Chapter 1:
They’d been walking for a while. The stars were obscured by the sickening black smoke that rose from the decimated city. Hollow shells of buildings. Was she the only one that lived there anymore?
Spike thought that getting her out of the house would cleanse her spirit of the emotional filth that had corroded it. He was wrong. The bodies were everywhere. Average people, men, women and children. There were few left alive, and they were the ones that hid when they heard them coming. Like frightened rats, they scuttled behind walls, armed with sharp pieces of scrap metal. Some of them cried. Some of them didn’t say anything. And some of them, people who had known Buffy, or heard of her, begged her to save them. To protect them. On their hands and knees they crawled, pitiful and hopeless.
Buffy refused to watch. She couldn’t... She still didn’t know where they were going. Her legs moved mechanically, like the Buffy-bot’s had.
They turned left, into the cemetery. Demons slid, like oily shadows, everywhere they went. Behind trees. Through gravestones. Shrieks echoed in the night behind them. Buffy ignored them. Just walk. Just walk.
Spike held her. Helped her to walk, until they reached the top of the hill. The last graves he had dug himself, the ones for Willow, Xander, and Giles. The tombstones had been crafted shoddily, with the names etched sloppily into the granite. They stood out in stark contrast next to the flowing script and delicate carvings on Joyce’s, or Tara’s. Or Anya’s. Dawn had been the last to be buried publicly, but even then, the funeral was cheap and fast. The town was already being run over by demons. Buffy hadn’t lifted a finger to stop them.
“There you are, love. Your friends. See, they’re all lined up for you. I bet they’re up in Heaven right now, watching you...” Spike smiled tentatively, hopefully. It wasn’t his job to protect Sunnydale. It wasn’t his job to protect Buffy, either, but that didn’t matter. He did it anyways.
Buffy kneeled slowly in the dirt in front of the row of graves. The wet grass stained her knees, and the moonlight stained the stones. Colored them unearthly.
Her hands sank into the dirt. Gripped the filth, sunk in. If she dug far enough, she’d uncover the rotting corpse of Anya Emanuella Cristina Jenkins-Harris. Beloved friend to all who met her. Farther to the left she’d find Tara’s body. She wondered if the maggots had already eaten her through and through, and left only bones. By now...
It had been almost a year since Giles had died. Buffy couldn’t remember if they’d buried him with his glasses or not. How could he read in Heaven without his glasses? She let out a dry sob. How could Heaven be Heaven for Giles if he couldn’t even read? He was probably sitting up there, staring down at her and sad because he wasn’t able to see anything. He should have his glasses...
She started digging at his grave more furiously. Churning up the rich black soil, breaking nails and bleeding but not caring. She had to give Giles his glasses. Then he could be happy. He would be able to see, and rub them when he was worried about something. But he wouldn’t be worried about anything at all, because he was in Heaven...
Spike dragged her away from the grave. She clawed at the dirt, the blood on her hands sinking into the ground.
Once she was far enough away, he set her down against a tree. She could still see the graves, all lined up on the hill. He pressed her back against the trunk. “Buffy, Buffy, love, what are you doing?” He was crying now. She didn’t answer him, just tried to force her way back to her loved ones. She shoved him with her hands, but he held her. He pressed a firm kiss to her forehead. “No, no, Buffy, you can’t....Don’t do this....God DAMN it , Buffy what are you trying to do, you stupid, stupid bint...”
Another kiss. Bruising in its force. She went limp, relaxing against the tree. Then, just as he was beginning to relax again, she forced him out of the way. Shoved him hard enough that he fell on his butt, and ran for the graves.
She threw herself down in front of them, like she was praying in front of an altar. She was sobbing all out now, and pressing herself against the earth, in an attempt to sink into it and join the line of stones where she belonged.
The earth was sticky, clumping together and black and smelling of death instead of life. The grass was too green, the trees too healthy. The town was dying around it, and the cemetery was the only place left alone. The dead didn’t seem to care, anyways, the true dead, that is.
Crying was redundant, so Buffy laughed instead. But before Spike could lead her away, she kicked a random gravestone hard enough to crack it. “I hate you!” she spat, but she didn’t know if she was talking to Spike or to her friends or to the Powers That Be.
“I’m sorry, luv. I shouldn’t have brought you out here. Shhh. I’m sorry luv.”
***
Somehow, the sun rose the next day. Over a hill in the east, a messenger of eternal hope that was as damning as it was heavenly. Hope was for those who had nothing left to lose.
The sun represented an endless cycle that was so vicious and never-ending that it made her want to kill herself. When the sunlight filtered through the gauzy curtains in the living room, and touched her hand, she hissed and pulled back as if burned. Her skin was pale now, like a vampire’s. She would not try to go outside today.
Instead of relegating herself to the couch, she sat down in the middle of the floor. It wouldn’t be hard to get out of the house, or to pick up and move altogether. It would mean moving on. It would mean finding happiness. And Buffy was beginning to think that she didn’t deserve happiness. She shouldn’t be able to smile in the sun, or go a single minute without feeling she might explode from the pain. She was a glutton for darkness. But not because she enjoyed it; because she deserved it.
“Let us help you,” Xander said. His hand caressed Buffy’s back.
“We can save you,” Willow added. She crouched to face Buffy, her green eyes dancing with life.
“Please, Buffy?” Dawn’s blue eyes pleading, her body posture wishful.
