Title: Daemons Luminati
Chapter 2: Incinerator
Author: Kalima
Contact: hkalima1@aol.com
Rating: R
Summary: Can a vampire be dragged, kicking and screaming into the light? We'll see. Spike's a complicated guy, isn't he?
Author Notes: Herself, the most, in bunches. Liz who's unapologetic lust for Spike first made me want to march in Spike-pride parades – we're here, we love evil soulless things, get used to it!
This is dedicated to the yellow balloon. All creatures that can love and grieve have souls.
Story Notes: Season 6 through, oh, I don't know, let's say after she wore the lilac blouse of breaking up and before she wore the gray robe of victimization.
Completed just before my birthday in July 2002.
Warnings: none
Disclaimer: Spike, Buffy, et al belong to Mutant Enemy and Joss and all those people with a legal posse who could come after me and sue my ass if they wanted. Still. Blood. Turnip.
~Incinerator~
Once upon a time, when Spike was bad, destructive rampages were a form of dynamic meditation.
In the alley of the doomed, he climbed the fire escape that led to the residential hotel above the bar for a little breaking and entering. Steal something. Kill someone. But the people living there were mostly scraping by on Wild Turkey and food stamps. Or they were drug addicts. Nothing worth stealing, or nothing he was interested in at any rate, so he went up to the roof and roared at the stars, leaping across chasms from building to building until he ran out of buildings. Then he spread his arms out, and jumped, flying, flying, flying - bam - onto the roof of a car, nearly went through it. He lay in the crumpled cradle of metal and laughed. He'd forgotten how much fun it was, the wild-child immortality of his vampire youth. Destructo-Man! Able to crush cars in a single bound. His fall had managed to pop the boot - trunk - whatever, and lo! A tire iron! Spent several satisfying minutes bashing the Plymouth Sundance into lovely smithereens, and yes, nothing quite like the sound of breaking glass for relieving a bit of tension. When the distant police sirens grew closer then rounded a corner in a squeal of rubber and flashing lights, he'd sauntered off into the shadows, making his way to the warehouses near the docks. After that, something of a blur. More smashing and breaking and throwing of things into the river.
But when it was all said and done, he didn't feel particularly revitalized, no blissful altered state of consciousness, no dark force welcoming him back into the fold with blood drenched claws. Mostly tired and a bit peckish. Should have supped on that longshoreman before throwing him into the river - still alive enough to curse Spike to hell dimensions that involved his mother, body cavities and things that were supposed to get a bloke riled up. But hey Mr Longshoreman, been there, done that. Bored, he decided to swing by the Thanh Thao Market to pick up some smokes before heading home.
Back in his own comfy cemetery, he perched himself on his favourite lounging-about tombstone, the one that marked the double grave of "Jack and Judith, beloved husband, beloved wife," and opened the carton of cigarettes he'd had no intention of buying and popped the top of the beer he'd be goddamned if he'd pay for goddamn it. Yep, that had been the plan. Oh, he'd gone into the Thanh Thao Market fully intending to rip off a six-pack and as many cartons of Marlboros as he could carry, had every intention of grabbing Thanh by his bitter old tongue and throttling him with it. Maybe poke out his eyes with those sticks of beef jerky the suspicious bastard was so certain he slipped up his coat sleeve every time he came in. Look, you fat old fart, nothing up my sleeves, 'cos I got no fucking coat! Gouge. Cue screaming. But, Thanh's daughter Mary was tending shop all by herself, and Mary reminded him too much of Tara and so that was that. She was fatter and not as doe-eyed pretty, but sweet and smart. Her black eyes darted shyly behind less-than-stylish specs and she had her nose in a book when she ought to be wary of Big Bads like himself strolling in at two in the morning.
"Poppy's in the hospital," she explained, ringing up his carton and single can of American piss-for-beer. "Heart attack. He's okay. Mom's with him."
"Where's your brother?"
She gave a tense shrug. "He had a gig or something." Oh right, Johnny of the orange-hair, nose-ring, Vietnamese puck-rap-fusion, soon to sign with a major recording label for the last two years fame. Tosser.
Spike glanced up at the camera. He knew it was sham, didn't actually work.
"You've got a gun, right?"
She gave little theatrical shudder, and he was distracted by the jiggle of her tits for a second. "I don't like guns," she said. "Anyway, I don't think Poppy keeps it loaded."
"You have a cross?"
She giggled and lifted the chain around her neck so that he could see the tiny silver cross she'd hidden under her t-shirt. "I still don't know what good you think it'll do."
Oh, the blithe denial of Sunnydale merchants. "Just so long as you have it. And keep your finger close to that button under the register."
"You sound like my dad," she said, handing him his change and his goods.
"Well, that's just...cruel. I like that in a girl."
He'd given her his patented smirk and wink, lacking flirtatious sincerity but she hadn't seemed to notice. They never did. Made 'em feel sexy and special and who didn't need that occasionally-
Fuck! When did he start feeling this tender regard for a girl he'd spoken with maybe eight times in a year and a half?
The urge to tenderness was not particularly new. It just never ever paid off. He wasn't sure when the urge first reared its pathetic head or if it had always been there, nascent, waiting patiently for the best moment for him to make an ass of himself. Drusilla, charmingly ruthless in her little girl needs, fickle and capricious and mad, had never been so far gone that she couldn't get anything she wanted from him by appealing to his "tickly soft underbelly" as she called it. Any similar urge with Harmony always flew out the window as soon as she opened her mouth and the nasally whining commenced. He didn't love her of course. But hell, he didn't love Mary Thanh, so what was that all about?
He did love Buffy though, despite what he'd told her and it wouldn't go away like he wanted it to. And much as he craved the wild, nails-gouging-the-flesh sex, he had the tender urge more often than he dared show. The only time Buffy allowed tenderness was when she was handcuffed to a bedpost or a railing or something. Then she could pretend that she had no choice - beast, torture me with your eyelashes and your fingertips and all those soft endearments poured into my ear. She'd whisper, "No, no more, I can't, please, please, I can't," all the while melting like candle wax around him, while he coaxed and kissed and murmured, "Yes you can, you can do it, come, come for me again, come for your lover sweetness, you can do it." And when she did, it was magic, long and slow and full of deep shudders, her whole body clutching him, drawing him in so deep he had to fight his inevitable moment of panic at the sucking pull of her womb. It was Life calling him, a fiercely persuasive cajolery that made him want to plant flags in new territories and babies in her belly. That wasn't supposed to happen.
But Death was designed to feed Life. It's why vampires were an abomination to other demons and humans alike. They were cheaters holding back their flesh from decay. They drank Life's blood and gave nothing in return. That was their true evil.
True Evil finished his cigarette, got up and decided to call it a night, but the closer he got to the dank hole he called home the more he sensed trouble. Not the big, Slayer's come to stake me good and proper trouble, and nothing that might involve demons with wings, but a lesser form that he wasn't sure he had the juice for.
Ah yes, there was trouble now, milling about the place, reeking of marijuana and hormonally charged perspiration overlain with various ineffective stopgaps - Arrid Extra Extra Dry, Herbal Essence shampoo and conditioner, Apricot Bodywash, and Stridex medicated acne pads. Everyone shushing everyone else - in shushes loud enough to wake even the most sincerely dead. Squeals of fake terror, the wicked laughter of boys tormenting girls, and entirely too many of them doing the Transylvanian accent, and oh, bloody hell, not the Time Warp dance!
