There are some who believe that there are many gods; gods of life and death, field mouse and leviathan, wood and stone, automobile and internet, music and storm, television and dream. Others believe that there is One God, in a distant Heaven. Others believe that the same God is everywhere, in everything.
All of them are right. All of them are wrong.
Regardless, one thing is true: it is a truly rare thing for a god (or an aspect of God) to fully, physically manifest on Earth. That was just what was happening in the nameless holy place in the California desert that night, and it was sending ripples throughout the world.
Visionaries and seers and dreamers and the insane would see visions and speak prophecy all through the night. Many of the latter would wake up in the morning with their minds whole and well, never quite remembering what they had seen that had healed them.
Clouds coalesced from nowhere over the desert and poured down rain, everywhere but in the dell. The next day, the desert would bloom, but some of the life that was already there was washed away by flash floods.
Across the state of California, young lovers made their first experimental fumblings. New lovers were taken. Old lovers and spouses of many years awoke to a renewed passion. That January and February, the papers would note a West Coast baby boom. What they wouldn’t notice was that similar baby booms had occurred in every species, including plants.
And across much of the West Coast, cardiac monitors flatlined in the intensive care units of hospitals and nursing homes alike. Trees fell in the woods and old, feeble creatures of all kinds found a private place to die, as animals often do.
But the Heroes knew none of this. And if they’d known, they wouldn’t have cared. There were no gods, no life and death, no outside world. For them, there was only love and desire.
*
Buffy, Angel, and Riley closed into a triangle as they reached a clear, soft-looking spot.
"Are we going to try again?" Angel asked in a hoarse whisper.
"No," Buffy answered, reaching up and pulling her men’s heads down close to hers. "Do," She gave Angel a long, hard kiss, and his tongue was cool until her mouth started to warm it, and tasted ever-so-distantly of copper and salt. "Or do not," she gave the same to Riley, and his tongue was even hotter then hers. "There is no try."
Angel and Riley met each other’s eyes, then looked down at the woman they both loved, as she looked back and forth between them, a challenge in her eyes.
They understood what she had meant by her half-joke. There would be no backing out this time, no trying it out and seeing how it worked. Once they chose, there would be no going back.
They felt a hunger in them, a need older than humanity. There was lust, oh, yes—Riley and Angel’s hard-ons chafed against the confinement of their pants, as Buffy’s nipples showed through her tank top. Even Riley could smell her rich, earthy musk. But it was more than lust. It was the need to join with someone, become a part of them. Life moved through them, and creation, and even Angel’s chest was heaving, and they knew that there was really no choice at all.
They would never know which one of them said "Then let’s do it." The voice was deep, and hoarse, and charged with need, so they couldn’t even tell the sex of the speaker.
This time, there would be no interruptions.
Giles was still coming down from his possession by Cernunnos, and although he was intensely aware of the woman pressed up against him, her breasts soft and bare and sweat-slick against the hard plain of his own chest, Revelation was still spinning through his mind.
"We’ve been fools," he said while he was taking a breath. Then he kissed her again, and his tongue returned to exploring her mouth. He could taste the faint, leftover sweetness of marshmallow and chocolate, but her own sweetness lay beneath it. Is this what Angel and Riley tasted? No wonder they found it so intoxicating. "Such fools. There is no old here."
She looked up at him incredulously. "I guess I need to get your attention," she said. Then she dropped to one knee, and with a few quick, practiced motions—
*Just like riding a bike,* flashed through Joyce’s mind—
His belt and fly were open, his pants were drooping, and his cock was bobbing out in front of him, so high and hard that it was almost poking him in the stomach.
"Forget old, Ripper," she said, the perfect words coming from somewhere other than her mind. "Let’s fuck like teenagers." With that, she took him in one hand and sucked him up into her mouth and all semblance of Revelation was blown from his mind.
*
"What’s this?" Faith asked as Gunn lifted her up and set her down on a boulder.
"This is your altar. I’m going to worship you," Gunn answered.
"Huh?"
"You’ve done some down-and-dirty, roll-in-the-hay fucking, and that can be plenty of fun. But you’ve never been *worshipped*. Every woman oughtta be worshipped every now and again."
"All right," Faith laughed. "We’ll do it your way." She pulled off the sports bra she’d been wearing, then leaned forward and arched her back, jutting her small, high breasts out at him. "Start praying."
