her skin over her internment, and realizes that she's no longer a mummy. She has no fingernails and the tips of her fingers are blood and exposed bone that heal as he watches. The new skin is clean and very pale against the grime that seems to cover her.

She's still shaking and gulping air like a beached fish, great heaving gulps, but she pulls away from Spike and he lets her go. He's at a complete loss when she turns to kneel in front of him, one fist planted on the ground in front of her while the other grips her knee, and asks him what his first wish is without looking away from the floor. Her voice is hoarse, crackly, but he can hear the promise of beauty in it once it heals from screaming. Her accent isn't like anything he's heard before, isn't something he can even trace until she says more.

"For one, you can stop with the kneeling and look at me."

"As you wish, Master."

That one throws him for a loop, has him silent as he watches her rock back and sit cross-legged in the rubble. She watches him with cool, pale silvery-grey eyes, hunks of matted hair obscuring her face. She's dirtier than any grave-fresh fledgling he's ever seen, her skin showing in pale streaks underneath the grime that blackens it, and calling her clothes rags would be an insult to rags everywhere, barely covering enough to be called decent. Only her silver jewelry seems clear of it, flashing randomly as she breathes or shifts. She looks… broken, defeated. The silvery-grey eyes look dead, taking light in and giving none back. Maybe it's his newfound tolerance of beings with a pulse that has him caring about that. Maybe it's the fact that he's feeling pretty broken himself at the moment.

"Master?"

The woman straightens her back, hands on her knees like she's about to meditate, and her voice takes on the tone of someone who's repeating something they've said hundreds of times.

"I work for the one who protects me, by will of the Sidhe who cursed me. Since my previous master voided his side of the deal, whoever found me and pulled me from the tomb my previous master interred me in," her voice cracks a little as she says that, but she continues, "Would automatically become my next master, by will of the Sidhe who cursed me. I cannot harm anyone who is or has been my master. Any orders given that concern me stand until another Wisher wipes the slate so to speak. By the will of the Sidhe that cursed me there are rules to the wishes I can grant. A wish cannot be granted twice, either for the same master or any that follow. A wish cannot meddle with a person's heart or soul. A wish or order cannot interfere with the fabric of the world. The master can make a wish that contradicts any of the rules above, but I will not be able to fulfill any wish that does so. I will remain with the master until such time as the master no longer wishes my presence and signs my geis over to another."

A spark of hope in his chest.

"What is the price for magic like this?"

"There is no price for my master, and I am not allowed to reveal the price. If you really want to know, you've got to work it out for yourself."

"Can you get this bloody chip out of my head?"

The spark flares in his chest as Amara nods, hauling herself over to kneel by his side. Her filthy hands press at his temples and there's a twinge of pain before she draws away, handing him a small bit of bloodied metal and plastic that he crushes between his fingers with a vicious kind of glee. His stomach twists, reminding him that it's been too long since he's paid a visit to the butcher. Her heartbeat is loud and strong in the silence and he's _free_ of the fucking chip. The woman scrubs some grime off her neck before tipping her head and baring her neck for him without a word and that's all it takes for his restraint to snap like an old rubber band. Her blood tastes like heaven after so long on pig's blood, rich and flavored with age and power. The closest thing he's ever tasted is Slayer blood and even that pales in comparison. The demon tears into her throat at the first taste and _fuck_ they could get drunk on this taste, could get addicted to the power that flows in it. Last call comes too soon as he pulls the last of her blood from her.

She's still and cold when he pulls away, her throat a torn ruin, silence echoing in the silence where her heartbeat had been not even a minute before. He feels guilt and sorrow that he'd killed her without even knowing her name and shoves the emotion away. The Big Bad is back now, no more time for the irritating emotion that he's been dealing with since being chipped. His skin tingles with the power he'd stolen from her blood, making him want a fight, a fuck, _anything_ to burn off all this extra energy. He moves away from the woman's drained corpse to lean against a wall, lighting up as he does so. It's not the first time he's waited out the sun in a house with the corpse of his kill, and now it won't be the last.

Sudden movement catches his eye as he's about to light another fag, looking up in time to dodge the kick that puts another hole in the wall behind him. The woman pulls her foot free of the wall and dances back as Spike has a _what the fuck_ moment as he wonders if he hadn't killed her after all. If all these months of being unable to hunt his prey had made him loose his edge. When she kicks at him again he's ready, grabbing the striking foot and pulling so she looses her balance and falls to the ground. Her heartbeat is back again, a low pulse that fills the room.

"What the hell are you?"

"I am ancient. I die and I live again." Not exactly an answer to his question, but it explains the power flowing through him right now, the taste of blood older anything he's faced before.

"You wished for a fight or a fuck, I assumed you'd prefer the fight. Was I wrong?"

She hasn't gotten up from the floor, simply leaning up on her elbows, long matted hair pooling around her. Spike blinks stupidly at her as his brain rushes to catch up to this turn of events. He's about to say that he didn't wish for anything before he remembers thinking how he'd thought about he'd wanted to enjoy the benefits of a proper feed.

"How…?"

"I know things."

Well that answers exactly fuck all. She's staring at him like she's waiting for orders and he's suddenly reminded of the blank expressions on Dru's army of dolls.

"I thought you couldn't harm me."

"You wished it."

She surges to her feet at the same time he does, dodging the punch he throws, and so begins the fight. He looses track of time, loosing himself in the violent dance with the woman, grateful for the fact that he can go all out without worrying about either searing pain or fear of killing her. She seems to enjoy it as much as him, laughing and throwing back his insults as the fight drags on. He finally pins down her accent, the mix of faded Irish and southern English, and tosses insults aimed at that which make her laugh and mimic his accent.

The woman is a surprisingly good fighter, whether it's the result of his wish or actual skill he doesn't know or really care, and she has a punch like a hammer blow. He doesn't know how long they've been fighting when he realizes that the painful tightness in his chest has eased, and he hasn't been torturing himself with thoughts of his Slayer since finding the woman. The thought distracts him for a breath and that split second is enough for her to get through his defense and sweep his legs out from under him. It's only bad luck that has him fall into a pool of sunlight and he isn't in it long enough for it to do any real damage, but when he rolls away he sees the woman on her hands and knees.

He can smell singed flesh and assumes it's coming from him, right up until he kneels next to her and sees her skin bubble and char before healing before his eyes. There's a tang of blood from where she's bitten through her lip trying to silence the minute sounds of pain she makes. It's over quickly, leaving patches of pale freckled flesh free of grime where the skin has healed.

"You all right pet?"

"Peachy."

"What just happened?"

She lets out a shuddering breath, rocking back to look at him.

"I caused you injury out of the boundaries of sparring, so I got the equivalent of your injury."

"But you _burned_."

"I got what a fledgling would have under the circumstances." She shrugs. "I don't know the exact parameters of the retribution clause."

Her tongue swipes at the blood beading on her lip, the crimson dark and distracting against her bubble-gum pink tongue. She catches him staring and bares her throat again. Now that he's got some restraint he can see the way she tenses.

"You don't like baring your throat, do you?" Not really a question, he can read it in the tense lines of her body now that his hunger isn't overwhelming.

"No wild thing does, even after it's tamed. Do you care?" Her voice is flat and she doesn't stop exposing that vein that's calling his name.

"I've never been one to force a woman, luv. If you're feeding me, I can tap from your arm just as well."

There's something in her eyes when she looks at him, something akin to disbelief and wonder. She scrubs a hand down her arm to rid it of as much grime as she can, more thorough than she'd been on her neck, before offering it to him. Spike's gentler this time, less impatient to feed than before, and he can hear her heart speed up as she sighs and relaxes beneath him. Her heartbeat goes silent again, but when she wakes up this time he's cradling her against his chest so she doesn't wake up on the floor. He figures it's the least he can do for her.

"Thank you." Her voice is quiet and that look is back in her eyes, a small smile on her face. Spike stops himself from wondering why such a simple act of kindness is so surprising to her. He lets her go when she pulls away from him, and he almost mourns when he sees her schooling her face back into its doll-like blank expression, returning to the impassive doll she'd been before.

"So what do I call you?"

The woman shrugs, "Anything you like."

"Okay Dollface, what's your name?"

"I've had many names."

Spike looses the fight against the irritated growl that rumbles through his chest. The exasperating woman simply cocks her head to the side like a confused mutt and looks at him blankly. Something bulges underneath her matted hair where her ear would be, flattening quickly. He's spent enough time around all manner of undead and demon-kind that he knows not to think about what it might be. Last time he did, it had been with a thickly furred demon of E'Rond heritage who'd viewed the parasites that lived in its pelt as pets and Spike's asking an insult. It had been a lovely fight, but at the moment he finds himself strangely unwilling to continue their sparring from earlier. He blames Buffy before violently shoving the Slayer from his mind a split second later.

"Fine, what would you like to be called?"

The woman blinks in surprise at the question, but answers it readily enough.