You'd think the Sunnydale public schools would start providing mandatory Demon Awareness courses or something. At least hand out vampire survival kits along with the bucket loads of free condoms. The little morons probably hadn't come prepared with those either.
Well, kiddies, school's in session. And you've just put Mr Spike in a very foul mood.
Dawn was starting to panic. Outside her new friends were making noises about coming inside and Patrick was already inside touching Spike's things. She knew Buffy's patrolling schedule varied, but was pretty confident Shady Rest had already been swept clean of vampires and other nasties. Spike didn't have much tolerance for the newly risen on his turf, so doubly safe. Even so, she knew things that her friends didn't. Aside from way too much information about demons, she knew what she was doing was wrong, not for the usual "borrowing without asking first" reasons, but for reasons of trust and betrayal and who the hell were these people that she got talked into this?
"Wow, for a transient he lives pretty good."
"Uh, yeah." The flashlight's beam swept across the floor, over the sarcophagus and back again. Jack Daniels, Jack Daniels, he always had JD somewhere...maybe downstairs, but she couldn't-
Patrick opened the fridge.
"No. Don't!"
"Cool. He's got vodka in the freezer. And Popsicles!"
Dawn took a deep breath. Either Spike didn't have blood in fridge or Patrick was too stoned to notice. "Okay, grab the vodka and let's-no, leave the Popsicles!"
"Why?"
Because those are mine. For me. He gets them for me.
Had to go and tell them, didn't you? Ooh, I know where we could get some hard liquor. I know a guy who lives in a crypt. Could've just said no. Just say no, Dawn. Say no to people who decide you're cool enough to hang with them because of a couple detentions. Say no to boys who want to steal your Popsicles and get into your pants. Just say no.
"Because he'll be back soon," she said, suddenly testy.
"It's not even three yet. You said he wouldn't be back until right before sunrise."
"Sometimes he comes back sooner. And-and like I told you before, he has a gun."
"You think he'd just start shooting?"
"Maybe. He's crazy."
Patrick raised the vodka bottle and shook it at her. "Yeah, but this isn't enough for all of us."
Outside, the sound of their friends being loudly sneaky suddenly quieted down.
"Well, I'm not gonna have any, so-"
"Cool! A ladder."
"No! Don't go down there. It-it just leads to the sewers. There's nothing-"
Outside, someone whimpered, someone squealed. "Eric, you asshole! That's not funny-" A scream. More screams. Running. What part of 'stay together and be really quiet' did they not understand? They were in a graveyard in Sunnydale, for God's sake!
"The sewers?" Patrick said. "Hey, maybe they lead to the school. We could break in or something." He rushed to the door, shouting. "Hey you guys-"
She spotted a bottle of Jack Daniels on a pile of books next to the ratty old chair, scooped it up and shot after him.
"Got it!" she cried and ploughed straight into a statue. A statue that grabbed her by one arm and started shaking her. The flashlight fell out of her hand and rolled away. Her other fist was paralysed around the neck of the bottle.
Oh god. She'd got them all killed. She could almost hear the countless vampires who weren't supposed to be around tonight sucking the life out of all her friends. She herself was probably about to be dragged into the lair of some demon overlord that needed virgins for a ritual sacrifice to raise his dark god. She was going to die a virgin! And for what? The chance to ride around in a Mercedes SUV with people she barely knew who smoked way too much pot and were therefore stupid enough to follow her into a graveyard at three in the morning.
But in the next moment she realised her situation was far far worse.
"Please don't tell Buffy. Please, please, please don't tell Buffy...please don't tell Buffy, please..."
"Buffy is the least of your problems, darlin'," Spike said. "Seeing as how I'm perfectly capable of beating your pretty little bottom myself." He half-shoved, half-tossed her through the door, managing to catch the bottle of Jack Daniels that slipped from her stiff fingers before it hit ground.
"In my day caning was the thing. Or switches - well, more like trees is what they were; cut your backside to ribbons. My father beat me with a fishing pole once. The sound of that slicing through the air before it landed, there's a sound you don't soon forget."
Spike's voice was tight, clipped and he was pacing around, his movements scattering the candlelight, his fists clenching and unclenching, and his eyes scanning surfaces and dark corners with all the appearance of actually looking for a cane or switch or fishing pole. Dawn hunched down farther into the chair, convincing herself that this was another one of those threats he couldn't carry out like tearing her head off and sucking on her brain stem. But he looked so angry, the kind that was cold and focused and came out of fear and hurt and it wasn't possible he was actually going to hurt her because he couldn't, right? That night last week, that was just a weird fluke. He'd been in a lot of pain and what was a headache on top of all the rest of his pain? That's what she'd convinced herself of later, why she didn't tell anyone. But he hadn't been angry with her really, not then. And she'd never seen him angry like this before, so when he touched his belt buckle like he was considering that as an option a whimper slipped out. Once she thought it was sexy when he shoved his thumb in his belt buckle in that half-conscious way, even though it also embarrassed her, but now it was just making her legs shake.
Okay, but he couldn't actually do anything anyway. This was just a bunch of crap. And even if he could - well, so what? He was going to spank her like a child? Get over yourself, Spike. I'm fifteen and I'm sorry, it was stupid, yes, but jeez! She hadn't been spanked since that time at Nordstrom when she was five and she rode the escalator up to the third floor when her dad's back was turned and played hide and seek in the women's evening gowns with her sticky hands full of butterscotch dumdum. Her dad had been mostly scared, but it was the angry she remembered and the three pretty hard swats on her bottom. But no way was Spike going to do that because she was way too old. The caning talk was rattling around her brain though, especially the kind of caning where you really couldn't sit down, but had to lay on your stomach for days like they did to that kid in Malaysia or wherever, the one who spray-painted graffiti on a car. That was so not happening to her. He was just trying to make some stupid adult type impression on her and where did he get off acting like a grown up? He was her evil Peter Pan. Unfortunately, right now he just looked like a man, a grown-up man, who was really really pissed off, and maybe more than pissed off but she didn't want to examine that too closely.
If he took off his belt she was going to pee her pants, or worse, fall to her knees wailing "Not the belt, not the belt!" which would be the crowning humiliation of the whole horrible night. Perhaps an apology was in order.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I didn't mean to-"
Blinding swift, vampire quick, he was in her face, "Shut the fuck up!" then he hit her - smack, a sharp thump of a blow to the side of her head, shocking enough without the messing up of her hair, making the tears fly out of her eyes and the squeal come out of her mouth. Not nearly as hard as he wanted to smack her, and terrifying because he looked like it was taking all his effort not to hit her again and much harder.
"Shut up! You don't get to talk! You're obviously too high to form cogent thoughts let alone speak any."
He'd dropped the rough accent and was using complete sentences. This was so not good. She rubbed her head and sucked in snot and tears. "I'm not high." Her voice came out much more whiny than she wanted it to considering-
Oh my god. He hit me. Oh my god, oh my god. He can hit me.
"Did I say you could talk? Did I? NO!" Her heart was pounding too hard and fast now. She drew her knees up and kept her eyes down, down. "Not high, not drunk, just stupid. Must've left your brain in the Deadhead mobile with all the other brains no one was using tonight." He was pacing again, with a fury and tension she hadn't seen in forever. "And fuck, why do I even care about your scrawny hide anyway? Stupid little girls like you deserve to die! I should know. I've killed my share."