He laid his big hands on the flat of her chest, between the top swell of her breasts and her collarbone, then slid his fingertips down until they reached her taut brown nipples.
Her breathing quickened.
He kept up like that, stroking her with that same light, teasing touch. Of course, to her utter lack of surprise, he focused on her breasts—and why not? It made him happy at the same time he was driving her crazy, and that was beyond good. But he also ran his surprisingly delicate fingers over her shoulders, down her arms, across her face, through hair.
She started to purr.
Down her legs—pull off her jeans, leaving only her panties in place—then back up, slide in, along the insides of her thighs.
She started to moan.
*
Xander put one hand on Anya’s waist and the other on her shoulder and bent her over a waist-high boulder. She sunk her fingers into the moss and gripped tight.
With a few practiced moves, Xander had her belt unbuckled, and her pants around her ankles, baring the smooth curves of her ass to the cool night air. He laid his hand on one of them, but then Anya’s tight, husky voice came back to him:
"Xander, if you do anything to me when I’m like this, I’m going to fall. Take them *all the way* off, Xander."
"Right." He swatted her ass once, just to remind her who had his balance and was thus in charge here (and to hear her pleasure-startled yelp), caught her hips to steady her, then dropped to one knee and bent to the work at hand.
Lift one foot. Pull the pants down off the foot. Take the other foot—
"No," Anya said, spreading her legs and planting her feet. "That’s good enough."
*
Tara landed on her back in the soft grass and Willow landed on top of her, straddling her hips and pressing hot kisses into her face. Then Willow felt a still-familiar weight settle onto her as Oz’s flat, hard chest pressed up against her back and the hard ridge of his cock pressed against her ass.
Tara looked over Willow’s shoulder, where she met Oz’s clear, dark eyes.
"I’ll take low, you take high," He said.
"Okay."
"What are you—" Willow started to ask, but Tara slid her hands between their bodies and cupped her breasts, and the red-headed hacker never got the words "talking about" out of her mouth.
Tara raised her lover into an upright position. "Careful," she warned Oz, nudging the inside of his thigh with her knee to let him know that he, having backed up a little, was now kneeling directly above it.
"I will be," he said. Then he twined his arms around Willow, and his skillful fingers had the front of her pants open in seconds. One-handed. Still hadn’t lost it.
Then he slid his other hand down her panties, cupping her soft, warm fur, and slid one of those skillful fingers into her cleft, which was already hot and slick.
Willow gasped at the feeling she’d never forgotten: Oz’s hands. Fingers as long as Tara’s, but thicker and stronger, and hard with calluses from playing the guitar, where Tara’s were soft.
To feel both at once--!
Oz could still play her like a guitar, and her nerves sang in her cunt (*such a blunt word Anglo-Saxon like "drunk", so blunt and earthy, and it’s been used so ugly but it’s a good word, I like it, does any other word match ‘cock’? I don’t think so, and they’re both good words, primal, like animal grunts and that’s good, that’s right because cock and cunt are where we stop being polite, where I stop being sweet and nice and start being *hungry*, where I stop being someone’s girlfriend and start being somebody’s* mate*), sending a web of pleasure shooting through her abdomen. But Tara was stroking and squeezing her breasts, flicking her nipples, and the nerves up there were *purring*, and the blend was sending her thoughts spinning away in fragments.
"This is for you, baby," Oz whispered in her ear.
"Yes," Tara agreed. "Just enjoy us."
That focused her mind on a thought, perhaps the only thought she was capable of right now. "Just enjoy?" she panted. "When there’s so…much to…explore?" She reached back with one hand and cupped (*cock, that’s his cock, yes, I like that word*), and reached down with the other to stroke one of Tara’s heavy breasts. "I don’t think so."
*
"Oof!" Wesley landed on his back on the ground, then Cordelia landed on top of him. He didn’t have a chance to get his breath back before she grabbed him by the back of the head and shoved her tongue into his mouth.
He was going to suffocate. But what a way to go.
No, just as he was starting to see stars, she peeled her mouth away.
"Cordelia," he gasped, unsure whether he was going to follow it with a request for a moment’s breath, or a plea not to stop.
"Shut up," she commanded, her voice rough with need, as she pulled his belt open.