"Tyr. I met a god by that name once, a long time ago. I liked him." The way she says it makes him think that she likes very few. Spike knows very little of gods, but the name rings a faint bell somewhere far off in his mind. He thinks that maybe Giles mentioned it once in passing and makes a mental note to ask the man about it.

"What do you wish of me Master?" Her voice breaks the silence, startling him. She hasn't called him Master since she first spoke and it makes his skin crawl.

"You could start with not calling me Master."

"Yes sir."

A dull ache settles behind his eyes and Spike growls again.

"My name is Spike. Use it," He grinds out, fingers digging at his temples to try and rid himself of the headache. It's too early for him to be dealing with anything aside from finding a sun-free basement or tunnel to spend the rest of the day in, maybe get some rest since he hasn't had the chance to sleep for a few days.

Tyr sits beside him, curling her legs underneath her before pulling him down to rest his head in her lap. She smells like an old house, not really that surprising considering where she'd spent the past however long, but he can faintly smell salt and lavender underneath the old-house smell. He's about to protest the treatment, move away from her, when she tentatively runs her fingers through his hair.

"Sleep. I will stand guard." Tyr says quietly, like she's expecting him to fight her. There's a soft look on her face, like quiet contentment, as she cards her fingers through his hair. He falls asleep to her rough voice singing a song he vaguely remembers hearing when he was human, an old Irish folksong that's probably older than damnation.


	2. Chapter 2

The newly-named Tyr stands under a torrent of hot water as almost fifteen years worth of mold and dirt turning the water black where it swirls around her tattooed feet. Her clothing had disintegrated as soon as she had removed it and she had no idea what she was going to do about getting more. She'd hacked off most of her hair with a shard of glass as Spike slept, immediately grateful when the weight had fallen away. Her hair is still matted, but she'd picked up a comb with a broken tooth lying in the street. She's glad to see that at least the randomness of street detritus hasn't changed in the years she'd been suffocating to death over and over in a cramped wall space. When the water finally runs clear she turns the taps to off and sits down in the tub with her comb to attack her hair.

It feels like another year has passed by the time she's done, probably only an hour or two in reality. Spike had knocked on the door at some point, telling her to stay with Giles until he came back. There's a pile of hair sitting like a fat tarantula behind her and she can feel blood trickling down her scalp in the places where the comb had ripped a particularly vile knot out. She nudges the hair out of the way of the shower spray and dropping the comb on top before she turns the water back on, quickly washing her hair before turning it off again and leaving the tub. There's a towel waiting for her outside the door, as well as sweats and an over-sized t-shirt, and she stops the threatening rush of gratitude with the thought that people get arrested for running around naked these days.

Tyr dresses and pulls her jewelry out from where she'd hidden it under the tub. The random assortment is all she has left to remind her of her two sisters and the life they had led before the prideful Sidhe prince had cursed them. One or two Wishers had tried to take them from her out of greed or with the intent to punish her for some slight, only to find that it was the one time when the geis allowed her freedom. Each Wisher that had tried to take them from her ended up dead.

Nine thick silver rings, each heavily decorated with various Celtic knotwork, slide easily onto fingers that have yet to fully regrow the nails she'd lost clawing at the walls of her prison. Feathers of a hoodie crow, the shafts wrapped in silver and copper wire, are braided into her hair, along with charms she's picked up over her long centuries of service. The fine chain of charred bone, made from a fire-blackened femur, has her leaning over the sink to get a closer look at her ear in the mirror. She carefully threads the chain through the holes punched in the cartilage of her left ear, each end of the chain anchored with a loop of braided silver wire that look almost like tiny versions of modern hoop earrings. It's the loops that give her the most trouble, the piercings that they hook into are so much smaller that the ones threaded with chain that they're hard to find amid the russet fur. She finally manages it and steps back, meeting her own pale eyes in the mirror. The shimmery, intricate knot work of the geis curse-collar catches her eye. It was pretty enough if you didn't know the meaning behind the symbols and lines that wrapped around her neck, knotting together in the hollow of her throat.

Her ears twitch as she looks at her reflection, left ear twitching to better hear the clattering going on outside the door, and she absentmindedly strokes the silky-soft fur of the right one, feeling where it gives way to scar tissue where Badb had bitten her in a childish fit of temper when they had first walked thr world. Her sisters and cousins had always told her that her ears were beautiful, even as she wished for Nemain's silver-tipped black or Badb's iridescently pure white. Once she was among mortals, however, no one reacted positively to seeing wolf ears where human ones should be on an otherwise human face. Her ears and the color of her eyes had caused her a great deal of pain with most Wishers, those thinking she was a demon and others who used her as a sideshow freak, even as they used her power without a second thought. She allows a fleeting thought that wonders how Spike will react to them for a heartbeat before she crushes it. He's a Wisher, just like all the rest. Just because he's shown her more kindness in the day she's known him than most Wishers do in her entire service to them doesn't mean that he won't change. They always do.

With that thought she leaves the bathroom, bare feet almost silent on the hardwood floors as she stalks toward the older man Spike had introduced as Giles.

"Good Lord."

"Not here, darlin'."

"Indeed. Are you a demon?" Straight forward, blunt. She likes the man already.

"Depends on who you ask." Tyr says, grinning wide enough that she can feel sharp canines scrape her bottom lip.

"Yes, um…yes, quite. I've never come across a species that looks quite like you before, you see."

"I doubt you ever will again."

"Is that so?"

"Yes, is so." As soon as she says it she realizes how petulant she sounds and stares the man down like it'll stop him from pointing out that fact.

"Quite." Giles says, lips twitching as he hands her a mug of tea. Tyr takes it and copies his posture, leaning against a counter while sipping from the mug. He watches her, equally curious and cautious, and she can see him taking in her ears, the variety of charms and amulets that click and flash in her hair. When his eyes start tracing the thick, swirling blue-black lines of the tattoos that curl around her feet and hands she interrupts him.

"Just ask."

"Pardon?"

"If you keep all the questions inside, your head will pop off. I've seen it happen. Although I will need more tea."

Giles busies himself over the stove and Tyr can practically see steam wisping from his ears as he tries to collect his thoughts.

"Spike didn't really tell me much, aside from assuring me you aren't dangerous."

"Until he orders otherwise, I can't hurt a fly. Or a mosquito. I hate mosquitoes. I go outside and get swarmed." Giles chuckles at that and Tyr gives him a lopsided smile. He's nice enough for a human.

"He mentioned something about finding you…in a wall?"

"Yes. Spike tells me that I was walled up for almost twenty years."

"All that time and you didn't die?"

"Oh, I did. Over and over again, sealed away in the dark, waking up trying to breath air where there was none…" Tyr's voice trails off and she shudders. "I don't think I'm going to talk about that anymore."

"I don't blame you," Giles says, pity on his face. She hates pity. Silence stretches for long minutes before Giles shakes himself.

"And how did you end up in the wall, if I may ask?"

"My geis was sold to a man who considered himself an alchemist. This was…nineteen…fifties? Forties? Somewhere in there. He had a wife, two sons. He was a happy man, but he was becoming more and more obsessed with alchemy. By the time he shelled out for my contract his wife had taken one of their sons and left him, the other had refused to go. He wished for more and more complicated recipes, delving farther into the darker side of what alchemy has to offer. Started mixing them with spells and blood magic and the like, bringing in his son to help him. I don't know what the man was searching for, but his son drove him to insanity while I sat and watched. The man killed himself and the geis was passed from father to son. That boy… there was something wrong with him. He wished for a final recipe, the one that even his father had had sense to stay away from. I watched him make the stone he sought, watched him drink it down, and then he killed me. When I woke up, I was in the wall." Tyr remembers the son's smile as he felt the geis transfer, that sick pleasure he took in controlling her even as his father's corpse grew cold. She doesn't tell Giles that the son had fucked her in the cooling pool of his father's blown-out brains, cut her open so he could play in her entrails while he fucked her, made her scream as he visited his twisted pleasures to their end.

The kettle whistles shrilly, making them both jump. Giles turns away to make more tea. Tyr sees him sneak a small bottle from his pocket before, she assumes, adding whatever it contains into her cup. He hands it to her and she stares at him while she drinks it.

"Walling me up apparently voided the son's hold on my geis, so that when Spike found me it latched on to him," she says after she's swallowed the mouthful of tea, continuing on like the pause hadn't happened, like she hadn't seen him slip something into her tea, which, technically, she hadn't.

"There was holy water in that tea." Ah.

"I thought it tasted more pious than your last brew."

"So you're not a demon."

"Not…as such, no."

"So what are you?"

"You'd need to be a Wisher to get that out of me, old man."

Giles is quiet for a long time after that, looking at her thoughtfully.

"You're quite a bit more outspoken than you were when Spike brought you here." Tyr hears the question he's leaving unvoiced and sighs, fiddling with the bone chain for a few seconds before answering it.