Sobs came bursting through the lips she'd been pressing together. Suddenly he was in front of her again, leaning in, face too close to her face. She couldn't look at him, tried to suck in the little wheezing sobs. "You wanna die, Dawn? 'Cos I can oblige you now. Or better, I can make you just like me." She tried to shrink, make herself tiny, invisible, but he grabbed her chin and forced her face up. She slid her eyes away, avoiding his. They burned like dry ice. "Would you like that, baby? Show you all the nasty things I know? The fast kill. Or the lovely slow kill. Show you how to make your victims suffer for days. Get the kind of screams that crawl under your skin and ring inside your skull for an eternity. And so many other things." He pushed tear-damp hair away from her cheek, and she shuddered. Wanted to stick her fingers in her ears and squeeze her eyes shut but his voice slid in, paralysing her. "You know if I turn a virgin I get to break her cherry every night forever. Until I get bored. Then-bam!" He clapped his hands before her face and the sound echoed, hollow and chilling, and she wanted to scream but no sound would come out. "Stick a pointy in your heart. Chain you up and hang you out for the sun to dry."
He straightened and she could feel him looking down at her, feel the tremors in his body rattling her own bones like little earthquakes, which is why she finally looked up. "That's what happens to stupid little girls like you, pet."
His head was cocked in that way he had and she could tell by the set of his jaw he'd only banked the coals of his fury, but he wasn't as mad.
She sucked in a shaky breath, and snarled, "I hate you."
"I hate you more, you inconsiderate, presumptuous little twat. You've abused our friendship. Which pains me even to say because it makes me sound like a fucking nance. And now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to chain smoke for a bit before taking you-"
The door flew open and Buffy stood on the threshold with a loaded crossbow.
"-home."
~Hard Shiny Pretty~
The Angel of Death was wearing her soul on the outside like a suit of armour, a blinding nimbus with a Buffy coloured spot in the middle. Warrior of the people here. Protector of Life in all its messy glory, humming with power, one finger on the pulse of her humanity and the other poised over a hair trigger.
This is another one of those moments that goes on forever isn't it? An infinite moment in which to remember and reflect. Good things. I should concentrate on good things...
Blooming onions. Blood. Blood. Guinness. Peanut butter. Good. First kiss behind the Bronze. Astonishing. Good. Tongue circling the bruised-plum blush of Drusilla's areola. Blood. First cigarette after three rounds of the most amazing, brilliant all night shag fest one good day of his entire existence. Best cigarette EVER Trembling hand on her bosom, and he doesn't notice her heart isn't beating, how could he when between his palm and her flesh are layers of fabric and corset stays and his own fevered imagination, and "yes, oh yes," she knows what he wants. He wants to be what she sees in him. Tiny bottle blonde bouncing on the dance floor with her friends, all smiles and giggles and teenaged joy. This Barbie-doll cheerleader is the Slayer? Hot damn. "What happens on Saturday?" "I kill you." Saturday in the Harris basement prison, a brief respite from despair with a Mel Brooks marathon and a rare moment of male solidarity. Willow sighing in exasperation, "If you guys replay that campfire scene one more time I'm going to cut off your hands." Up to his elbow in flesh and bone, fingers closing round the heart and pulling. Dawn laughing at something he said should I start this program over? during the long bad summer and the pulse pounding at her throat and his fangs tingling to come down and doesn't she smell delicious and the punch in the arm she gave him for no reason before flouncing off to the kitchen for another diet soda to go with her Cheetos and Chips Ahoy. Hot blood coating the roof of his mouth, sliding down his throat, filling him with delicious languid heat, an island of marshmallow goo floating on a mug of hot chocolate-
"Get away from her Spike."
No wait! I need to remember more. More than Mel Brooks and breasts and blood and laughing and peanut butter-
"Hello," Dawn drawled, "he's like standing all the way over there."
"Be quiet, Bit."
Buffy gestured with the cross bow that he should move farther away from her sister. He complied, eyes tracking the tip of the arrow winking at him in the candlelight. Not in front of her, for Christ's sake. "Can we take this outside?"
Oblivious and self-involved as befitted her age, Dawn nevertheless picked up on the vibe. She looked at him, to him, her voice rising in both pitch and shakiness. "Why is she--? Don't tell me she's gone all loony tunes again, because I'm really getting sick of-"
"Dawn!" They both shouted at the same time.
"Get over here by me. Now." Buffy said.
She scrambled from the chair automatically, but her mouth was still moving. "I wanna know what's going on. What are you doing? What's happened? Buffy, tell me what's going on!"
"Slayer," Spike said. "Outside. Please."
"Shut up!" The cross bow jerked dangerously.
"Oh my God, Spike," Dawn said. Her knees buckled and then she was sitting on the hard floor looking up at him, eyes all glittery from tears about to spill. "What have you done?"
His own eyes ached, sought relief and solace in the dark places. But there weren't any left. Every corner was illuminated, too bright and sharp as glass. He gazed at the toes of his boots, comforting sooty black, and the curse of irony reared its mocking head. He hadn't done a sodding thing he'd intended to do tonight. Nothing to show for his freedom but a carton of smokes, bruised knuckles, and an empty belly. He started to laugh.
"You think this is funny you son of a bitch?" A chink in the Slayer's armour. Oh. This was going to hurt her. Hurt like hell. He was such an idiot.
Even the Hellmouth has symmetry, Spike. Evidenced by the number of alleyways in this, its favourite little burg. In Sunnydale's alleys worlds met, touched, moved through or passed each other by. Sometimes it hurt. Sometimes you died. In these alleys you traversed one state of being to another.
Each blow from their fists was a benediction, a promise, a paid-in-full marker stamped on his flesh. Bruises, breaks, rends and tears, great gaping holes illuminated by cold white light and pointed out with the dull blades of their fingers. Reciting for him the litany of cruelties, suffering, and tolls for the dead like an epic poem. A hundred odd years of karmic payback in under an hour. And all he had to do was take it like a man. Of course no man could have taken it and lived.
Like for like. Blow for blow. Cause and effect. Fists and fangs and cocks. This is the ugly death you gave to many. This is the sweet death you promised some. Feel that? And that? This is the living blood of a Warrior on your dead tongue. This is your first kill. This is the throat you tore last. This is the beating heart in your hand. This is the neck you snapped. The back you cracked. Entrails round the mulberry bush. This is the boy that soiled himself while you laughed. These are your teeth in the apricot girls. This is your prick in the plums. This is the foetus you ripped from the womb. Your mother's womb, your wife's, your sister's, your daughter's. This is the grave they lie in. You are the man that mourns them. Feel that? Helpless, humiliated, terrified, and outraged. Pissing yourself before you die. And this and this and this. Like for like in multitudes.
Multitudes and all their kin. Tens of thousands written in pain and painstakingly recounted for his edification. Too big to fit inside his head yet he absorbed it in seconds. They take his trophy and with it, the false security of his imposed conscience. Hands stroking him with the dispassionate compassion of omnipotence.
Hush. Why do you weep? They're only symbols. Like for like. This is the freedom you wanted, the freedom you claimed was owed you. Impatient creature. We've done as you asked. Every step you take from this moment forward you take of your own free will.
And he'd cursed them, because he couldn't even stand up. Now, tonight, he cursed the curse of pitiless options and choices. Inside him, the demon kicked and screamed like a two year old throwing a tantrum. Tara was right. He was a chickenshit bastard and he was going to die for that reason alone. Bloody fucking ironic, that.