"Yes," he agreed, never questioning what prompted him to say "My Queen."
*
Like acolytes helping a priestess with her vestments, Riley and Angel slid Buffy’s pants down her legs. She stepped out of them with regal grace, and was left standing naked in the firelight. She closed her eyes and let the sensations wash over her.
Cool, smooth hands slid up one leg; hot, trembling, callused ones up the other.
Fire and ice. Her men. She placed her hands on their heads and tried to force her hands not to clench in their hair. One short and dry and spiky, the other sweaty and longer, but only by comparison.
A hot mouth kissed its way up her belly and stopped at her right nipple, sucking hungrily. A cold tongue traced its teasing way up her leg.
Her hands slid down the broad, muscled expanses of their backs.
One was hot and slick. The other cool and dry. Her men. Fire and ice.
One hot hand slid up her stomach, and stroked her breast, trembling, so strong, trying so hard to be gentle. The other hot hand, more confident, clutched and pressed at her ass the way it knew that she liked.
The cool tongue traced up the inside of her thigh. It felt so cold against her own heat—fire and ice—and she could feel her cunt full and heavy and slippery, almost dripping wet, and she could feel her desire, coiled in her womb, growing and building and pressing—
Two thumbs opened her lips, and the tongue flicked at her clit.
"Oh, God." Buffy gasped and her eyes flew open, and they weren’t just bundles of sensations anymore. There was Angel, on his knees in front of her, slowly sinking his face into her crotch, sliding his hands around her legs to press her closer. There was Riley, half-standing beside her, his head bent to her breast.
"Oh, *God*."
Pleasure flash-flared through her body with each flick of Angel’s tongue, each stroke of Riley’s hot hands. She could feel the pleasure building…growing…
"Oh, *GOD*!"
Across the clearing, Cernunnos smiled.
Building…
"Please," she begged. "Please, I’m ready for you. Now—" Then her hand, which had been stroking down Riley’s back, found the waistband of his jeans. "Hey…no fair…" She gasped, her face trying to scowl. "Too…many…clothes…"
They lost no time in remedying that situation. As they were pulling their pants off, Buffy had a moment to catch her breath. Oh, she was still just as horny as ever—her lust still roiled and raged in her belly—but she didn’t feel like she was about to explode any second. Not that it would have mattered if she had—she was a woman, she could come as often as she wanted, when she could get it. But she wanted something else, something more. She wanted…
Her men were standing naked in front of her now. Angel was ivory-white, while Riley was bronzed—especially his face and arms, what she’d heard him call a "farmer’s tan", but really everything but his shorts-lines—but both looked like statues of some ancient, forgotten fertility gods: all gleaming, rippling muscle, their cocks high and hard in front of them.
She reached out, took hold of both, and began to stroke them.
Riley gasped and Angel moaned, and they both went rigid. They both throbbed in her hand. Hot and cold.
"I want…" What did she want? It was crazy, this was crazy, how could she even think of such a thing? "I want…you both…now…" Because it was tonight. Because it was Beltane and there was nothing else in the world that mattered but her men and her need. Fire and ice.
She needed to be more clear. "I want you both inside me…together. All of us together. Now."
Riley and Angel looked at each other.
"How do we do this?" Riley asked, trying to keep his thoughts from scattering completely as Buffy’s hand slid up his length again. "I’ve never—oh, God—done anything…*hff*…like this before"
"I…*huh, huh*...have," Angel said. Then he caught Buffy’s hand. "I’ll be right back."
With that, he turned and, unmindful of audience or dignity, he ran across the circle for the oils.
*
Faith felt herself starting to tremble.
Gunn’s hands were so gentle, but she felt the power in them. It was like using Angel’s broadsword to shave her legs. But that wasn’t why she was trembling. Her pleasure was growing from individual thrills to a constant, ever-building dynamo hum and he hadn’t even *touched* her pussy yet. But that wasn’t why she was trembling.
She was waiting for it to start hurting—every time his fingers stroked the delicate skin between her thighs, she waited for his hands to clamp down and pry them apart—not that she wasn’t willing to open them anyway. Every time he massaged her breasts, she waited for him to start pinching and twisting.
She was getting scared. That was why she was trembling.