"The contract for my geis has been used as collateral in card games for ages. There was a man a couple of decades after the geis was slapped on me, he won me and immediately wished his wife dead. She'd done something, said something, I don't know. He never told me. Anyway, he was so overcome with guilt that he went to see his priest the next day and the sanctimonious bastard told him to sign my geis over to him. It only took an hour before he wished me demure in his presence. When my contract changed hands, the order changed to demure in the presence of a Wisher until one orders otherwise."

Giles hums and wanders off, leaving her to her own devices. Tyr steals a book from the man's overloaded shelves and curls up on the couch with it, chuckling at the various discrepancies she finds. Hours pass and Spike doesn't come back. She can feel anxiety and hurt coming through the line connecting him with her geis, but he'd told her to stay with Giles until he came back. There's no searing pain to let her know she's down another Wisher, so there's that at least.

The phone rings and Giles answers. Tyr listens to his exclamation of surprise and concern as a woman tells him that someone named Dawn is hurt because another woman named Willow had crashed the car they'd been in. Tyr stops listening after that, feeling oddly like she's intruding on something private.

More time drags on and she's starting to wonder what happens if the Wisher forgets her. Giles asks her if she wants food and she declines, even as her stomach twists at the thought of food. He questions her a bit more that evening, before giving her a blanket and pillow and bidding her good night.

She doesn't even realize she's fallen asleep until Giles shakes her awake. There's blood dripping down her chin and filling her mouth from where she's bitten through her lip, unconsciously trying to silence her terrified screaming. She can still feel the suffocating walls pressing at her on all sides as she tells Giles she's fine, go back to bed. She washes her face, the torn skin healing itself as she watches in the bathroom mirror, before settling herself back on the couch with a glass of water. She doesn't sleep again that night.


	3. Chapter 3

A new day dawns without a sign of Spike and Giles brings her to the Magic Box. The woman behind the counter looks at her and does a double take like she recognizes Tyr.

"Amara?"

Tyr stares blankly at the woman.

"Do I know you?"

"Last time you saw me, I looked different. More demon than shopkeeper."

The voice snaps into place.

"Anyanka?"

"That's right. It's Anya now though."

"I'm Tyr."

"And you're Giles' now?" There's disbelief in the former demon's voice.

"No. Spike found me."

"Ah."

Giles seems glad to escape Tyr's constant shadowing, disappearing into the shelves of books like they're his last sanctuary on this earth. Maybe they are, considering how heavily booked his house is. Anyanka- Anya she corrects herself- is more than happy to chatter about anything and everything, distracting Tyr enough that she doesn't notice how much time has passed. Nothing can distract her from the door at the back of the shop slamming open. She knows the instant the door opens that it's Spike. She turns to face him as the geis collar forces her to kneel before him. She doesn't even try to resist it any more. The first time the order had been spoken she'd fought. To kneel to a bloody _mortal_ of all things… the geis had put a right quick stop to that, choking her until her knees had given out of their own accord. What had followed that had been even less pleasant. A bell chimes behind her and she flicks an ear back to hear a woman ask for a divining crystal. The sound seems to break Spike out of where ever his mind has wandered off to.

"Get up!"

Spike's order snaps through the air, zings through her collar, and Tyr shoots to her feet with a sigh of relief.

/`/`/`/`/`/

It takes him a minute to realize that the woman talking with Anya, before whirling and kneeling at his feet, is the same one that had hurled her self out of a wall yesterday. Skin pale enough to rival his own has replaced the grime-black he'd last seen her in. The matted hair is gone as well, now clean and untangled it falls roughly to barely brush her shoulders and there are flashes of feathers and bone amulets when she moves her head. He assumes Giles had given her the clothing she's currently wearing, sweatpants and a t-shirt, both of which are at least three sizes too big. Tattoos swirl in seemingly random patterns around her fingers and hands, streaking around her still-bare toes and feet. Thin tattooed bands wrap around her throat, tangling in the hollow between her collarbones, where they shimmer sickly with dark rainbow colors that remind him of spilled gasoline. The ears are what draw his attention the longest, red-brown tinged with black and gold, more expressive than the woman they belong to. He can imagine the canine beast they belong on, sleek and wild, and if she'd been such a creature he would have called her beautiful. But as it stands, the meld of beast and human is too jarring and her features too sharp to be called beautiful by any human standards. Even without the ears, she'd still be too feral to make anyone look twice.

Tyr looks up at him, silvery eyes questioning and those ears pricking forward, and he can see a dusting of freckles across high cheekbones. The bell above the door jingles while Spike is frozen, and he watches one of her ears flick back in response while her attention remains riveted on him. A thin chain made of what looks like ivory or bone is woven through the ear, and it sways lightly at the movement. The sound of the bell makes him realizes she's still at his feet, like he's something worthy of worship.

"Get up!" He snaps it without thinking, but the look of relief on her face reassures him that she won't hold it against him. He'd gotten half-way back to his crypt, mind still worrying about Dawn and tormenting him with repeats of Buffy's scorn, when he'd realized that the woman was still with Giles. His sense of obligation had driven him to the Magic Box, back to his charge.

Anya glares at him, opening her mouth to say something when Giles breaks in and asks her to go help the customer find her crystal. When she has stomped off, Giles draws him aside.

"You may consider asking her to tell you who or what she really is. I tried, but she said that you were the only one currently able to get that information out of her."

At the moment, Spike isn't willing to ask her to do anything but give him a vein, but he's not going to tell Giles that. He has a sneaking suspicion it would get him staked, if nothing else.

"I'll consider it."

"Also, I get the feeling that she would be happier if you broke the order a priest laid on her. She'll tell you the one," Giles adds, distracted by another customer. "And take her out of the shop please. People may expect to see odd things here, but I have a feeling that she might be pushing that boundary." With that he's off, leaving Spike to scowl at his back before an arm is shoved into his line of sight.

"What are you doing?" It takes a lot of willpower to push that throbbing vein away, but he manages.

"You're hungry."

"Yes, but…we really need some ground rules."

"As you wish." Tyr says; bowing low before Spike pulls her through the door he'd come in through.

"Okay, first off. You _really_ need to stop doing that."

"Yes, Spike."

The docile slave-tone is really starting to grate on his nerves, especially considering that he'd heard her animatedly arguing with Anya over the usefulness of chicken's feet not ten minutes ago. Giles' suggestion ghosts through his mind.

"Giles mentioned something about a priest giving you an order?"

"He liked his women tamed and obedient."

"Right, that ends now."

The tattoo collar shimmers brightly for a moment and then Tyr heaves a sigh and shakes herself like a dog ridding itself of water, shoulders popping when she rolls them.

"My thanks, Master Wisher. That's a bloody relief. Do you know how long I've been bowing and scraping to feeble men and women like they're God's gift? Eons. That's how long it feels like." The change is immense and he finds that he likes this woman much more than the obedient one that avoided his eyes and stayed three steps behind him.

"Glad to be of service."

Tyr sticks her tongue out at him, nose wrinkling at his mocking tone.

"Any thing else I can do for you, Wisher?"

"Spike."

"Anything else I can do for you, Wisher Spike?"

He grits his teeth for a minute. Her newfound wise-assery is wearing on his already short temper.

"I need sleep, we'll discuss the rest tonight."

They end up discussing it on the way to the crypt, if only to stop Tyr from dancing through the tunnels like an overactive puppy.

"Don't tell anyone you've taken that chip out of my head. They don't trust me as it is, if they find out I can hunt again I'll probably be dust before the night is out."

"If they don't trust you, why do you stay?"

He doesn't have an answer for that, so he ignores the question.

"Don't tell them or show them that I'm feeding from you, for the same reason."

"That's quite the uneasy truce you have there."

"You're not making it any easier."

"Then sell my geis. It wouldn't be the first time, and it's worth half a king's ransom." Her voice is light, like she couldn't care less what he does, but he catches her looking at him with a bruised look in her eyes.

"Tch, and go back to pig's blood? Besides, I'd rather have you protecting my back instead of attacking it. It'll be an interesting change of pace."

He can see the tension bleed from her as she kicks a chunk of brick out of her path. She's silent for a long while.

"So how did you end up like this?" It's more his own curiosity than Giles' incessant need to know that has him asking. Really, it is.

"Do you know what a Sidhe is?"

The name is familiar in the way the name Tyr is familiar. When Spike shrugs, she gives him a twisted smile and continues.

"They're also called the Good Folk. Essentially, they're Irish fairies and they're beautiful, temperamental bastards. One of their princes decided he wanted a bride and chose three sisters to be brought before him. They gave his men a long chase, but eventually they were caught and cast before him. He told them that two would have their freedom if they chose the sister who would become his bride."

"He sounds like a prick."

"Most of the Sidhe had a tendency to be complete arseholes, but he was one of the worst Anyway, the sisters rebelled. Refused to choose one amongst them to stay Underhill as the prince's bride, refused to bend to his whim, fought him at every turn, hoping that their cousins would pull them out of their prison. The prince finally had enough and placed the geis on them."

Tyr's fingers ghost over the knot work on her neck as she says it, ghost-pale eyes far away.