"You're all chip-loose and fancy free now, right?" Her voice called him back. Another laugh escaped him. Dry and weary. Not a nice sound. Not nice at all. Jesus, he was tired. The Buffy spot inside the armour trembled, too much emotion for her little body to hold and her voice scraped across his eardrum like chalk on slate. "Had anyone good to eat tonight, Spike?"
"What?" Dawn squeaked. "No! No way! Tell her it isn't true. Tell her!"
"Doesn't matter. Your sis here has to consider the possibility of a pre-emptive strike regardless. Am I right, Slayer?"
"You're not even going to try to fight me are you? Just stand there and let me-"
"I've been fighting all night," he said. Don't look. Don't look. "Bit knackered."
The arrow shot past his ear and bounced harmlessly off the wall some distance behind him. He applauded himself on the lack of noticeable flinching. She dropped the crossbow, reached around and pulled a stake from the waistband of her hip-hugging jeans, twirled it in her tense little hand. "Too bad. Come on, Spike. Make it worth my time."
"Stop it!" Dawn cried, springing to her feet again, eyes zeroing in on first one then the other. "Just stop it!"
"Outside then! I'm not doing this in front of -"
"And have her blame me for the rest of my life? Oh no. Huh uh. If you're going to force me to be your executioner, she might as well watch you roll over and show me your belly." She started bouncing on the balls of her feet finding her balance, stake moving from hand to hand. All ready to rumble, and firing words at him like spit balls. "Tara called me. But then you knew she would. You were counting on it just like she said." He turned away from her but she circled with him, sights locked on, dancing at the edges of his vision. Squeezed his eyes shut tight, tighter. But unless he plugged his ears and sang la la la, he wasn't shutting out that voice. "I spent most of the night tracking the path of your little rampage. Didn't find a single blood-drained corpse." A pause. "Mary Thanh says hi by the way."
He opened his eyes and tried to give her a cool look, but there was a force gathering at the base of his spine, and something else wriggling in his gut, and an altogether different feeling growing in the region of his solar plexus, volatile chemicals that should not be mixed.
"You haven't fed tonight." She peered at him. "You haven't eaten for days. Think I can't tell? Vampire slayer, remember?"
"So slay already! Quick yapping at me."
"You. Fucking. Coward."
"I can't do this! You know I can't do this. The chip doesn't work. That's all! I didn't grow a sodding soul. I'm a hundred forty-eight year old horny kid with no fucking patience and the impulse control of a toddler! I'll bollix it up. You know I will. You'll have to do it eventually and it'll be worse then-"
"Flatter yourself much?"
"I know you, Buffy. You waited too long with Angelus. You can't afford to do that with me."
Her eyes crackled and her whole body went rigid and he knew he'd hit his mark. He braced himself automatically. Here it comes. And waited. And waited a bit longer. Heard her suck in a breath and let it out slowly.
The stake clattered across the floor and rolled to a stop against his boots.
"Fine," she said through clenched teeth. "You can fall on the sword your own damn self. We'll tell everyone what a noble sacrifice you made and come back in the morning to sweep up your remains. Let's go, Dawn."
No. No, no, no!
"Bitch!" Blindly kicking at the sharpened stick. "Bitch, bitch, fucking bitch! Why can't I make it clear to you? They-they took away this tiny bit of technology then shoved the whole bleedin' world up my arse! I can't fit the whole world inside me, all right? I'm not you! I can't be all constipated with the world and people and feelings about people I don't even know. I have room for you and the Bit. No more. Maybe Glinda. But that's it!"
She turned to look at him, one hand on the door and Dawn's hand clasped in the other. He felt compelled to add, "Okay, yeah, Mary Thanh maybe. Not her father or brother though because they're arseholes--"
And he hated that Miss Buffy Summers could look at him with such angelic forbearance, profess to love the world enough to save it half a dozen times and still never say she loved him. Where was the justice?
Suddenly, he was on the floor. Full of self-pity, mad as hell about it and at the same time not giving a good goddamn how it looked, sitting there blubbering like a baby. Ought to teach a class at the community center in the art of being a conflicted wanker.
"Buffy..." Dawn's voice was a soft entreaty. A beat, then the purposeful march of Slayer soles across the concrete and Dawn's lazier lope of a stride shortly after. They plopped themselves down on either side of him. Buffy sat yogi fashion hands curved into lotus blossoms resting on her knees. Dawn drew her knees up to her chin, and proceeded to pick at the loose rubber on her Sketchers. A vaguely companionable silence followed while they waited for him to stop emoting.
Finally Buffy ventured, "Maybe this is low blood sugar or something."
"Ha bloody ha." He tugged the hem of his shirt out of his jeans and wiped his face. Felt her arm sneak around his back and give him a couple of pats on the shoulder before departing again.
"Still, you should drink something besides whiskey or bourbon or whatever. Maybe if you got a microwave, you know, heat it up? Wouldn't be so repulsive."
"Had one. Kept blowing the circuit that runs the fridge."
"Dawn, make yourself useful and get Spike a mug of yuck."
"Okay," Dawn said, climbing to her feet. "My butt was starting to get cold anyway."
"Oh yeah. That reminds me. What's my sister's butt doing here at three in the morning?"
"Um...well, funny story actually."
"No it isn't. And I already thumped her for it."
"Thumped her? You mean you hit her?"
"Yep."
"You hit my sister?"
"You wanna field this one Niblet?"
Dawn ducked down behind the refrigerator door and the sounds of things being shuffled around could be heard. The shuffling went on for quite some time considering there were only three things on the shelf. But Buffy couldn't see that. "It's no big deal. We had a disagreement."
"And he hit you?"
"I said it's no big deal." The fridge door slammed shut. "Mug. Mug. Where is that mug?"
"Christ girl, just fess up. Don't make me the nark here. Goes against my nature."
She looked at Buffy briefly before her eyes sidled to a bit of crumbling plaster. "Nothing happened, all right?"
Spike gazed at her unblinking for a moment then sighed. "'S like this. Carload of teenage tossers smoking weed decide to party in the cemetery. One of the partiers raids a certain crypt of a certain vampire in her acquaintance. Why? Because he has booze. Vampire scares the shit out of the others. Knocks Dawnie upside the head for being a stupid git. End of story."
Dawn's entire being radiated condemnation. Judas! her eyes accused, back-stabber, really mean guy who is in no way ever to be considered a friend of mine again - until she caught sight of Buffy's expression. A great tsunami of never-ending lectures and grounded for eternity would be crashing over her soon.
"Or, you know, he could just thump me a couple more times and we'll call it good."
~Illumine~
There's a fist in my head
Dreams in my fist
Eyes in my sex
Sex in my mouth
You don't know.
_~Sam Burnett~_
By the time they reached Revello Drive Spike had come to the conclusion that had he lived to father children he would have been exactly useless in anything requiring consistent, firm discipline. Sure he could knock the kid upside the head for being an idiot, but unless it involved manacles, cattle prods, and overwrought declarations of undying devotion to his Beloved, tough love was not really his forte. A mere whimper from Dru and he'd caved. A crook of Buffy's little finger and he caved. Dawn's stricken look when Buffy declared, "forget that phones were even invented, because you'll never get to use one again!" made him want to buy the girl milkshakes and whatever latest fad fashion her little heart desired just to remove the expression from her face. He was the King of Cave.