But why? She hadn’t been scared since she’d become a Slayer. Since then, she’d been the one calling the shots. Besides, most of the guys she’d been with had been all about getting done and getting gone, just like her.
Except—
Gunn took hold of her panties—black and plain (Hey, she thought she’d been coming here to *fight*)—and slid them off. She lifted her hips obligingly.
Except Xander and Riley. Xander had tried, and that had scared her—why else would she just toss him out the door afterward? Riley had said he loved her.
But they were different. Xander had been confused and a little scared and he hadn’t had the experience to live up to his good intentions. Riley had been saying "I love you" to *Buffy*.
But Gunn was here with *her*, with *Faith*, and he was *worshipping* her, worshipping *her*. Like she was a queen, or a goddess—
And he was kneeling down in front of her, lowering his head to her pussy, hooking her legs over his shoulders, giving one soft kiss and looking up at her with those eyes that asked too much, that asked that she be here with *him* before lowering his head and burrowing into her, licking and sucking and even nipping.
The pleasure was building to an almost unbearable pitch, and she knew that she would bust her nut (*Does that make any sense oh who the fuck* cares*?) any second now. She remembered a guy in Southie, just after she’d been Chosen, whose jaw she’d broken for coming in her mouth without warning, and realized that she *was* that guy now. Her embarrassment just added to her fear, but it seemed like her pussy was running on a different circuit than her brain, ‘cause it was getting revved up and ready to roll.
She was trembling violently now, as if she was trying to shake herself apart.
"Faith?" Gunn asked, rising to his feet. When had he gotten naked? And oh, my, didn’t he look *fine*? But she couldn’t help it—she just started shaking harder. "Are you okay? Did I do something wrong?" There was concern in his eyes, of course, but there was something else there as well. Something she couldn’t identify. After all, she’d never seen adoration before. At least, not directed at her.
"N-n-no," she answered. "It-you-wonderful. Just…just…"
"Shh. It’s okay." He gathered her up in his arms and held her tight.
*Safe*
"Whatever it is, it’ll be okay. We can get through it."
‘We’. They were a ‘we’. Faith felt her trembling started to fade. She hadn’t felt this safe since…she couldn’t remember ever feeling this safe.
"Do you trust me?"
Faith realized, to her amazement, that she did. She heaved a sigh, relaxed against his chest, and wrapped her arms around him. The trembling was gone.
She trusted him. One best way to let him know.
She raised her head, looked him in the eyes, wrapped her legs around his, raised herself off the rock, fitted his tip to her opening, and slid down the length of his shaft.
Impalement. Hurt me now, if you will. Drop me, my feet aren’t touching the ground. I surrender myself to you.
"Yes," she answered.
*
Giles leaned up against a rock, locking his legs and gritting his teeth against the urge to start thrusting.
The urge passed—a little—and he looked down to where Joyce’s—*his* Joyce’s—now-gray head bobbed in front of him. One of the hands that had been clutching the rock against the urge to grab and hold her head in place relaxed and swung forward to stroke her hair instead.
She popped him out of her mouth and grinned up at him, but didn’t stop with her own stroking. "Are you here with me now?" She asked.
"Oh, yes," he growled, taking her by the shoulders. "Let me show you."
Her grin only broadened as he lay her back on the grass.
*
On his knees, Xander gently parted Anya’s labia with his fingers, like the petals of a flower, leaned his head forward, and delicately licked at her cleft, tasting her body’s honey.
Delicious.
He could feel his cock, rock-hard and almost painful in his jeans. But he would take his time. Yes. And she was so, so sweet…
That was when Anya kicked him with her bare foot.
"Hey!"
"That’s enough," She panted. "Penetrate me. *Now*."
Xander leaped to his feet and began tugging at his belt buckle. He didn’t need to be told twice.
He was horny beyond all imagination and couldn’t wait another second. So of course he had trouble getting his pants off. His zipper got caught at half-mast and his belt seemed to refuse to unbuckle until he decided to simply shove them off by main force. This didn’t work very well. He struggled with the denim knot around his legs until he tipped over sideways and fell to the ground.
Anya, red-faced and panting, looked back over her shoulder at the noise and started to laugh.
"Laugh it up, wench," Xander growled, still struggling with his clothing.
"Give me something to take seriously," she taunted, swaying her ass at him in challenge.