In a rush of air, they were gone, leaving the stench of failure in their wake. “Buffy. Buffy,” Giles said, pacing in front of her, wiping his glasses. “You’re the Slayer. You don’t need help.” He leaned over, staring her in the eyes. He spit on the ground in front of her. “You’re pathetic. Just die already, bitch!”
Buffy screamed and lashed out at her mentor and almost-father. Her fist impacted air, taunting her in its nothingness. She cried out in frustration. “Come back! Come back!” She screamed, kicking the table, snapping it to kindling. Her fists pummeled the furniture. There was no pattern to her destruction.
Finally, she sat in a pile of couch stuffing. Utterly silent again. She had no tears left. Her legs crossed and her eyes closed. She stayed still, frozen in time and resisting the flow as best she could.
Spike came in at some point. She didn’t know where he’d been. He’d promised to stay with her always, to never leave. Come to think of it, she’d pummeled him, too. He’d been there all along, hadn’t he?
Her eyes opened. The world existed on the outside, and she existed on the inside. Her skin the only barrier between her and harsh reality. She tried to sink farther into it. Cushion herself in muscles and organs and bones, protect herself with flesh wrapped around her. Like so much sin that clung to her and wouldn’t let go.
“Buffy. Let it go. Let it go, pet. It’s been a year. Just let go.” Spike was tired. He was tired, she could see. Exhausted, even. Death took its toll, even on the dead.
Her eyes turned to him again. “Make it go away, Spike. Make the voices stop. Make the pictures stop. Just make it fucking stop...Please.”
His hand buried itself in her thick mane of hair. He kissed her on the forehead. “I love you, Buffy. Always. I’ll always stay with you.”
“Shut UP!” She screamed at him, and bowled him over. Shoved him to the ground, reveling in her own strength. In her ability to affect the world, even as she stayed protected from it.
“I love you,” he said, and she silenced him with fierce kisses, filled with self-hatred and a desire to hurt. But he took them, because they were all she could give and he knew it.
“Lay down, Spike. Let it happen.” She was quick and violent, tearing his shirt with her nails and maybe a little skin. But the blood added to the excitement. The danger.
She was powerful. She was strong. Her life may have been out of control, but this she had. She had her strength. And she had the ability to make it stop.
She twisted his arms behind his back and he didn’t resist. He lay limp, like you were supposed to do if attacked by a bear. Play dead. Except that Spike really was dead, and Buffy didn’t want to eat him in the traditional sense. But she was dangerous. And they both knew that if Spike made a wrong move she might kill him. Or worse.
She dragged her sharp nails down the expanse of his chest. Leaving bloody tracks that made him hiss and arch up in pain and pleasure. Blood welled up in the cuts and spilled over onto his skin, sullying the deceptively pure and untainted hide.
She dug her nails in again, and smiled as he grimaced. That’s right. Feel it. Feel the pain. Lose yourself in it and by the way, welcome to my world, lucky.
She sat astride him. His flanks were heaving and his blue eyes looked up with accepting. Buffy could never have known that Dru had liked to play the same games, and Spike had put up with them, too. And he’d never really loved Drusilla, anyways.
Buffy licked the blood from her fingertips. Sickly sweet and it made her tongue thicken so that she might choke on the sheer idea of tasting Spike’s blood. So, perversely, she licked stripes down his chest, dribbling the thick, viscous fluid into her mouth.
Spike’s hands clenched. He didn’t want to be getting off on this, on the corruption of so beautiful a thing, but it was Buffy and she was licking the blood from his chest. It was corrupt and it was perverse and it was wrong, so wrong that it made him sick as it made him horny.
Off came the pants belt next. She brandished the black leather menacingly before throwing it away. The packaging wasn’t nearly as good as what she would find inside.
An instant later, she was riding him, and using her strength to try and cause him pain even as she got her pleasure. If it could be called that.
Veins popped out, blue spider webs on his face as he clenched his hands and worked his jaw, and came anyway.
Buffy grinned maniacally and licked invisible blood from her lips. Blood that was just as damning as the real thing.
She knew she should be exhausted, but the deadly and disturbing energy that filled her allowed no rest. She stood, leaving Spike naked, comatose, and messy on the floor. At least now she knew for certain where he was. She could still feel him inside.
She turned to Willow, who had been watching from the door. The shade, or image, or hallucination disappeared into the air like a fading television picture. No sound, either, just the electric humming of the air that she could neither hear nor feel, and just knew. A storm was coming, and not the metaphorical kind, either.
Not caring if she sounded as insane as Drusilla, she began humming with the air. Striving to achieve the same pitch as the destruction and rage that was coming soon. Certainly there would be rain, and lots of wind, too. Chaos.
When she turned, Spike was fully dressed and laying spread out on the couch. She jumped, and her pitch was thrown off into a sharp screech. He looked like he’d been there for hours. And he was wearing a different shirt.
She might have questioned it, but what was to be gained? The knowledge that she was going crazy? She didn’t want it and she didn’t need it. Didn’t really care, because sometimes insane people built castles in their heads where everything was perfect, and she could probably learn a lot from someone like that.
Bed. Right. She was tired. She should go to bed. Sleep was oblivion was not remembering every second of every day that her friends and family were all dead, and so she could not ask Mom to make blueberry pancakes in the morning, and she could not bargain with Dawn about who would take out the trash. She could not tease Xander about his new/old job at Starbucks. Or tell Willow that she could meet her at the Bronze after patrol. Because she couldn’t. Not now, and not ever again.
Part 3 coming soon!