The torturous existence Buffy devised for her darling sis would've made Angelus right proud. During the walk from the cemetery the list of things Dawn would not be allowed to do and the various unpleasant chores she would be required to do had grown from no trips to the mall and washing up after supper every night to what amounted to a four month house arrest with a year's indentured servitude on the side - Dawn screeching about the injustice of it all and Buffy screeching back, "fine, maybe I should just let Spike beat your ass bloody then?" to which Dawn replied that at least she'd be able to have a life afterwards. Which was a very good point, but since his anger had cooled he wouldn't have been able to do it anyway, so it was just as well the option wasn't really under serious consideration.
"You have about two hours to sleep before school," Buffy said, unlocking the front door and flinging the keys onto the table.
"I don't have school." The word "bitch" was implied but not vocalized. "It's a teacher planning day remember?" The word "moron" was also implicit.
"Fine. You can start your lack of a social life right away then. Go upstairs and go to bed."
Stomping up the stairs followed.
He'd wisely refrained from comment. "I'm gonna head out."
Buffy looked at him, startled, as if he'd just said something nonsensical. "The sun's almost up. Just crash in the basement. Bed's still there."
He congratulated himself on keeping the surprise out of his voice when he said, "All right. Thanks."
And so here he was, in the basement where it was dark and cool and smelled of damp cement. Not sleeping. When the door at the top of the stairs creaked open, he thought he should pretend to be sleeping, but in a moment she was standing at the sofa bed in her terry cloth bathrobe with a towel turban on her head and he couldn't have closed his eyes if he wanted to. Her face was scrubbed shiny, and though her eyes were tired, she looked painfully young to him. She snatched at the towel and started rubbing her hair into a tangle.
"Hey," she said. "Hey," he said back. After that, everything happened really fast and also with a languorous sticky slowness, his legs seeming tangled and dream fleeing, his hands flopping on the flowered sheets like unwieldy moths, body and mind shorting each other out, and all because her lips were pressing kisses to the tip of his prick. Fortunately his prick knew what to do and happily stood up and said hello to the rest of her mouth. And it was good, good, good. Afterwards she lay with her head on his stomach, hair cool and wet, cheek warm, her fingers threaded through his pubic hair. Oh, he had questions, even suspicions, but he wasn't about to ask. Instead he slept.
He awakened to the bang of the washing machine lid and Willow's whispered hiss, "Shit." She looked over and caught his gaze. "Sorry."
"'S okay. What time is it?"
She spun the dial and started the machine. "A little before nine."
"Oh." He sank back into the pillows and closed his eyes. Then shot up with a start. "At night?"
"Yeah. I'm surprised you were able to sleep so long what with stompy-girl flinging herself around upstairs." Dawn he assumed. "Some of us were being quiet so's not to wake the dead - and hey, the dead is looking mighty refreshed as a result, I must say." Nothing like a blowjob and 15 hours of uninterrupted slumber, he thought. She was grinning at him and he experienced the odd twinge of embarrassment like she knew what had gone on down here in the wee hours. Then he noticed the wooden cross, gripped with a white-knuckled tension in her fist. Apparently, she knew something. The hand holding the cross gestured at the sorted piles of clothes on the floor. "I couldn't wait any longer. No clean underwear. Magic moratorium." A heavy sigh. She hopped up on the washing machine and eyed him, cross tapping nervously against the shiny white surface. "Did you know that sometimes you breathe when you're sleeping? Rapid eye movement too."
"Draw up a chair and watch? People say I'm creepy."
"Do all vampires do that in their sleep?"
"Couldn't tell you. I don't know all vampires." He scrambled for his jeans on the floor and struggled into them under the covers. "I think it's an autonomic motor response. Some bit of the brain stem doesn't know the body is dead. So the occasional urge to breathe. As for the dreams... dunno. We could get into a philosophical, metaphysical discussion about the mind not being the brain, but-"
"When did you become Mr. Science and Philosophy?"
"Immortality has been more than usually boring for the past two years. I read a lot. Watch the Discovery Channel." She stared at him, a mixture of curiosity and alarm. "What? I can't be multi-faceted?"
She looked down at her swinging feet.
"Has she gone out already?" he asked.
"Who? Buffy? She's at work. Should be home pretty soon actually."
"Dawn's still here though."
Willow laughed. "Can't you feel the suffering? The rage? The misery?" She pointed a finger up indicating the music coming from the kitchen. "I think it's Nine Inch Nails." The volume increased suddenly. "Yup. Definitely. Yours?"
"I was introducing her to the classics." He shoved his feet into his boots, but didn't bother to lace them up. "My mistake."
"Um...there's... there's a message for you..." She hesitated, coloured up and looked away. "From Tara. For you. On the fridge. She wants you to call her."
"Oh. Why?"
Her eyes were on him again, nothing nervous in them at all now. Fierce, dangerous little eyes those were. "I know you saw her last night," she said. "I know the chip doesn't work anymore. But she wouldn't tell me what happened. How she found out."
"I suppose you'd like me to tell you then."
"Well, see, if you do that she'll think I'm interfering in her business and it'll piss her off. And I'm trying to prove something to her, that I respect her privacy and stuff. But if you hurt her, I'll make you suffer for a long time before I kill you."
"Wouldn't expect anything less. Did she say why she wanted me to call her?"
"She thinks she has a way to find the, um, you know, that night, the whatever they were, which, believe me, I'd be happy to help you with if I wasn't all... screwed up."
He grabbed his shirt and headed for the stairs. "Oh, hell, Red. Who isn't?"
Dawn glanced at him when he came through the door, her fleeting guilty expression immediately replaced with an attempt at cool indifference. She turned away, hair whipping across the cold shoulder she was giving him, and began some furious sponge activity on counter tops.
He went to the refrigerator and pulled the note from under the happy mushroom magnet Stared at it. After last night's epiphany or whatever the hell, there wasn't any reason to pursue-
Well, at least he could call and tell her thanks, don't bother. Don't need to find them. Really. I've figured it all out now. Turned down the volume on the boom box as he went to the phone.
"Hey! I was listening to that!"
"I need to make a call."
She shoved the volume lever all the way to the right and shouted. "Well you don't live here! There's a pay phone at the 7-11."
He turned it down again. "Knock it off Bit."
"My name is Dawn. You may address me as Dawn. Or wait. Since I'm not permitted to consort with vampires and their ilk I think I'd prefer it if you didn't address me at all. EVER." She reached for the volume control again, but before she could, he grabbed the CD player from the counter, jerked the plug from the wall in the process, opened the back door and threw it into the yard. Oh sure, he could have taken the phone into the other room, it being one of those portable sorts, but he just found her attitude annoying.
"I need to make a call."
She stared at him in open-mouthed fury as if none of the invectives forming on her tongue would be sufficient for the Evil that he was. He met her gaze without a flinch, which wasn't all that easy considering he was fighting the urge to slap her silly. Not for the first time in the last 24 hours did he find himself grateful that fatherhood was not in his future. The snap, crackle, pop in her eyes was quenched by a sudden onslaught of angry tears, whereupon she threw the sponge at his head and fled the kitchen. More stomping. The slam of her bedroom door rattled all the windows in the house. That did make him flinch. He eyed the phone in his hand and set it down in its cradle again.
Fuck it. Time to kill something.
He'd found a lovely little nest downtown, quite posh. Three elegant ladies and two nicely dressed gents, running an escort scam, bleeding money from their marks before bleeding them dry. He'd killed them and taken the money. Went to a bar, got a buzz on and then made the rounds of the cemeteries, dusting whatever idiot was foolish enough to cross his path.