Forever afterward, Xander would swear (and Anya would smile indulgently and nod) that he must have *teleported* out of his little unintended bondage experiment, because the very next instant, he was up and gripping Anya’s hips and slamming into her from behind.
Anya gripped the moss tighter, braced herself more firmly against the rock, and howled loudly enough to be heard over the storm and frighten animals deeper into their burrows.
*
It took a bit of shuffling about, but they finally got Tara’s legs free so Willow could shove her skirt up to her waist.
That done, Willow had hooked Tara’s legs over her shoulders, and buried her face in her lover’s (*Yes, I like that word, I think I’ll keep it*) cunt. Other nights, she might have teased her way up Tara’s legs, around her abdomen, but tonight she was *hungry*. So she buried her face between her lover’s legs and now she was delicately flicking at the bud of Tara’s clitoris with her tongue. The next moment she had her tongue buried as deep in Tara’s passage as it would go, taking as much in her mouth as she could, and she was so sweet, so delicious—she never tired of exploring Tara’s body, there was always more to discover, and she was seeking and probing with her tongue—now tracing a circle of fire around Tara’s lips…
But she didn’t lie down flat, as was her wont. Instead, she left her rump in the air, her legs parted, open and ready for her *other* lover.
And Oz was there. He took hold of her hips and slowly eased into her and she moaned into Tara while he hissed through gritted teeth.
Oz held very still, not quite daring to thrust. She felt so good and it had been so long, and there had been no one since her—wolves mated for life, after all, and—
And Willow, feeling him in her, filling her up for the first time nearly two years, a feeling she’d never forgotten, was completely uninterested in waiting by this point. She began to thrust back against him.
Oz hissed again as he felt her tight heat sliding up and down his shaft, forming a piston of flesh. *Hold on hold on just hold on.* He wanted to explode that instant, just empty himself into her, but he also wanted it to last all night, last forever. Gently, with just the tips of his fingers, he began to stroke Willow’s back. As it always had before, that began to calm her down.
Tara, like Giles, had to resist the urge to grab hold with a hand and grind her lover’s face into her crotch—or clamp down too hard with her legs. Instead, as Giles had, she reached down and began to stroke Willow’s hair.
Oz, having calmed both Willow and himself a bit, was pretty sure that he could last a bit longer yet. A sudden urge from the Wolf struck him, one he had no problem whatsoever with following. He leaned forward and, very carefully, very gently, fixed his mouth on the back of Willow’s neck.
Willow knew what it meant, that the Wolf was here with them, reclaiming his mate, and that was good. Wasn’t that what this was all about? She arched her back and pressed hard up against him, grinding in.
Tara, who had her eyes closed, suddenly ran her fingers through hair that was much different than that she was expecting. Soft, yes, but short and spiky. She opened her eyes and looked down, to see that she had been stroking Oz. She saw what Oz was doing—she’d seen it before, of course, she was a country girl, wasn’t she?—and couldn’t help but grin. She reached down a little further and scratched him behind the ears.
Oz looked up into her smiling, flushed face, smiled back, and nuzzled her hand.
*
Cordelia straddled Wesley, her knees planted firmly on either side of his hips, kneeling up straight. She was naked below the waist and he had his pants around his ankles (thoroughly binding his feet), and she was peeling his rock-hard, straining cock away from his belly and feeding its tip into the hungry, raving mouth between her own legs when he touched her shoulder and said "Cordelia? Are you sure?"
In one way, it was a dumb question—in the way that she was the one on top, the one taking action. But there was more to the question than that:
*Are you sure that I’m the one you want?*
*I’m but a humble man, Cordelia. I’m not a hero or a wealthy man. I don’t even flatter myself that I’m that handsome. I’m just a scholar. A geek, as you’ve so kindly put it.*
*Are you sure you want to do this with *me*?*
Cordelia’s reply didn’t address his question—but it *did* answer it.
She took her hand away, leaving his tip embedded in her. Then she leaned forward, planting her hands on both sides of his head and staring him straight in the eyes. Then she said a very strange thing. Later, she wouldn’t know why she had said it. But it was still a true thing, and it was the right thing.
"Be my friend," She said. "I love you."
Then she slammed down hard and all doubts were consumed in a fiery haze.
