FROM HEROES ━━ buffy

viii. It's gonna be a habit

The inside of the car smells like leather and smoke. The engine is off but the stereo draws a low static hum. Lilith is pressing her head against the headrest, Spike is biting her wrist. Her fingers curl slightly, involuntarily. Her breath stutters.

There's a reason she lets him do this. She likes it. She likes the feeling of his hot mouth on her skin, she likes the pain that comes from his bite.

He lifts his mouth. Her skin is red and punctured. There's still a bit of blood on his lips. "Those sounds you make, they aren't from terror or pain."

Lilith avoids looking at him, which is probably why she admits with honesty, "Fine, I do get a kick out of this."

She hears a slight chuckle from him. She looks at him then. "But you do know this is as far as you'll get, right? No kissing, no sex. Nothing of that. Only this exchange."

Spike wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. He doesn't look at her. "Yeah, I have pride too, you know."

"Good."

"Good."

They don't speak again for a while. He lights a cigarette. She closes her eyes. Her wrist is still bleeding, just a bit. She lets it.

For a second time this week, she wonders what it would be like to kiss him.

☀︎

Lilith tells herself Spike is only here because he's helping her secure a deal that he had a hand on. But she knows that's a lie.

☀︎

The shop is hipster hell. There's dusty shelves of crystals, brass teapots, weird taxidermy and far too many dreamcatchers. A very serious woman in her late forties — dramatic shawl, multiple nose rings, intense eye contact — runs the place.

Lilith stands at the counter in a turtleneck and gold earrings, playing the role of haunted heiress. She speaks in a low, reverent voice. "It was recovered from the family crypt just outside of Vienna. We were told it once belonged to a duchess who bled her emotions into it."

She holds up the goblet Spike brought her — polished, perfect, gleaming with a faint shimmer ( thanks to a little illusion powder )

Spike stands behind her, arms crossed and leather coat pristine, pretending to be her handler, bodyguard, or possibly psychic accountant. He hasn't decided.

The shop owner is already sold, hands reaching for the goblet. "You're certain it hasn't been cleansed?"

Lilith firmly shakes her head. "Never. The grief is still intact."

"I cried just being near it. Wasn't even about anything."

The woman gasps, pulling out a cloth glove. She handles the goblet like it's a newborn. "I'll give you eight hundred in cash."

Lilith quickly barters for more. "It's worth twelve."

"We passed on a collector from Oslo. He offered ten, but we didn't trust the exchange rate," Spike adds, casual.

The shop owner purses her lips. "Nine fifty. Final offer."

Lilith smiles. "Done."

☀︎

They walk out with a thick white envelope. Lilith counts the bills. Spike is grinning. "You lied smoothly—with detail. You're terrifying."

She doesn't reply, just hands him a cut. 300 bucks.

He takes it without hesitation but still points out. "That's not even half."

Lilith shrugs. "Finder's fee. Cursed powder isn't free and I had to listen to her talk about her past lives for twenty minutes."

"I was charming."

"You were hungover."

"I was both."

They walk down the sidewalk together, not quite smiling. The envelope in her pocket feels like victory. The way he bumps her shoulder feels like something else.

☀︎

These type of business deals are ones Lilith has been managing for decades now. This is the first time she runs an eBay shop for it—at some point she was going to have get caught up with technology.

Before that, she has operated through a shadowy, word of mouth network that spanned across dimensions. Her inventory includes cursed rings, love charms and forgotten relics with unpredictable side effects, like haunting ghosts or backwards turned speech.

Her black market artifacts are sourced from demon dealers, witches and abandoned Watchers' vaults. A fraction of her current inventory has come from the cave the gem of Amara was buried in.

She barters in multiple currencies such as cash, demonic contracts or soul fragments, and occasionally magic spells, like in 1936.