"He probably only meant for the geis to last as long as it took us to choose, but he was so over confident in his abilities that he used more magic than he could rightly handle. He burned in the casting, fading into dusk as soon as he spoke the final words, leaving us bound to the first mortals who found us."

"Where are your sisters?" Spike knows he shouldn't ask, but her story has him curious now.

"They are gone now, but I keep them close to me." The bone chain rattles in her ear as she turns to him, eyes bruised and haunted. He doesn't ask her any more questions about her past, changing the subject to music. He's horrified to learn that she hates the Ramones, preferring Shane Macgowan's rough voice to even the Sex Pistols. They're still arguing when they reach his underground lair. He falls asleep as he had the day before, his head in her lap and her fingers in his hair. This time she sings _Somebody Put Something in My Drink_ as he falls asleep.

/`/`/`/`/`/

"Are you alright, pet? You look half dead."

She's been with him almost a week and she hasn't slept in all that time, biting her lips and twisting her sensitive ears when she feel herself starting to doze off.

"I…I can't sleep." It half kills her inside to admit any weakness to a Wisher, but he'd asked her and the geis forced it out.

"You look tired enough to sleep standing."

She prays to whoever's listening that he won't order her to sleep. She's terrified that if she falls asleep, she's going to wake up inside that wall again, endlessly suffocating and reviving. It isn't until Spike pulls her toward his underground room that she realizes that she'd said all of that out loud.

"You can sleep with me. It's easier when there's someone next to you." He says it like he's speaking from experience and he probably is. He disappears down the ladder, leaving her to follow him down. He's already half-stripped by the time she makes it down, muscled torso pale in the lamp light, and suddenly she's certain she's misjudged him. _Just another Wisher_ she reminds herself. He looks up and sees her staring, wide-eyed, and pauses with his fingers on the button of his jeans.

"I sleep naked, love. I'm not expecting anything from you but sleep."

Spike finishes stripping before flopping on the bed and pulling a blanket around himself, before looking at her expectantly. He doesn't say anything, nothing that will force her to the bed, simply extends a hand toward her. She takes it, allows him to pull her down next to him. There's a cool arm looped loosely around her waist as he spoons up behind her, a quickly-warmed weight that promises safety, and she feels herself relax almost against her will. Confusion churns in her; acts of kindness go against anything she's learned about Wishers.

"Why? Why are you being so kind? You're just another Wisher, and you should view me as nothing more than a tool like all the rest."

"I'm not like your other Wishers."

"Or other vampires."

"Or them either," he agrees.

"Then what are you?"

Spike's silent for a long time, pulling her tight against him. His breath is cool against her neck as his fingers trace patterns over her skin before skimming up her neck to pet the ear that isn't pressed against the pillow. She shudders at the touch, her body thrown into confusion that it brings pleasure and not pain, even as happiness hums through her.

"I'm myself."

Tyr strokes the skin of his arm, delighting in the touch.

"Just let go love. I'll keep you safe," he says quietly, tucking her head under his chin.

She dreams of a dark sea that wraps around her, warm and safe, under a clear sky where she knows no pain or fear.


	4. Chapter 4

She has almost four months of peace and moderate freedom before it goes to hell. The first week, Anya takes her shopping for clothes for the first time in Tyr's life. Tyr can tell that Anya doesn't like the clothes she picks out, baggy cargo pants and loose tank tops instead of the more girly clothes the former demon gravitates towards. Tyr refuses to have anything to do with shoes, a point that gets her in trouble with various shopkeepers. On nights Spike doesn't take her with him and the Slayer on patrol, Dawn and Tara curl up with her on the Slayer's couch and they watch movies that Tyr doesn't really understand but finds amusing anyway. Spike is one of the best Wishers she's ever been bound to, kind behind all the anger and hurt he carries around like a suit of armor and even when he's hurting from the latest disparaging remark from the Slayer who toys with his heart Spike still doesn't turn his hurt or anger on Tyr.

Since that first round of questions about her past, he hasn't asked any more about her sisters or the geis. She calls him Wisher as often as he'll allow, reminding herself that she's nothing but a tool to him but that wall is flimsy at best, getting weaker each time he curls around her as they sleep or each time he does something for her. He doesn't even complain that she's constantly touching him, invading his personal space once he tells her it's okay for her to do.

After ages of contact meaning nothing but pain, the pleasure of curling around him during the day or cuddling with Dawn while they watch movies is like touching the Christian's Heaven, bringing back memories of the easy, ever-present contact that she'd shared with her sisters. It isn't until Spike drapes himself across her shoulders to read from the book she's holding that she realizes maybe he needs the contact as much as she does. It isn't until she unthinkingly bares her throat for him one evening, instead of offering him her arm, that she realizes she's falling in love with him. When she wakes up in his arms, with his fingers tracing her face and combing through her hair, she knows the way her heart has a hard time finding it's rhythm has nothing to do with the fact that her vascular system is still recovering.

Out of all the potential hazards that come with each Wisher, she has never before seen the danger of falling in love with one.

It's the fucking Velli demon that brings it all crashing down around her, destroying the fragile trust that the do-gooders have in her. The skinless demon takes one look at her, recognition flashing in its black eyes, and drops to its knees, blubbering for her forgiveness. The thin knife Spike had given her earlier that evening tears through the demon's skull like it's made of tissue paper, but she's not fast enough to stop the Slayer and her Wisher from seeing the whole thing. Spike orders her down even as Buffy breaks her neck.

When she revives, she's tied to a chair in Giles' house, thick ropes biting into her skin. She struggles hard enough that the ropes cut into her skin, blood oozing down her hands and between her fingers as she snarls at her impassive watchers.

"What are you?" It's Giles who asks, imperious and far too confident. Tyr laughs in his face, the noise cracking through the air like ice breaking.

"The Bird of Hermes is my name, eating my wings to make me tame," she says, mocking the humans. She watches the skin around Giles' eyes tighten in anger, mouth drawing down in a severe frown. She doesn't blame the man; she'd probably do the same in his place. Anyone a Velli demon bares its neck to should be treated with caution. It still stings though.

"Spike, you're the one she answers to. You ask her," Buffy says, and Tyr bares her teeth and bites back the flood of curses that she wants to scream at the bitch who has just condemned her. The seething dislike Tyr has been trying to hide boils up, leaving an acidic taste in the back of her throat. Even if Tyr hadn't been falling in love with Spike, she thinks that she'd still dislike the holier-than-thou Slayer.

"Don't." It's the closest she'll allow herself to come to begging. Something flickers in Spike's eyes and there's a brief flash of hope that he's going to side with her.

"What are you?"

And just like that, Tyr goes numb, clenching her teeth and glaring at him. _Just another Wisher_ she thinks bitterly before fire ignites in her veins, punishment for resisting. She fights it as long as she can, using her anger against the pain. Her skin blackens over veins and arteries, making lacework patterns of her vascular system until she screams and tears roll down her face, burning through her shirt when they fall.

"That's enough!" Spike's voice cuts through the overwhelming heat, cutting it short. There's an unsettled look on his face as he watches her gasp for breath, half sobbing with relief. Each breath fills her lungs with fire, each exhale turning into a puff of smoke.

"No, it's not. You saw how that demon treated her, like it worshipped her," Buffy snaps. "If she's resisting telling us what she really is, there must be a reason."

Tyr has had enough of the Slayer and her insecurities, her cruelties, her self-righteousness. She lunges at the Slayer, ears flat against her skull, snapping her teeth when the ropes prevent her from getting far.

"Let's drop a geis on you, leave you in the hands of sadistic bastards for a century, and then see how you like being forced to give anything away, you sanctimonious bitch!" She barely recognizes the low snarl filled with rage and pain as her own voice.

"Tell us what you are." She'd forgotten not to insult the Slayer in front of the Wisher. The geis collar tightens at his snapped command and she manages to choke out, "Once we were three; dancing death, havoc, and agony." It's enough of an answer that the geis loosens slightly, enough that she can breathe freely. She looks at Spike, praying that he won't force her to keep going.

"That's not an answer," Spike says, voice and eyes cold. Pain looms and anguish is bright in her chest. She'd known it was stupid to allow the growing warmth towards him. He's a Wisher, just like the rest, regardless of how kindly he has treated her she's still just a tool to him at the end of the day. Fine then. She crushes that pathetic little ember glowing in her chest and tells herself that it barely stings as she pulls her walls around her, sitting back in the chair. She looks directly at Spike, not giving any of the other fuckers in the room the slightest illusion she'd be speaking if not for the geis burning around her throat.

/`/`/`/`/`/`/`

Spike can see the exact moment that Tyr shuts down and kicks himself for letting his temper get the best of him. He knows what it's like to be forced into something that you hate. The tattoo around her neck shimmers, rainbow reflections like petrol spilled on wet pavement. _Just another Wisher_ she'd told him. She stares at him, those silvery-grey eyes as dead as they'd been the first day he's found her.