*
Angel returned with a jar of oil in his hands. "Lie down," he ordered "Not you, Buffy," he said, catching her by the arm when she started to do as he said. He pointed at Riley. "You. On your back."
Riley’s face was blank with confusion, but he obeyed, lying down in the grass.
Buffy watched him laying back and licked her lips.
"Now you, Buffy." Angel directed. He waved his hand at the reclining Lightning Warrior. "Mount him."
She grinned up at him. "Okay, if you’re going to twist my arm."
"Are threesomes always so choreographed?" she asked as she knelt down.
"Not always," He said. "But you made a special request."
So she mounted Riley, and his look of confusion was replaced by a grin, then a look of ecstasy that was almost agony as he felt her tight heat enclosing him, every slick fold and muscle gripping him. She felt his heat, his hard length filling her up and oh god it was so *good* and she was just starting to swivel her hips when she felt a cool hand on her ass.
"Not yet," Angel said softly. "Hold still." Then the cool hand parted her buttocks, and warm oil flowed down between them, anointing her anus. Then she felt a cool finger slowly, gently sliding into her tight passage, opening her up, lubricating her, making her ready. Then the finger was withdrawn, and she felt the blunt tip of his cock, thoroughly oiled, nudging against her ass. "Are you ready?"
Buffy realized, to her surprise, that she was. This was below and beyond, this was something from the porn movies that Forrest used to run for the frat house when they didn’t think anyone female was around. But somehow…these were her men, and there was no shame here.
"Yeah," she answered, reaching back and putting a hand on his hip. "Just, take it slow…careful."
"I wouldn’t be any other way," he said as he slowly, gently nudged his way into her.
Both Buffy and Riley held still as Angel eased into her, carefully, millimeter by millimeter and then he was in, his hips were pressed tight against her ass, and both of her men were buried to the hilt in her and she was pressed between them and she’d never felt so *full* and she couldn’t hold in a sob of joy.
"Buffy? Are you okay?" Angel asked, alarmed.
"Are we hurting you?" Riley asked.
"No! No, you’re not—please, please don’t stop!"
She didn’t tell them, as they started to move inside her, started to thrust, that she wouldn’t have wanted them to stop even if it *did* hurt, because she wanted them both in her, filling her, and even if it hurt, it would hurt so *good*.
She felt the pleasure building to a volcanic peak in her belly and her last thought before her mind was erased by the first of a series of atomic-level orgasms, was a fierce, primal exultation at being with her men. Her *mates*.
Fire and ice.
*
Spike took hold of two rocks and pulled himself up to the top of the ridge. This was the place, no question: storms? Animals going wild? Column of light into the night sky, holding a clear spot in place? All pretty standard Final Battle stuff. Even if it weren’t for all that, he would have been able to find his way here. There was a heavy feeling of power in the air, and it got stronger the closer he got to this place. But there was something odd. The power didn’t feel like Angelus’s or even Belial’s had. It wasn’t a question of degree, and it wasn’t just a personal "scent". It was something fundamental.
*Ah, well. No point in worrying. You’re here now, aren’t you? And from all the screams and moans, it sounds like he’s opened up Hell right here, just for them.* For some reason, the idea didn’t please him as much as he thought it would. He refused to wonder why. Instead, he hid behind a boulder and looked down into the dell.
Well. He certainly was an impressive one, all right. Twenty feet tall if he was an inch, plus the horns and hooves. Room for the classics in the modern world, isn’t there? Very passable "Greatest Foe" material. But he wasn’t putting that massive bulk to any use. He was just sitting there on a rock, watching. Still, it seemed to be doing the job, because the entire happy little lot of them were writhing on the ground like—
Wait.
They weren’t writhing.
*Shagging? He’s making them *shag*? What the bloody blue FUCK?*
They were even with the people they would have chosen, no less. Sure, that DP thing that Blondie had going with the Poofter (going in the out door, of course. What a surprise) and Captain Righteous looked pretty intense, but "Damn Sore In The Morning" was hardly up to the standards of a proper archnemesis. Why, he himself had…
Uh-oh. Maybe the Satan Wannabe down there had heard him thinking, ‘cause He was looking up, and—
*What the hell?*
Had something actually *moved* up there beyond the hole in the clouds? And what gave him the impossible, unbelievable, absolutely flipped-tripped-bloody-raving-*insane* idea that it had happened just as this jumbo-sized voyeur turned his head?