☀︎

There was once a Slayer, young, clever and lonely. Like the rest of them. She crossed paths with Lilith during a hellmouth disruption. Lilith took her under her wing. Trained her. Befriended her. Above all, made her feel powerful.

In the end, Lilith sold her to a demon lord in exchange for a spell that could cloak her essence from the Watchers for decades.

The Slayer was never seen again. She disappeared in 1936.

☀︎

The file Giles ordered on Lilith has just arrived. He had it sent from an old Watcher contact in England. It's titled The Berlin Disappearance, 1936.

It's a mess of redacted names and speculative footnotes. A Slayer vanished. E. Becker, age 17. German, recently activated and reportedly gifted in prophecy dreams.

She'd been last seen in Tiergarten Park accompanied by an unidentified dark-haired woman, presumed supernatural. Not a vampire since they'd been seen in sunlight but possibly demonic.

The file does not feature any photographs of Lilith, just a sketch. There's a scribble in pencil on one corner. It reads, Succubus?

There's a witness report translated from German. The report claims that Becker trusted her, even called her Lily. They were seen walking together, looking like sisters.

Magical interference suspected. This is not merely a failed retrieval; something was exchanged. Cloaking magic and unconfirmed Hell dimension residue were detected two weeks after disappearance.

Recommendation: classify incident as anomaly. Seal file. Expunge from training curriculum.

The incident has become Council lore—a case whispered about in closed rooms. Some theorize the Slayer wasn't killed. Others believe she's trapped in a realm only Lilith can access. A few suggest the Slayer loved Lilith.

Becker isn't the first Slayer Lilith has been linked to. She's drawn to them. Obsessed, really. Unlike Spike, Lilith isn't out to kill them. She's out to consume them.

Giles believes Lilith might be one of the clearest dangers in Buffy's life.

☀︎

Giles returns home, only to find Lilith sitting on his couch, thumbing through one of his oldest volumes without gloves. She's barefoot, legs tucked under her.

His jaw tightens. This is the last thing he needs right now. "You do realize those pages are older than this country."

Lilith is staring at an interesting, gory diagram when she hears Giles. "So am I." She closes the book, meets his eyes. "I saw the file you were looking at. The Council has always been unreliable when it came to it."

"And your side of the 온라인카지노게임 is to be more trusted?"

Lilith almost smiles. "Of course it is. I was there, they weren't. I'll tell you, but I've always liked watching clever men sweat first."

Giles doesn't rise to it. He just walks past her and starts tidying, pretending not to be rattled. "I don't suppose you came here simply to enlighten me."

She does smile now. "No. I came for the whiskey."

☀︎

Lilith explains that she'd tried to save Edith. Because how else would have Edith followed her into the lion's den if Lilith hadn't protected her before.

☀︎

That very same night Giles is transformed into a Fyarl demon. Lilith has already disappeared into the night for when that happens.

☀︎

Buffy stabs Giles in his Fyarl form. She only realizes it's Giles when his eyes glaze over and amidst everything, there's that recognizable ache in his gaze.

☀︎

Giles still hasn't fully shaken Ethan's chaos or the feeling that he's on the outside looking in. Lilith shows up unannounced, draped in shadows and cigarette smoke.

They argue, like always. About Buffy. About the Council. About whether redemption is real or just PR for people with blood on their hands.

She steps closer. Her voice lowers, seeming soft. "Do you ever miss it? Being dangerous?"

He's suspicious of her intentions but he indulges her nonetheless. He reminds himself it's her succubus charm. "Sometimes. But I don't need to be dangerous to recognize danger."

And then, she leans in. She kisses him. It's brief and testing. Like dropping a match to see if something will burn. Giles doesn't flinch. He doesn't kiss her back either.

When she pulls away, she says, "Hm. I wondered."

"About what?"

"Whether you were still Ripper under all that tweed." Because if Giles had been researching into Lilith, so had Lilith with him.

She doesn't wait for an answer. But the way he sighs after she leaves says yes.