He was just toying with this one. "If you minions ever want to get ahead, you have to dress better. Look at me. Timeless, go-anywhere fashion-"
"That's debatable," came a familiar voice from behind him.
"Holy crap. The Slayer!"
Now the little shit starts cowering. Well that won't do at all. "No debate," Spike said, grabbing a handful of elastic waistband as the guy turned to flee. "He's wearing Hammer pants."
"Just dust him already. Quit screwing around."
"You're not the boss of me."
"Real mature."
"Shut up! I was here first. I don't need your running commentary on my technique-"
"You're pants-ing him. What kind of technique is that?"
Spike twisted the fabric in his fist tight enough so that he could lift the fellow off the ground and send him crashing into a tombstone. Hammerpants rolled and was up in an instant, flinging a threat over his shoulder as he ran. "Master Brian will make you pay, traitor!"
Traitor looked at Slayer and both started laughing. Even the minions had minions these days. Master Brian indeed. Laughing slowed their pursuit, macabre giddiness before slaughter. Of course, she wasn't slaughtering her own kind. He stopped running. Let her catch the fellow up and finish the job. He'd done enough for one night.
She found him sitting on the grass, leaning against a monument chosen for its phallic thrust, smoking a cigarette of course.
"Been busy. I could have stayed home and caught up on my sleep," she said, flopping down next to him. "I hear you got plenty of that."
"Yeah. What with the emotional breakdown and then the blowjob." He expected to feel a bit more satisfaction from her noticeable twitch. Took a calculated drag off the cig. "What was that all about by the way?"
"What was what about?"
He debated the best response, settled on an eye roll. The breath from her sigh was a little cloud of annoyance that mingled with the smoke from his cigarette. "Must we analyse everything?" she grumped.
"You broke off with me." The bitter, angst-ridden note in his voice was humiliating. Fuck all. Forge ahead. "And, you know, I'm fine with it - not fine, but dealing well enough and we're doing all right you and me, or as all right as we can get, not friends maybe, but something else that at least isn't vicious, then suddenly you're crawling under the covers and sucking me off. You'll pardon me if I have questions."
"You know, most guys are happy to get a blowjob under any circumstances-"
"With you, it's always a good idea to know the circumstances. That way the circumstances can't come back and bite me in the arse later."
"I didn't hear you asking me to stop!" She shifted, hot with embarrassment now. He could feel it radiating off her body. "I just wanted to, okay. I thought - I thought maybe you...needed it."
"Oh fucking hell. I'm your charity case now, is that it? I suffer a few well-deserved indignities and suddenly you're the Mother Theresa of sexual healing-" Her keen eyes narrowed on him and his mind scrambled back over what he'd just said, what he might have revealed.
"Well-deserved, huh? Let's analyse that why don't we?"
"It's what you already think, what you know in your gut is true."
"You don't know what's in my head or my gut."
"Yeah, Slayer. I do."
"No, you don't! I don't even know what I think or feel anymore. It's all messed up between you and me, Spike, in a way that we - that I can't ever recover from. Don't you see? We've -we've defied the natural order of things. And it's all messed up."
"Well, yeah, but-"
"I'm the Slayer, I don't have the right to judge you."
"What the hell are you talking about? That's what the bloody Slayer does!"
"No- No it isn't! God, don't you get it?" She kicked out, chucking up a clump of grass and soil with the heel of her sneaker. "I don't have the right to judge you, I mean, literally, I don't have the right!" She drew her knees up, wrapped her arms around them, and started rocking. Shit! Oh shit, she was crying. Crying now.
"Slayer...Buffy, sweetheart, what in bleeding hell are you on about?"
"The very fact that you're a vampire means you've already been judged, see. My job is not Judge. My job is to carry out the sentence. I'm just- I'm just the executioner!"
She was crying, so he couldn't say, well, duh. This was obviously terribly significant. It must be. The woman never cried in front of him. His arm reached out-
She turned. "Because of you, who you are, it's all screwed up! I spout judgments all the damn time, I think judgmentally. And nothing's cut and dried anymore. With Angel, soul, no soul. Simple. With you I have to decide everyday, every fucking day, and it's qualitative and messy and not simple-"
His astonishment must have been written all over him, because suddenly her eyes got big and she swiped her hands across her wet cheeks, snuffled. "What? Did I use the wrong word? Qualitative? That's what I mean, isn't it?"
Her intellectual insecurity was unbearably precious. Both arms out now, drawing her to him, soggy face pressed into his shirt. "I don't know baby. Depends on what you're trying to say."
"Like the quality of everything you do. God!" She gulped back on a sob. "Does this action balance out that one. Comparable? Maybe I mean comparable."
"Don't worry about it, sweetheart. I get the drift. I'm pre-judged and yet you judge me. Weighing my actions everyday keeps you from doing your job which is to take me down like the evil scum I am."
She clutched the fabric of his shirt in two fistfuls, a bit of skin as well, and wailed into his chest. "Yes! But I don't want to be your executioner, Spike. I don't! I don't want to be your judge either. And I shouldn't even have to think twice about any of it. I shouldn't be thinking about what a terrible thing it was, what happened to you. Not just a couple of weeks ago, but I mean all of it, being turned and every nasty thing that goes with it. You say it was empowering, but from this side it just looks like a terrible, miserable joke on us. Like me, being the Chosen One but having absolutely no choice in the matter. It's so not fair."
He could have said something about Destiny, knowing a thing or two about it as he did, but instead he just stroked her hair and let her talk. Her frankness was too rare a gift to interrupt with pointless wisdom. She drew in a breath load of snot and misery. "But life isn't fair right. It doesn't matter what I think about any of it. I haven't been able to do my job with you since the day we met, and that's just so fucked up I can't even begin to tell you. And now I'm giving you blow jobs on Xander's old sofa bed in the basement of my mother's house!"
Cripes! No wonder all the lumps in the mattress felt vaguely familiar. She drew back and used her sleeve to wipe her face. And having done so, the face was able to set itself into firm resolve. "But it can't- it shouldn't discount the terrible things you've done to others. Lots worse. Lots worse things and you know it. It doesn't balance out. No matter how we try to make it balance."
He closed his eyes for a moment, wondered if he could look at her, wondered if she would listen now, if it would make any difference. "I need to tell you something. About me. And angels."
High-heeled sandals with wraparound straps were not the best for foraging amongst the topmost stock shelves. Her feet ached, it being the end of the workday, but her ankles still looked lovely if she did say so herself, and the polish on her toenails shone pearl-pink even in the dim light of the basement. Unfortunately, the higher up the ladder, the more wobbly the shoes and the less confident the wearer. Anya decided she needed help.
"I'm willing to trade whatever you're stealing for some much needed assistance," she called, steadying herself as she reached for a plastic storage box.
"Not stealing," Spike said, walking out of the gloomy recesses.
"Oh. Hiding out then."
"Neither. Thinking."
She manoeuvred the box over the edge of the shelf one handed. "There's such a thing as thinking too much, you know."
"That so?"
"Apparently it's just as bad as talking too much."
She heard him laugh softly and then his hands were on either side of the ladder, ostensibly steadying it for her, though the top of his head nearly brushed the cheeks of her ass. She glanced down over her shoulder, and he leaned back, head cocked in its customary fashion, sans customary lewd smirk on the face. Lack of lewd. Huh...
something was not quite right about that.
The box slid out too far over her head and tipped and toppled. He caught it as it dropped.