Then the giant perv rose to His feet and turned to face him and then Spike had no more doubts; the very *stars* were moving in unison with the horned giant below him. A constellation that he’d never seen before tonight, a man with a stag’s head, looked down from Heaven at him as the antlered man below raised his head.
*Bugger this, then. I’m out of here.*
But he never had the chance to run. The Antlered Man lifted his gaze, and their eyes met, and Spike was lost. For unlike earlier that night, when he had ordered Faith to look in his eyes, Cernunnos did not shield his eyes for the benefit of the mortal being before him.
In that moment, Spike—William the Bloody, Childe of Angelus, once a human named William—saw worlds and stars and the tiniest of microbes, living out their lives and dying. He saw the Truth, and he saw the Plan, and his own infinitesimal place in them, and he Understood as no being in the mortal realms had ever been allowed to Understand.
He saw a love that was deeper and broader and greater than any other force. A love that dwarfed Belial’s hate, a love that set the nuclear fires burning in the hearts of suns and drove the greatest gears of the universe. A terrible, terrifying love like an endless ocean of light.
In that moment, as the ritual below, whose holiness Spike would never have been able to understand, reached its peak—as the men groaned and pressed tight and spurted into their women, as the women pressed hard and squeezed tight and cried out one last time; as the storm outside reached its peak, flooding out rat and rattlesnake alike while nourishing the roots of cacti and awakening the seeds of delicate flowers that only bloomed when such things happened; as visionaries all over the world saw something that they would never be able to remember—
In that moment, the demon known as Spike, named William the Bloody, Childe of Angelus, who had stolen and used and desecrated the murdered corpse of William the Poet, looked into the true face of God, and then he burned away into nothing and was gone forever.
*
Buffy awoke to the sound of a guitar playing. The storm had ended, the moon had set, and the light of a false dawn was in the sky.
She felt an unaccustomed weight on top of her, and for a moment she was disoriented. Then she opened her eyes and realized that both Riley and Angel each had an arm stretched over her protectively: Angel at her shoulders, Riley at her waist.
As carefully as she could, trying not to wake them, she disentangled herself from them and got up. She winced as she started to move, but she managed to keep the "Ow" in until she was up and away from them. Neither Angel nor Riley were poorly endowed men, and gentleness hadn’t been very high up on anyone’s list of priorities that night. She suspected that anyone who wasn’t a Slayer would have been unable to walk.
Limping slightly, she crossed the dell, following the music to its source. She found Cernunnos, once more human-sized, playing Giles’ guitar and singing something softly in Gaelic.
She paused when she caught sight of him. She was naked, her lovers’ semen dried crisp on both sides of her thighs (Should she be disgusted by that fact? She pondered that for a second. She’d hardly noticed the first time with Angel, and it hadn’t happened since then. *No*, she decided. *Except for the one terrible mistake that was Parker, I only have sex with men that I love. Sex is messy. They’re all sticky, too, and it’s kind of nice to have a reminder that the men I love have been there. Further proof that I’m a weirdo, I suppose*.), and her vagina and anus were both sore from the pounding they’d taken. Was that any kind of way to approach a god?
After a moment’s further thought, she realized that it was the *only* way to approach this particular god.
"Good morning," he greeted her as she took a seat on the thickly-mossed rock across from him.
"Good morning," she said. She sat for a moment, listening to him play and looking out at her sleeping friends. "Is this what you had in mind when you said ‘Worship Me’?" She asked.
He shrugged. "I am a fertility god," He answered, still softly playing the guitar.
"Fertility?" She repeated, something awful occurring to her. "Oh, crap. Couldn’t we have worshipped you with condoms?"
"Relax. I wouldn’t add to your burdens just to make a point. Heck, I’ll throw in the rest of the day free. But everyone’ll have to be just as careful as ever after midnight tonight. Faith, too, make sure she gets that."
"But I thought, when we were all mind-melded, that Faith was...you know...sterile."
"She was."
Buffy’s eyes went wide as she realized what he was saying. "Oh," she said. It was the only thing her mind could manage. "Good."
He finished whatever ancient song he’d been playing, and looked up from the instrument to her face. "So. Do you have your answers?"
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