Part of the Five Cinders that Never burned series, five things that never happened to Spike. The complete story can be found here.

It's the wrong blonde hair he's buried his face in. It's the wrong thin, powerful body he's buried to the hilt in. It's the wrong nails tearing into his back. Everything's wrong. It's not supposed to be this way. He's supposed to be inside Buffy; that's where he belongs. It's where he left his heart, but she's blown it to ashes as surely as she did his home. He loved her and she's destroyed him with a smile on her face. It just hurts so bloody much. He's an ever-bleeding wound from Buffy and he just wants it to stop.

So does she. Spike sees the same agony in Anya's face, the same weeping wounds. The same why didn't they want me? What was wrong with me? He needs an answer to most painful word in the language, next to 'love' - why? He wants to cry, to rend, to tear, to wail, to shred, to weep, to kill. He wants to end it all, shake some sense into the bitch, throw himself at her feet begging, to destroy this feeling. He wants to make a run for it before everything that was him is consumed by the ice-furnace that is Buffy Summers and his own desperate need for her - but most of all, Spike just wants it to stop.

Fucking Anya's helping. The whiskey's helping. The agony's still there. He can feel it's still there for Anya too, but as they're driving each other closer to orgasm the pains twisting into pleasure and he can actually stop thinking. Spike wants nothing more than that, so he concentrates on doing what he's good at, what he's been trained at, the only thing he's ever had any value to others for, and he makes his partner come, and follows along in his own escape.

It works.

It works for Anya too. He can see it in the softened lines of her sharp, tear-stained face as she manages a small smile. In her own inimitable style, she tells him, "That helped." But as he rolls off her, and she takes a look at the debris he swept off the table, her face falls. "The orgasm did help, and the alcohol, but, it's all coming back now. The pain in my chest, the rejection, the ruin of the wedding, and the why didn't he want me, and why am I doing this with you when I should be in a very expensive hotel on honeymoon with the man that tore out my still beating heart? It stopped hurting for a minute, and it's started up again. Why? It doesn't make sense, Spike?"

"Dunno, pet. Maybe we're sobering up? Always a bad idea, I reckon."

She looks at him, in a more commanding way that should be possible for a woman currently hunting for her shirt, "You're right." And, more forcefully, "We clearly need more alcohol, and possibly also more sex. It worked before, so it will work again. We need more liquor." But the confidence and self-assurance in her voice is a rice-paper thin veneer that's already cracking. "But Giles only left one bottle, and I don't want to do any more damage to my shop. It's all I have left."

He can't help caressing her cheek free of the tear. And he can face anything but going back to the ruins of his crypt, and the ashes of his life right now, so he tries hard to smile at her. "Sounds a workable plan, pet. Liquor store block down from the back door, should still be open. How 'bout we get us some bottles, get somewhere else, get pissed, take it from there and see if it works."

She tries bravely to smile back at him. "I like this plan. And no more damage to my shop."

He kisses her as she picks up her purse. "No more damage."

They go out of the back door of the Magic Box. Entering the liquor store, Spike hears what sounds like metal hitting wood, but he's got Anya's fingers gripping his arm like a lifeline while she pays for the booze, and that feels good, feels needed, stops him thinking, stops the pain for a moment, so he ignores it. The hurt's to his heart and all he wants to do is to stop it. Slayer can sort out any naughty demons trashing Sunnydale. She's made it abundantly clear she doesn't want help from the likes of him. Doesn't stop the pain in his heart for knowing it, but the promise of more alcohol to cleanse the wounds, and more of those seconds of oblivion inside Anya helps. Doesn't help a lot, but it does help.

They're half way to Anya's, when she starts crying about not wanting to be anywhere that she thought Xander loved her. That she wants to be away, somewhere that's not Sunnydale, anywhere that doesn't have Xander not wanting her. Spike knows the feeling exactly, and right now, it seems as bloody brilliant an idea as getting pissed and burying himself in Anya to forget the smoke and rubble that were his hopes and dreams. So he kisses her tears away, puts the bottles in her arms, and picks her up and carries her to the motorbike.