"I wouldn't know, of course," she said climbing down again. "About thinking too much, I mean. At least, according to Xander and Willow. And Giles, when he was here."
"Does it bother you? Their opinions?"
"Sometimes." She took the box from him and as soon as she looked in his eyes she felt sad. Her own sad. And his. She said what she felt. "Do you believe there really is such a thing as unconditional love?"
His whole body clenched like a fist, but just for a fraction of a second, then he shrugged. "Doubt it. Always conditions of some kind, right?"
"Not if it's unconditional. That's what unconditional means. Without conditions."
"Yeah. I'm not saying you can't love the whole package, see the person you love exactly as they are and love 'em for everything they are, good, bad and all points in between. I'm just saying, you'd have to love yourself pretty much...well, unconditionally, or you'd never be at peace with it. Always trying to please, hoping to get the same back."
"Hope is the oldest curse of all. Supposedly. D'Hoffryn claimed to know the nephew of the all powerful demon who first cursed humanity with it."
He snorted. "Demons are so full of crap. Almost as bad as humans. Unconditional love, my arse. Where do they get off?"
She considered this a moment then put the box on the floor. A sudden pressing need to challenge the inexplicable melancholy she felt in his presence came over her and she brushed the dust from her hands and placed them on her hips. "What about babies? Unconditional love is a biological necessity for survival of their- my - species. Why else would they-? I mean, when you consider the pain of childbirth - Baby heads aren't really all that small you know. And there's the ignominy of expressing breast milk every morning before you go to work just so your child can thrive on the superior nutritive value of breast milk - what?"
He was smiling now. "Harris is an idiot and he doesn't deserve you."
"That's not - that's really... nice of you to say actually."
"Calls 'em like I sees 'em."
"I kissed Rupert." It seemed important to tell him this, though judging from his expression it was not so shocking an admission she knew it would be for the others.
"Yeah?" he said with just a little lift of his brow.
"He kissed me back too. When we thought we were engaged. Xander doesn't know."
"Wouldn't advise you to fess up on that one."
"Oh, no! But it was a very passionate kiss. And it got me wondering. How could I have those feelings for him and not be aware, not know? I'm not afraid to have feelings or to express them. Ever. So why didn't I know I felt that? Did he know? Was he just really good at hiding it?"
"He's old school British, luv. The only time they're not repressing is when they're drunk." A wink and grin. "'S why we drink so often and so much." He jerked his chin toward the stairs. "She up there?"
"Yes."
"This cool with you? Using the shop?"
"As long as you clean up after." He looked nervous and she had to ask. "You're really going to try to call upon the Luminati?"
"Uh, no, Tara is."
"Yes, yes. But why?"
"Right now, not really sure."
Anya patted him on the shoulder. "Understandable," she said. Four pats seemed sufficiently comforting. She added another one for good measure. "They're unbelievably terrifying."
She picked up the box and headed up the stairs. After a moment he followed.
~Radiance~
and you know what I miss most about that time?
was the quality of blackness
it was soft somehow in the absence of fear
you could take it into your mouth
and send it out through your teeth
_~Jane Siberry~_
In the training room he found Tara moving with the slow purposeful grace of someone thoroughly grounded in her Earth Mama persona. She was lighting the wicks on brand new candles - dozens of fat columns in soft white and dull black. Those were going to set him back a few bucks. Anya undoubtedly had an accurate tally in her little file box beneath the counter up front. Usually he ripped 'em off - not from the Magic Box (well, not so many at a time), or he bought boxes of cheap tapers from factory liquidations and 99cent stores. But this sort of magic didn't work with stolen components. With White Magic, if you haggled the price you were likely to get bargain basement results. The Dark Arts were strangely more rigid, what with their ritual sacrifices and tedious incantations, but the results were showier, quicker, and seemed, on the outset, easier to achieve. Still, if you needed the invocation of Meririm found only in a 16th century grimoire of excommunicated Cardinal Nicos which you foolishly left in a hotel room in Paris in the 1950's and decided to use a similar invocation out of Bellecourte's Compendium instead because it happened to be in the local library, well sir, your plan to unleash a pestilent curse through Sunnydale's water supply was bound to be less than completely effective. He learned that lesson the hard way.
Learned all his lessons the hard way.
Tara turned to him, smile on high beam. Damn. She looked positively serene. Too serene. None of the tremulous uncertainty she showed any other time. Irritation flared up in his chest pushing the fear to one side momentarily. What right did she have to be so fucking serene when the Big Bad was standing here quaking in his boots? Did she not know what fearful thing she was about to do?
"Ready?" she asked.
"No." The word came out short and sharpish. "Why am I doing this again?"
"I'm assuming it's not to get your coat back anymore," she said still smiling that smile. Well, they could offer to replace it at least, that was just good form. "Find the truth and embrace it. Clarity? Closure?"
"If you start singing the theme song from Touched by an Angel, I'm outa here."
"Spike. You told me you wanted to do this."
No, Buffy wanted him to do this. Talked him into it. 'Cos it was all about her, right? "I have to know, Spike. I have to know or I don't think I can--" Do her bloody job? She didn't have much choice in that no matter what he had affirmed here tonight.
"We can stop right now. You don't have to go through with it."
He made a sweeping gesture indicating the candles and various magical sundries. "Bitch'd still charge me for the stuff."
Tara lush lips curled in a secretive sly-boots manner. Whence this confidence? He tried to focus his predatory instincts on all the sensory clues. Heartbeat, and the whoosh whoosh of blood through her veins, and the phantom tickle of salt and rust on his tongue, and hormones excreted through her pores like a pearly film lain over her skin. Nothing remarkable. He aimed his gaze at her tits, big melon-y handfuls unbound beneath her white gown, but his body wasn't taking the bait. Would not be distracted. He felt at war with his face, muscles betraying him in grimaces and furrows and possibly panicky twitches about the eyes.
He needed to embrace his inner demon and buck the hell up.
"It'll be okay, really." Her voice was smooth, all liquid and amber. "I've set up warders for my protection in case badness shows up." Then she pointed one languid hand at the ring of black candles standing by itself toward the northern-most wall. "And you have your own little circle of safety in case-"
"What? Goodness shows up?"
"You won't get fried."
"You can't summon these things, Glinda. I'm pretty sure of that. Most demons, yeah, you can trick 'em into showing, but-"
"I've got it covered." As if to illustrate her remarkable assurance, she plucked a filmy bit of white silk from the couch and draped it over her head. Looked at him through a veil of white. "I'm all with the-" she began. The veil fluttered and then stuck to her lips. She folded the fabric away from her face in mild frustration. "-with the beseeching and humble entreaty."
She'd taken on a bit of Red's speaking style. That couldn't be good. "Are you sure you should be doing this alone?"
"My mother's helping me."
"I thought your mother was-oh." Well, at least she wasn't channelling Willow.
"Spike. I've got it covered. You'll be safe."
"Could be thinking of your safety, couldn't I now?"
"Really? That's - that's sweet but-"
"Your safety means mine own, pet."
"Right. Got it. Empty your pockets, remove any jewellery. Boots and belt off." He must have been broadcasting a big giant 'huh?' "You can't have anything metal on your person."
"Damn. Gonna have to remove the rod from out my arse then. Should warn you, my spine's likely to collapse as a result."
"Spike. They won't be able to touch you. I promise."
His jaw clenched and then he just shook his head, resigned. She couldn't keep that promise if they decided otherwise.