"Once upon a time, I was the Morrigan." The tattoo shimmers again, briefly. Her brow furrows, a flicker of expression before it smoothes back to doll-like blankness. "_My sisters_ and I were the Morrigan. We were worshipped and loved and feared." Her fingers beat a quick rhythm on the arms of the chair before falling still. "Have I sufficiently answered your question, Wisher?" Her voice is flat and Spike has to stop himself from saying yes just so he can try and assure her that he isn't just another master. He looks at Buffy, who's staring at Tyr like she's expecting hellfire any second now, before turning to Giles and ignoring the pain in his chest.

"Can I untie her now?"

"Ask her if she means to harm us."

"I have said multiple fucking times that I have no free will!" Tyr snaps, her usual fire breaking through. Blood oozes down her hands from where she's tried to hard to free herself, smoking a little when it meets the armrest of the chair. The lattice of burns has already started to fade. "As long as the Wisher doesn't order it, I am unable to…"

The look of surprise on Tyr's face is almost comical as Buffy slits her throat.

"What the hell!?"

"We can't trust you not to make that order," Buffy says as she wipes the bloodied blade on Tyr's shirt, oblivious to the pain she's causing him.

"Haven't I proved myself to you yet?" The words are bitter in his mouth, even as Tyr saves him from Buffy's answer.

"Is that all you got Slayer? No wonder Glory shit all over your little parade, if that's what you think it takes to kill one of the old gods," Tyr says, letting out a mad laugh. "You can cut my heart out, burn me till there's nothing left, and I will still be here to visit my revenge long after your bones turn to dust."

Giles stops Buffy from putting that to the test, gently taking the Slayer's knife from her.

"You can untie her Spike, but if I may ask…?"

Tyr growls low in her throat when Spike draws close to her; a cornered animal, wounded and betrayed. He swallows hard to get rid of the bitter taste that thought leaves as he unties her, wishing he could take it back. Wishing he hadn't shattered the trust she'd seemed to have in him. Ghostly grey eyes look up at him, the blankness in them as terrifying as the well of emotion that had been in them earlier.

"You can't take it back _Wisher_," she spits out the words like they hurt her to say, a film of tears in her eyes, before standing and looking at Giles.

"Ask."

"That first day, when Anya recognized you, she called you Amara…"

"I once went by Amara, a long time ago when my Wisher was another vampire. She wished for a ring that would make her immortal, but I could only make her invincible. She was an insane bitch, Anya will tell you, and she thought it fitting to name my creation after me. The source of anguish for so many people and I was the one that granted it," she says bitterly, angrily.

"You made that?" Spike can't stop the shock in his voice.

"That so hard to believe?"

"The creator of one of the most sought-after artifacts in vampire culture and I found you _in a wall_."

Amara shrugs, rubbing her wrists and looking at Giles.

"Is that all?"

The Watcher nods, looking down at Buffy who had already dismissed the situation as beneath her. Tyr looks back at Spike.

"With your leave I'll go. Anya said she wanted me at the Bronze, if I have your permission."

Spike's more than a little lost.

"You know you don't need it."

"I also knew that you wouldn't force anything from me." With that parting shot, she's gone, leaving him to make his way back to his crypt.

/`/`/``/`/`/`

By the time she gets to the Bronze she's mostly healed, the blood-soaked shirt lost in a Dumpster five seconds after she steals a new one. It's not her usual style, black and close fitting, but it'll do for the night. Anya takes one look at her and orders something that looks radioactive, before smoothing a gentle finger down a burn that hasn't fully healed yet. Tyr flinches away, covers it by taking a swig of whatever the waitress has just deposited in front of her. It's light, fruity, but it packs a punch.

"So what went wrong?" Anya's question startles her and Tyr finds herself spilling everything. Three drinks later Anya's wrung everything there is to tell out of Tyr, offered to call up a vengeance demon friend if Tyr's wanting a little payback. Tyr just laughs and leans against Anya, enjoying the feel of another body against hers while her head swims.

"You would've liked my oldest sister, Badb. She used to think like you, before demons tore her apart again and again until she didn't come back." Tyr strokes the feathers in her hair. "My sisters stay with me."

"I know, little goddess." There's something in Anya's voice as she smoothes Tyr's earth-red hair.

"I'm in love with Spike." The confession surprises both of them, and Anya laughs.

"I had wondered about that."

"How do you get rid of it? I want it gone."

"You can carve your heart out and it still won't leave. You just have to learn to deal."

"I am a death goddess. I do not _deal_." Tyr says, scowling at Anya, who shrugs.

"I'm a vengeance demon who works at a magic shop. We all learn to deal with what we have."

A trace of a song floats across her mind as Anya kisses her forehead and leaves.

_Don't care if he's guilty, don't care if he's not._

_He's good and he's bad and he's all that I got._

She growls because growling is better than giving into the pain in her chest and the tears in her eyes, because giving in is the last thing she wants to do, even though she's already done it. Her heart beats in her chest even though it's cradled in a vampire's hands.

A man hands her a drink, there are flakes of some shiny metal he tells her is silver, maybe gold, and she doesn't care enough to listen properly. She just wants to get lost in bottles and touches. The man is gone by the time she half way recognizes him, and something burns painfully in the pit of her stomach not long after that. That's when she realizes something is wrong, slamming out the fire exit and into the alley beyond as pain burns in her gut, making her drop to her knees in the filthy alleyway. Violent, agonizing pain that has her wondering if she'd ignored an order right up until she remembers the familiar stranger pressing a shot glass into her hand. The flakes of gold she's willing to bet weren't gold. The alchemist's son, he who had drunk of stone and sealed her in a wall. She braces a hand against rough brick and her bitter laughter quickly turns into dry heaves.

Another wave of pain that has her vomiting blood and wondering if this is what dying feels like. Her body shakes as she drags herself behind a Dumpster, the smell of rot and decay heavy in the air, and she heaves again. Blood spatters the filth in front of her and she curls into a ball, sobbing. A door slams open and she winces, the sound echoing painfully through her skull as the iron poisons her blood. The Dumpster screeches as it's wrenched away from the wall, cold hands painfully tight on her arms as they pull her to her feet. A too-loud voice shouting something she can't understand and the pain recedes.

Tyr retches again and iron pellets rain from her mouth, burning the skin of her bare feet when they roll against her. She whines, ears drooping, and tries to find an iron-free place to put her feet. She's swung into someone's arms and she fight the embrace until the familiar smell of tobacco, leather, and blood wraps around her. The world passes by in a hazy blur as she coughs up more blood and iron that burns where it touches her.

"I've got you, luv. You'll be okay."

Spike. Spike's voice, Spike's arms around her. She wishes she could tell him she loves him before she dies, because she's fairly certain that's where this is going to end up, mainly because she can't see another ending to this story.

/`/`/`/`/`

A week and a half passes with Tyr wishing that she could just hurry up and die, a week and a half spent in and out of hallucinations while she vomits blood. Black veins of iron-poisoning appear and fade across her abdomen while she screams into pillows and sheets soaked with her sweat. She dimly knows that Spike is there, holding her, helping her stand under the freezing spray of the spigot they use as a shower. He lies with her on the bed as she thrashes and tries to get her to drink some water, telling her she's safe, that he's there, that she'll be okay soon enough.

A week and a half later, she's still alive.

(Lyrics from Devil's Backbone by the Civil Wars)


	5. Chapter 5

Spike's angry and he's hurting, so when she looks up at him, tilts her head to the side like she's offering him her neck like she swore she hated, he breaks. That trust in him, even when he doesn't deserve it, that breaks him, wrecks him, completely and utterly destroys him, and his mouth is on hers when he slams her against the wall of the crypt behind her. It's not sweet, it's not soft, it's not tender, or loving, or anything even remotely happy. It's full of rage and self-disgust, flavored with his tears, and she turns all of that into something that's okay, somehow. Maybe because the feral and abused thing Tyr is gets it, wants to heal that hurt in him. He's been seeing it in her eyes lately, when he comes back from patrolling angry and bitter, not in the mood to do much but break everything in sight, make everything as broken as he is. She'll drape herself over him like a warm blanket, softly sing to him as her fingers trace patterns across any skin she can reach, or she'll do something completely alien and bizarre that'll shock him out of the blackness that grips him and makes him laugh, and he could love her for that.

Her legs wrap around his waist, pants already gone, no underwear to speak of, and his cock is buried deep inside her with a brutal thrust. He's surprised and not to see she likes it like this, enjoys her pleasure tinged with pain, and she clamps around him as she comes hard and fast, her teeth sharp as they dig into his neck. He rears back, faltering mid-thrust when he watches Tyr shimmer and turn into Buffy. He fucks her harder then, the concrete of the crypt wall tearing through her shirt until he strips it from her, leaving her bare before him.