They blast past the Leaving Sunnydale sign, and don't stop until the road signs for Sunnydale are long behind them and the bike needs gas. The Gas, Food, Lodging turn-off offers little but a gas station, a waffle house, Mickey D's, and a Motel 6. But with the alcohol they've already had almost all consumed on the way, it has to do. Anya books them in with her acceptable human ID and credit card, while Spike gets to feel as pathetic, broke, and not a man as ever. But, as ever, he buries it and dives headlong into a bottle of Jack on the bed with Anya.

Buried balls-deep in Anya with half of Kentucky's finest down his throat, he's almost happy.

So's she. She shows it when they run out of bottles and face the appalling idea of leaving the bed and having to think again. They've just finished a round and he's still in her when he raises the need to leave to get more booze.

Her face falls. "It's me again, isn't it? You want to leave me, like everyone's always left me. You want to be with her." He can't hide that he does, but he soothes her into orgasm anyway. She comes back from it and decides their main problem is the need to be further away from Sunnydale in particular, California generally, and the US of A to cover all the bases.

Next thing he knows, he's in a totally different hotel room somewhere a lot hotter with the tang of the sea in the air, and he's still buried in Anya. She grins at him and says, "Teleportation. It's very useful, and you were inside me. We were linked, so you came along for the ride." He's seen and experienced pretty much everything over the years, but this one, this is a real turn up for the books.

Turns out they're in a resort outside Cancun owned by some Telnap demons who owe her a favour for eviscerating an unfaithful son-in-law. Room service is excellent. Over the coming hours, days, he's not sure, he and Anya bury themselves into Jack, Jose, Ron, and each other. Every time they stop the pain comes back. Both of their lives are devastated shells, the rejection and exclusion still burn like acid, so they don't stop. They drink, fuck, and sleep. Rinse and Repeat as needed, and they need so bloody badly its agony.

He's still trying to neutralise the pain in one-half-rum one-half-Anya when the room changes again. Gone is the earth tones and jewel embroidery of bottle-strewn Mexico; it's pitch black, and the demon part of him feels so much stronger it's a frightening joy. He shifts into vamp-face to see better, and slips out of Anya as she looks freaked and gets off him. She clutches the pendant that's all she's got on, and which she hasn't taken off anywhere they've done it. She's shaking her head, denying having anything to do with their sudden change of locale, when a woman just appears and looks at them.

"Anyanka! Sweetie! So much better than the last one."

"Hallie?" Anya sounds scared, which is just wrong to Spike's ears.

"What the bloody hell's going on? We were a bit busy. Not looking for a bit of interruption, if you know what I mean." Spike can't help his voice rising as Anya's look gets ever more panicked.

"It's not there. Why can't I feel it? Where is it, Hallie?"

"What's not there, Anya? And why you clutching that bloody amulet?"

In a small voice, Anya answers. "The Earth. I can't feel it. I can't teleport to it. It's gone."

Now Spike's getting panicked himself. "Can't be gone. Was just there. Must have hit the necklace a bit hard there, pet, sorry. Can't be anything else."

Hallie laughs. "Of course it's gone, silly. You know what that was. You've felt it before. It was the automatic recall for all vengeance demons in a world about to be destroyed, bringing us all back to Arashmahar."

His mind and voice seem to have divorced; it's the only thing he can think of to account for the calm of his voice saying, "Buffy, the Bit, Dru?" while inside he's dissolving. He can hear Anya crying out for Xander, but it's like hearing through cotton wool, nothing's real, it can't be happening.

But it is, the woman's all smiles about how proud D'Hoffryn is of Miss Rosenberg. The pleasure of the Lower Beings at the destruction of the Earth dimension before the First could start its move against them. Spike's hearing the words on how Willow killed Buffy and Xander before draining Giles of his borrowed magic, burning the world to a cinder for Tara's funeral pyre, but he can't take it in. It's too much, and none of it makes sense. Not to the girl, the people Spike knows, knew, loves, lost.

There's a scream inside him building up strong enough to destroy the walls of reality itself, let alone his sanity. But it's still choking him, as Hallie kisses Anya on the forehead before her parting words of praise, for her not being there to stop, "That unfriendly but obviously very powerful red-head from the wedding." There's a frankly jealous look at him before she continues, "D'Hoffryn is so much happier you're with a vampire now, so much more fitting for a Vengeance Demon of your standing, Anyanka. He's sending you both to the World without Shrimp. Next time - burlap and blood larvae."