She throws her head back as she shimmers again, turns back into Tyr and he doesn't let himself wonder about why that is as heat pools in the base of his spine, coiling tight, spurred on by the sight of his blood on her mouth and the moans of ecstasy that come from it. He kisses her hard enough to bruise, hard enough to make her bleed, and she returns it with equal ferocity. Everything tastes like blood, like life, and for these few seconds he doesn't hate himself half as much as he should. He feels happy, and for that fact alone he could love her. Then her hands worm their way under his shirt, rough thumbs skating across his sensitive nipples before her nails tear into his back, and just like that he's cumming hard with a roar that probably wakes anyone bordering the cemetery but fuck them anyway.

They stay like that for a few minutes, gasping for breath while he softens inside her. Tyr's lips are gentle on his when she kisses him, and he lets her, resting his thumbs in the hollows of her hips while she gets her legs under her. She lets him go to pick up her pants and the remnants of her shirt, her back bloody in the moonlight, and guilt and shame come crashing over him at the sight of her blood. She turns to look at him, eyes narrowing at what she sees in his face.

"You did nothing I didn't want," is all she says before she heads back into the crypt. He hears water run briefly, knows it's from the half-assed shower that's really just a tapped water line in the far corner of his lair. He wants to break everything in sight and he wants to go down there with her, help her tend the mass of raw skin that used to be her back. He doesn't know how long he stands there, emotions warring within him, until he finally makes himself to choose.

When he finally forces himself into the crypt, down into his bedroom, he finds her naked on his bed, pale skin littered with bruises and scrapes that he knows will probably be gone in less than an hour but that doesn't make the guilt go away.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be," Tyr says, pulling him onto the bed next to her, something unreadable in her eyes. She tucks herself in close to him and offers him her neck. He doesn't take the offer, just traces the smooth column with a long forefinger.

"You still trust me."

Tyr shrugs like it means nothing, silvery eyes flitting away from him, but that revelation shocks him to the core. After everything he's done and everything she's been through, the fact she trusts a monster like him is amazing.

"You're not a monster." Her voice startles him, makes him twitch and look at her.

"Is this you knowing things again?"

"No, this is me telling you. The Slayer is angry at the world and you shove your heart at her, throwing yourself in front of the out-of-control car wreck waiting to happen that her life is becoming. You are Wile E. Coyote," Tyr says, lips quirking in a sad smile, "But you are not a monster. Trust me."

They are silent for long moments, facing each other in the dark. Tyr's hand on his skin makes him jump before he settles into the touch and returns it, pulling her closer so he can skim his hand along the healing skin of her back. Her breath is warm against his chest, her arm a warm weight where it loops just over his hip.

"Do you want to know why I think you are not a monster?"

Spike's instantly alert, the fact that she's willingly revealing more of herself making sleep impossible. He's finding himself more and more curious about her lately, the information forced from her at Giles' only making him want to know more.

"Tell me."

"I had two sisters once, Nemain and Badb, but they're both long dead now. Waiting for me. Nemain was caught early in the Inquisition, condemned as a witch and tortured. It went on for ages before she finally gave up hope and let final death take her. Badb and I were released for an hour to go to her side, give her the final rites. Her body… the torture the Spaniards inflicted on her…she didn't look like her anymore. We sang her to rest and burned what was left of our sister. Nemain was always so kind; when we tore through battlefields she never let anyone suffer if she could help them. I stole some of her bones, carved them into a chain to keep her close to me.

Badb's geis was sold to a Velli demon and she disappeared. It took her twenty-five years before she gave up her hope, gave into the final death. She was the most talented of the three of us, you know. She could hold her crow form longer than Nemain, and I can barely sprout feathers when I try. She'd shifted before she died and the Velli had torn her apart. I sang her rest by myself, bound her feathers in my hair, and tore the Velli apart like they'd done to my sister. That's why the demon you and the Slayer saw was at my feet, begging to live.

I've been beaten to death over and over again, raped, abused, taken apart and put back together again. I've seen my own heart beating in a man's fist, watched as my ribs were cracked open and knit themselves back together. I'm not telling you any of this so you will pity me, I'm telling you this so you will know that when I say you are not a monster, you believe me. I've met monsters wearing faces of men and women, witches and warlocks, saints, sinners, and demons. When I look at you, I see a hole where a monster used to be. You grew away from that darkness, no matter what any one tells you."

There's something in her voice as she says it, like she's saying something that he can't understand. He doesn't say anything, just skims his fingers across her cheeks, tracing the tracks of her tears as she starts singing, slow and sad in the darkness that surrounds them.

/`/`/`/`/

The next evening, neither of them talks about what had happened the night before and nothing changes. Tyr tells herself that she's okay with that, and really she is, but she finds herself thinking that she's dreamed the entire thing.

Another night goes by and Tyr's sitting on the counter in the Magic Box while Anya closes, eating pizza they'd ordered in. She's discovered a fondness for jalapenos that worries Anya and makes her laugh at the same time. Tyr has found that she enjoys making people laugh, spreading happiness where there seems to be so little left in the world. Anya isn't laughing tonight though, angry and depressed because Xander won't be waiting for her at home tonight…or any night for the foreseeable future. Anya had come by the crypt earlier in the day, waking Tyr and Spike where they lay coiled together with a slamming door and sobbing. Not the best way to wake up regardless of circumstances, not the best way to learn that the half-wit mortal has broken his engagement to the closest thing that Tyr's had to a female friend since her sisters died.

"Did you ever find a way to stop it hurting?"

Anya's cracked voice startles Tyr, who almost chokes on a bite of pizza.

"No. I don't think it's possible."

Anya huffs out a laugh that sounds more like a sob.

"I feel like I'm about to fly apart."

"Let me know before that happens. I don't want to be picking Anya-pieces out of my hair."

Anya snorts at that and slams the register shut.

"It hurts more when you've had a taste of something you can't have." The instant she says it she wants to take it back. Anya looks at her, something unreadable in her eyes.

"You and Spike…?"

Tyr flinches away and shrugs.

"I love him, but he looks at me and sees…" Tyr nods at the door to the back room, where Buffy has just reappeared. Buffy still doesn't trust her, but she's a lot more tolerant of Tyr since it had been proved that Tyr really couldn't do much of her own volition. How Buffy'd been convinced was having Spike tell Tyr not to harm Buffy or Dawn or any of the Scoobies, and then letting Buffy break her arm. It had hurt like a bitch and reaffirmed that Tyr disliked the Slayer for more reasons that those concerning Spike.

"Hey. Whatchya guys talking about over here?"

Buffy snags a piece of pizza and picks the jalapenos off, flicking them into the box as Tyr says _nothing_ and Anya says _Spike_.

"How are things with Spike?"

"Good, on the days he's not destroying himself." Tyr says flatly, eyes cold as she looks at the Slayer.

"He's…kinder than anyone I've encountered in a long time."

"Spike? Kind?" The Slayer laughs, disbelief written clearly across her face.

"Laugh all you want Slayer, but even your Angel needed a soul to do what Spike did on his own."

Buffy slaps Tyr hard enough that her head snaps sideways and she can taste blood in her mouth.

"We've been through this before Slayer. Wanna break my arm again, just for old times sake?" Tyr sneers, teeth red. The Slayer storms out and Anya shakes her head.

"Your stupidity amazes me sometimes."

"What can I say," Tyr says, crunching a pepper and wincing as it burns along the fresh cut in her mouth. "I'm a people person."

"Yeah, well if you made nice with Buffy your life would be easier."

"Uh-huh, we'll just set that goal on the back burner for now. Back to you. I've got a cousin, Angus. He's gorgeous. You want me to see if I can summon him for you?"

Anya laughs again, less bitter than anything Tyr's heard out of her mouth today.

"Maybe tomorrow."

Tyr smiles and thinks that maybe Anya'll be okay after all.

/`/`/`/`/`/`

Saturday night at the Bronze is more subdued than usual. Even the bands are feeling it, playing slow and soft where they're usually loud and fast. It's his deeply ingrained masochism that has him watching Riley pull Buffy in close, face buried in her hair like she'll never allow Spike to do. He looks away before the pain gripping him can spur him into doing something that he'll regret, turning to see Tyr dancing by herself. She's dancing to a different beat than the song that's playing, body loose as she winds between the other dancers on her way towards him. She smiles when she sees his eyes on her, a slightly dazed expression on her face.

"Spike, come dance," she says when she's close enough for him to hear her, holding out her hand. He finally places the dazed look on her face.

"You're stoned," he says, shock coloring his voice. Tyr laughs, throwing her head back and shaking her loose earth-red hair so that the charms and feathers woven throughout it click and flash.

"Not in the way you think, but yes." She leans in close, pupils blown wide enough that only a thin ring of silver is visible around them, and her face shifts for just a second so that it's Buffy leaning in almost close enough to kiss. Then Tyr's own face is back, pale and freckled, and if Spike had blinked at the wrong time he'd have never known that it had happened at all. "C'mon Wisher. Come dance." Her fingers lace through his, the metal of her rings cold where her skin is warm. She doesn't pull, just a steady contact that he's beginning to realize she needs. Tyr waits for him to decide if he's coming or not, but her body never stops swaying to the music. The song changes while she waits, her expression never changes and she seems more than content to stay like this forever.

_Sleeping beauty, where have you been?_

Spike gives in, lets her pull him to the dance floor where couples sway gently. Tyr wraps her arms around his waist, her body warm and soft against him. She hums in contentment when he puts his arms over her shoulders.

_You should know I'm counting on you here._

He can't stop himself from wishing that it was Buffy in his arms instead of Tyr and the woman he's holding shimmers for a minute, becoming shorter and blonde before turning back to Tyr.

_Feels like clouds beneath your wings._

"It's okay," she says quietly, looking up at him with silvery-grey eyes that are a few shades darker than usual. Her face blurs again, becoming an odd meld of Buffy and Tyr before turning back to all Tyr. She leans up and presses her lips against his, soft and unsure, like she's never done this before and maybe she hasn't.

_It is night, and you see it as it is._

Shock short-circuits his brain and instinct has him pulling her closer to him, enjoying the feel of a warm soft body willingly so close to him. He lets himself go, lets himself kiss her back.

_It is dark, have mercy on us all._

The feel of the lips against his changes and he pulls back to see Buffy where Tyr had been not a minute before. She blinks at him, fingers tracing her face, and laughs humorlessly.

_You should know I'm counting on you here._

"You wish and I obey." Her voice sounds like Buffy's too, right down to the inflections. The only thing that is different is that he's never heard that pained misery in Buffy's voice.

_His kiss._

"Stop it."

Tyr frowns, face snapping completely into her own features.

_His kiss._

"Isn't that what you wanted?"

"I don't want a sham. Tried that and it left a bad taste in my mouth."

"You are a very strange Wisher." Tyr says, something warm in her eyes as her face snaps into focus, purely hers again.

_His kiss of spring._

He just grins and kisses her again, reveling the fact that this time it has nothing to do with anger, or self-hatred, or loosing your self for a little while, that it's nothing beyond the slide of lips and skin and maybe the shard of oblivion he can taste when she moans and grinds against him. Tyr pulls away gasping for breath he doesn't need, cradling her head on his shoulder. One of her ears brushes against his cheek, silky soft, and he runs his fingers along the outside edge of it. Her hips stutter against him as she leans into the touch and he does it again, toying with the chain that winds through it. He can smell her arousal as she kisses him hard enough that he can taste the desperation and he kisses her back with its equal. Spike's face slips for a second, fangs dropping to slice into her lip before disappearing, and suddenly they _need_ to be somewhere more private before he fucks her on a goddamn dance floor. He pulls away to suggest they take this back to his crypt, outside, _anywhere_ but here. She scrapes her teeth down his neck, those sharp little canines a parody of his own vamp fangs, and his brain short-circuits for a few seconds.

"So this is what it's like to kiss a goddess." Spike says; laughing a little from the buzz her blood has given him, his hand tangled in her hair where it cups the back of her head. Her lips are swollen from his kisses, reddened by a smear of blood, hair even messier than usual. He thinks she's beautiful like this, wild and striking, even as Tyr shoves him away violently; pain and anger radiate from her, hurt and something else flashing in her too-pale eyes.

"Fuck you." She turns to leave and he grabs her arm, pulling her back as he curses his continuing streak of saying the worst thing he can at the worst time. She looks up at him, that unnamed emotion in her eyes, and recognition hits him like a piano dropped from a fourth-story window. She's in love with him.

_I'm waiting for spring to come to my kingdom_

_His kiss of spring._

/`/`/`/`/`

"You love me." There's a multitude of emotion that she can't untangle and decipher all wrapped up in a voice she can't get out of her head, and she responds the only way she knows how. She lashes out, says everything that she _knows_ will hurt him, echoing everything she's heard Buffy spit at him.

"I don't love you. I could never love a _thing_ like you. Soulless monster, weak and pathetic."

Spike snarls wordlessly at her, eyes shimmering gold in the darkness of the Bronze before he hauls her out a door and into the alley. Tyr doesn't think she's ever seen Spike this mad, doesn't know what she's done until she remembers Anya pulling him aside and whispering something to him while Tyr had let the music wash over her in waves. The anguish in his eyes is something she put there, something Tyr had said or done, and she dazedly thinks that she'd move heaven and earth to get that look off his face. Her back hits rough brick and she realizes that they're back in the alley where she'd almost died last month.

"You love me." He says it again and this time it's not a question, it's a simple statement of fact that has Tyr cursing vengeance demons and their meddlesome ways.

"You wished it so and I obeyed. Love me and make Buffy jealous," Tyr says, lying through her teeth. Spike lifts her away from the wall he's got her pinned against before slamming her back against it, pushing his face close to hers so her can hiss, "You think I don't know you well enough to know when you're lying to me? Do you have so little respect for me that you'd even try?"

Tyr wraps her hands around his wrists as the fight leaves her, the dark swirls of her tattooed fingers blending into his jacket in the dim light, making the paleness of her skin that much more jolting.

"What do you want me to say?"

"Tell me the truth." There's pleading in his voice, desperation that makes her want to curl up in a ball so the earth can swallow her down like a tablet of aspirin, but the order is clear.

"I love you." The words hang in the air like swords of Damocles, waiting to lop her head off at the slightest puff of air. "I've loved you since you held me so I could sleep without fear, since you stole that Pogues album for me, since you apologized to me, since…"

She silenced by his lips on hers, his fingers curling in her hair, his body pressing her into the wall. She lets herself believe that he loves her too, just for a minute, lets herself sink into the heat that bubbles in her blood, before pushing him away.

"I don't want a pity fuck," she says. She can't look at him.

"That's not what this is."

"Then what is it?" Tyr can't stop herself from asking. Spike answer her with a kiss, slow and deep, and Tyr stops fighting. The walk back to the crypt seems like it takes forever, ducking into alleyways and behind trees to loose themselves in touch and taste and friction. When they finally get there, Spike pins her against the door with a devious smile as he works his hand down the front of her pants. He kisses her hard and she nips at his lips, at his tongue before her brain melts and all she can do is gasp and writhe against his clever fingers as they play against her clit. She feels him chuckle a split second before his fangs bite deep into her neck and she cums with a strangled scream. When she comes back around, she's in Spike's arms, in his bed, and he's leaning down to kiss her.

The night passes in a blur of fangs and blood, skin and cum, screaming threats and declarations of love neither is quite sure to believe.

(Lyrics are Spring to Kingdom Come by Flunk. This chapter will probably see a rewrite at some point. I still suck at writing teh sexins.)


	6. Chapter 6

There's a nest of Te'Appa demons three nights later, bringing the Slayer and her Scoobies out in force. Spike brings Tyr, promising a fun fight even as his eyes promise the more wickedly fun things that'll follow. It's as fun as he'd promised, a vicious fight that has her laughing as she stabs one demon through it's beady little eye with one hand and pulling a charm from her hair with the other. She's gotten separated from the main group at this point, but she's close enough to hear them. A demon charges her, slow and lumbering like all boar-like Te'Appas, and she cracks the charm on the boney protrusions over the demon's spine. It manages to backhand her into a nearby gravestone with enough force to crack the marble before the charm activates. A swirling vortex of slime and ectoplasm surrounds the demon that howls in confusion. The vortex gets smaller and smaller, slowly crushing the demon in its center until both the vortex and demon disappear. By the time the battle is almost at an end, Tyr is battered and bloody and wants nothing more than to shower and sleep for a year. Another demon charges at her, knocking her to the ground as it tries to gore her. Her scalp stings when she yanks a bone charm out of her hair, forcing it into the demon's drooling maw. The salamander vertebrae of the charm ignites and within seconds the demon has burned to ash, coating her in it. She hears Spike shout and a demon's death-roar and runs toward the sound.

Tyr is in time to see Buffy wrap herself around Spike, in time to see him wrap his arms around the Slayer, and he finally manages to do what centuries of servitude to demons and humans alike could not. He breaks her. She stands there watching for a long time as her heart shatters in her chest, nails biting into her palms hard enough to make them bleed, teeth tearing into her lower lip so she won't let loose the scream that will tell the world that she's dying inside. She turns and runs, not seeing Spike shove Buffy away from him with a scowl. Not seeing Spike scent her in the air.

Not seeing whatever hits her hard enough that she knows no more until she wakes naked in a cold, dark room, ropes holding her spread eagle of what feels like a rough wooden table.

Candles flare to life, illuminating the familiar stranger who had pressed that glittery shot into her hand, the one that had almost killed her. In his hands are chains and shackles made of metal that glints dully in the flickering light, and they scare her more than anything she's ever faced in her long life. The iron shackles burn when the man clamps them over her wrists and ankles, securing them out of her limited view. A scream tears her throat when he brushes a chain over her prone form, skin hissing and burning where the links touch her. He drapes chain after chain across her naked form, each link making her scream again and again.

A wish hits her after he's laid the second chain across her, her body going insubstantial for one painless second before snapping back. The pressure of the ungranted wish makes her bones groan until it vanishes, the Wisher letting the wish go unfulfilled. She assumes that Spike had tried to wish her to his side, but the iron holds her and makes it impossible to do anything except choke on her own screams and sobs.

Tyr has never been in this much pain, so much pain that she screams and screams and every fucking breath in she takes exits on another until the cave around her fills with them. Unforgiving iron burns into her skin, from the heavy manacles clamped tight over her wrists, ankles, and neck, and the thick chains crisscrossed over her naked body. Her skin smokes under the metal, bubbling and raw each place it comes in contact with it. She can see the iron-sickness starting, black veins running up her arms, and she wonders if this is how Nemain had spent her last days before letting final death take her.

"Hello whore."

That voice, teasing and light. She knows that voice. Where has she heard it before?

"It took a long time, but I found your weakness, just like I told you I would. I went back to show you, and imagine my disappointment when you weren't where I left you."

A pale, round, moon of a face leans over her, eyes like warm chocolate leering down at her as the man smiles. Her blood runs cold when she sees that smile.

"Alchemist's son."

"My father never spoke my name around you, did he? Weak, pitiful old man. You remember the fun we had playing in the mess he left behind?"

Her reply is a snarl that is cut off when he presses a sliver of cold iron against her cheek and she screams, screams louder as it traces a bloody path down her neck and into the valley between her breasts, before the man takes it off of her.

"Have you had fun whoring yourself to that vampire and his friends? I can see him all over you, fingerprints burned into your skin. Disgusting."

"Like…"The word catches in her throat, making her cough before she can rasp out the rest, "Like it's any better than what _you_ did. Cut me open so you could jack yourself off while you were inside me."

"Mmmm, yes. I remember that now. You were so…responsive. How many times did I kill you that night before I shoved you into that wall?" He sounds like an unsure lover asking _was it good for you too?_

A wish hits her again, geis clamping down on her throat.

"Your lover is trying to wish you back to his side, but he can't have you. You're back where you belong and you're not leaving."

Tyr's mouth works, trying to draw air past the collar as her back arches in a grim parody of orgasm, pressing her naked body hard against the chains. Death, when it finally comes, is a blessing for the short time it lasts.

When she revives, he's brought a chair next to the table so he can watch; head propped on one hand while the other hand holds that hateful bit of iron. A boney forefinger taps the sliver and, as she watches, the metal shimmers and turns back and forth from gold to iron with each tap.

"Do you like my new trick? I learned how to do it a few years ago. It's pretty easy when it comes down to it. I can even do it after the gold has been ingested."

His smile makes her sick, or maybe that's just the iron poisoning, but that explains the shot glass full of alcohol and gold flakes that had turned to iron and almost killed her. _Would have_ killed her if Spike hadn't found her. At the thought of Spike, pain that has nothing to do with the current torture cuts into her heart.

Tyr's existence becomes nothing but pain. She can't remember a time when she didn't hurt, when her wrists and ankles weren't blacked with iron-sickness, black veins of poison creeping up her legs and down her arms like deadly vines. She doesn't know how long she's been here, it feels like an eternity, but she knows that she's never getting out. There's no one coming to rescue her.

/`/`/`/`

The alchemist's son has come and gone so many times she's lost count, but he delights in telling her how long she's been here. Almost a week he tells her, five and a half days. Her eyes have swollen shut at some point, her body too damaged to heal anything but a killing wound. She can hear someone shuffling nearby, a low snarl and a cracking sound, and she lets out a broken little cry when her ears try to twitch to catch more of the sound. He'd nailed them to the table she's chained to at some point. The fact that the nails aren't iron is a pathetically small blessing because she doubts that even iron could make it hurt more.

Tyr can smell the bitter, sickly smell she has come to associate with the alchemist's son, the smell oddly soaked in blood, and knows he's coming back to hurt her again. No one is coming to save her from the hurt and even if they did, she has nothing to go back to. Hopelessness rises in her chest and Tyr releases her final breath and lets go.

/`/`/`/`/``/`/`/`

She's floating in a sea of darkness, warm and painless against her skin. Each breath she takes is free, scented with rain and blood. Tyr sighs, limbs loose in the dark water that supports her. Her hands are like pale spiders in the water, rings shining like stars. The sky above her reflects the memories of each ring, the little Sidhe that had crafted them for her and her sisters. She watches the memories as they shift away from her rings to her sisters. She watches herself dance with them, feet stained red by battlefield soil, head thrown back as they laugh and touch men with the chaos of combat. Badb looks down at her, reaches down and pulls her into the sky.

It's the first time in centuries that her skin fits right, that there's no geis mark wrapped around her throat like a choking hand. She laughs simply because she cannot contain all the joy bubbling through her, and her sisters join her. A man screams as he dies and she pulls his soul from the corpse of his body, freeing it and tossing it skyward so it can find it's way home. Her steps falter in their dance as eyes as blue as that sky flash through her mind.

_Spike's eyes watching her as he lies beside her, his graceful fingers tracing their way over her face, her lips, the soft fur of her ears, before his lips follow their path. _

She shakes off the memory of impossible blue eyes and white-blonde hair. He has his Slayer now. He doesn't need her, if he ever had. Nemain grabs her hand, laughing as she pulls Tyr-_Amara_\- forward in their dance.

_Come back Tyr, come back to me._

The voice, Spike's voice, hits her like a hammer blow to the head and she stumbles. Badb soars above them, shifted to the crow body that neither Nemain nor herself has ever been able to maintain. Nemain brushes her fingers across a dying man's cheek, and he groans in pleasure as his soul leaves the torment. A hand wraps around her ankle and she falls beside the dying warrior who had grabbed her. His intestines spill around him and he stares at her, pleading for her touch. She grants him peace. This is where she belongs.

_Tyr!_

She's _dead_. She shouldn't have to put up with his voice tearing at her heart. Nemain is frowning at her, Badb landing and shifting to ask why they're pausing.

_Tyr! Come on you stupid slag, come back to me._

Agony rips through her chest as Tyr and Amara war in her mind, tears flowing unchecked down her face even as she calls Spike all manner of unpleasant names in her head. Kind Nemain kneels beside her, brushing cold tears off Amara's face, smiling like she understands.

_Love you, please don't leave me._

"You were the last to join us little sister, slow to claw free of the bracken that birthed us, and we loved you no less for that."

Stern Badb kneels at her other side, lacing her fingers through Amara's- through _Tyr's_.

"Our time has come and gone, little sister, yours has not."

Together, her sisters lift her to her feet.

_God, please no. Don't leave me!_

"Time to choose. Are you ready sister?"

Amara struggles against them.

"No! Please don't send me away!" She's crying in earnest now, sobs wracking her frame as she remembers the last few days of her life. "I've missed you both so much, please don't send me back to all that pain. _Please_."

"It was not all pain though, was it?" Nemain's black eyes blink, turning blue before shifting back.

"You always were too fond of the mortals, Amara. It's only fitting to give your heart to one." Badb says, as blunt as ever.

"We'll never be far sister, but it's time for you to go now."

Her sisters take her hands and Amara looks at them, committing their beloved faces to memory before she grips their rough, tattooed hands in hers.

_I love you, Tyr. Come back to me._

"I'll see you both again, at the end of my road."

Her sisters smile and nod before throwing her skyward.

/`/`/`/`/`/`/`

It's the pain that welcomes her back, but it's fleeting. Someone has torn the chains off her, wrenched the manacles away, while she danced across the ghosts of battlefields. She chokes on the air she gasps down. Breathing hurts. She looks down at herself and sees her skin crawling back over her ribcage. The shackles and chains are gone, the black tendrils of iron-poisoned veins have already begun to recede. There are chain-shaped burns wrapping around most of the skin she can see, most still weeping blood and pus, a few already beginning the slow process of healing the damage the alchemist's son had dealt her.

"Tyr?"

Those impossibly blue eyes looking down at her, cool arms wrapped around her, and she thinks that maybe the pain was worth it just so she could have this at the end. Lifting her hand feels like she's trying to lift the earth with it, but she manages somehow. Her fingers leave bloody streaks across Spike's cheek. He's a bit singed, like he'd gone out in the middle of the day, and there's a gash bisecting his chest, but she's never seen anything so beautiful in her life.

"Can't…kill me," she says, her voice weak. Her lips are spit and bruised, but she still manages to make them twitch in a smile that exhausts her. "Halfwit."

She wants to ask how he found her, wants to ask how long she's been here, how long she'd tasted true death, but he's crying and smiling and leaning down to kiss her and when he finally does, his smile tastes like life, tastes like hope, tastes like blood and nicotine and something that is uniquely _Spike_; and in that moment nothing else matters as her heart frantically tries to beat it's way out of her chest and into his hands where it belongs.

END

(Thanks to everyone who read, reviewed, favorited, and/or followed this story!)


	7. PSA

So, my beta just got back from their vacation and read this. Their response was to promptly smack me upside the head and tell me to do a proper, not half-assed, job. So this story'll be under renovation. My apologies and thanks to everyone who read, reviewed, followed, and favorited. 


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