On the porch steps, Buffy leaned back on her elbows, tipped her head and looked at the stars. Introspective times like this required a cigarette to be truly appreciated Or rather, someone sitting next to her smoking one.
She kind of got the whole cigarette thing at moments like this. The way it must focus you on inhaling and exhaling slow and easy. Except for the cancer causing toxins and the coughing part it was probably a very relaxing thing to do. The tip glowing and burning, smoke curling up into the air, you sitting on the earth and maybe getting a little teary eyed. Elemental contemplation. Downright spiritual. Except, not. She sighed.
Damn. Wish I hadn't talked him into doing this summoning thing.
He'd been so...scared, even while pulling himself up and saying, "if it's that important to you then I'll give it a go." And yes, she was feeling a little guilty about that tonight because if Spike was scared then these angels must be bowel-loosening scary. But of course, they would be to him wouldn't they? If they were, in fact, angels.
So. Not angels. Demons. That glowed. Much easier concept.
"I need to tell you something. About me. About angels..."
"About...? About Angel's what?"
"What...? Not bloody Angel! If I'd meant Angel I would have said the bleedin' pouf, or Peaches Galore, or-"
"You mean real angels? Like angels on high and aaaahhhh..." She did her best impersonation of a heavenly choir.
He covered his ears and when that failed covered her mouth. "Stop. For the love of-"
"You and angels? Cloud sitting angels with halos and wings?"
"Not the golden-haired faux-Victorian dollies you put on top of the sodding Christmas tree," he said. "These were the real thing. Powerful. Eternal beings. Not like us - not like vampires I mean."
"Uh, yeah, cuz like - angels. Opposite of evil."
"Oh look, she's read Metaphysics for Dummies. Bully for you." He took a deep calming breath as if he actually needed one. "You read the bit about the difference between immortal and eternal then?"
"Must've skipped that chapter."
"Vampires are immortal beings. Not eternal. We don't we don't die like we're supposed to."
"Ri-ight, part of the whole vampire sales pitch, isn't it? Live forever. Stay pretty. Guess that means no slaying of angels for me then. I can still kill vampires though." She waggled her brows. "You for instance."
"No. You can end my existence. Not the same thing."
"Aargh...is this conversation gonna be all existential...ly? Cuz that stuff gives me a headache."
He manoeuvred her body so she was leaning back against him and started to rub her temples - just enough pressure from his thumbs, his fingers spread over her skull, buried in her hair. "Relax and listen." Lips brushing her earlobe, "I promise if your brain starts oozing out your ears I'll push it right back in again." She felt a lovely shiver rush up her spine and out the top of her head. He pulled back a little and let his thumbs move the skin at her temples around in soothing circles. "All right? 'S like this. We - vampires that is - when we're turned we step outside the natural order. We die, but we don't. We cheat life and death alike. But no matter how long we manage to survive in this state, immortality ends eventually. The end will come to all of us. It's just---it isn't death. Death, true death is life recycling energy. Vampires have surrendered that connection. We don't...we don't come back. Not as microbes in the soil or grass or cow's milk or the hamburger you have for lunch that you shit out the next morning."
"Eew. Thanks for the image. Rub it out."
He applied a bit more pressure with his thumbs. "Listen. This is important. Once we're gone, we're gone, right? We're nothing anymore. Nothing at all. You understand?"
She'd started to say something, protest. No, see, there was dust left. She'd breathed enough of it in over the last six years to know there was definitely dust action. That was something, not nothing. "How much nothing? I mean are we talking nothing as in dust in the wind. Or nothing like a void-nothing, like never-existed nothing?"
"More like the void, never-existed bit."
"Oh. That's...that's kind of sad. But people remember you. I mean even if you only exist as bad memories people are desperately trying to forget, you still... Anyway, at least your human soul is free to move on."
The thumbs stopped moving and his hands pulled back, rested on her shoulders for a second before he moved away, pushed and groaned the way people do when their legs have fallen asleep. But his legs didn't fall asleep. She suspected she'd ventured into the Area 51 of the whole sharing experience. His voice was gruff. "Soul-boy tell you that?"
"I don't - I'm not sure. I heard it somewhere. Maybe Giles. When a vampire is made the demon pushes the human soul out and it's goes into limbo or stasis or something. God that sounds so silly when I say it out loud. Why? What do think happens to it when you finally kiss the big stake?"
"How should I know?" There was a sharp edge to his voice. Now he was actually pushing her. Not angry or rough, just pushing her away. It was Marlboro time. "Don't know about all this soul business. Don't know if I really believe in souls."
"Hard to believe in when it's not around to plague you."
"You are a judgmental little bitch." He said it matter-of-factly, not a trace of rancour as he lit his cigarette. "You have no more idea what a soul is than I do. Less I should think."
"I happen to have one."
"Really? Where's it located? What's it look like? What's it do exactly? Does it hop into a new body when the old one's worn out? Does an embryo have one? Is your soul the undiluted eau de Buffy or is Buffy's soul just a tiny part of a vast divine intelligence governing the universe?"
"I...well... I don't..."
"You don't know. You don't know shit because you likely never think about it. And even if you did think about it you still wouldn't know." There was a hint of something in that statement, not cruelty exactly because his voice was too gentle, calm, but it reminded her of what she feared in her secret heart of hearts. That someday he'd learn the art of patience and when he did, the intellect he kept honed and razor sharp in reserve just for moments like this would be the knife he used to kill her.
He lay back in the cool grass, blowing smoke rings at the stars. "I, on the other hand, was a good Christian lad back in the day."
She snorted. "You were not."
"Yes. I was. Well, everyone was back then 'cept for Heathen Darkies, Red Injuns, and Chinamen. Said my prayers every night, went to church twice on Sundays. Had all that soul stuff drilled into me from the time I could sit up and take notice. If you were good, ate all your porridge, weren't wilful or disobedient, helped the less fortunate and kept yourself from impure thoughts your soul went to heaven. Anything else it went straight to hell. There was a popular children's book that described hell in unflinching detail. I remember this one verse, kind of a nursery rhyme that I was fond of, mostly for the sing-song-y rhythm." He paused, eyes focused on the middle distance as he rifled through papers in his brain before reciting.
*"'Satan is glad--when I am bad,*
And hopes that I--with him shall lie
In fire and chains--and dreadful pains.'"
He grinned at her look of horror. "None of that Doctor Seuss nonsense for us. And didn't I make Satan glad, Slayer? Learned to appreciate my chains and dreadful pains, I did. But back then, different story. Trying to hide my impure thoughts beneath layers of romantic nonsense, believing I could give my soul to my beloved along with my heart, like a soddin' engagement ring. I had no more idea what a soul actually was than I do now. I know I felt something...leave...when I died. But it was such a little thing, you know? Such a little tug and snap, it didn't seem important after I'd awakened to a brand new wicked world." He went introspective for a moment then roused himself with wan pluckiness she thought a bit creepy. "Soul doesn't equal Good though. Angel-dearest knows that right well himself. We've lived through too much human history to believe otherwise. So I ask, what is it really? What does it mean? Why does Peaches have this Get Out of Jail Free card with you and I get squat."
She'd avoided examining this for so long that her response was automatically dismissive. "Hi? Blowjob?"
He sighed wearily. "Buffy, damn it, why must you- You're trivializing. Like you always do with me. Forget it, all right. Done talking now."
"Oh god. Oh god."
Tara struck a match, one of those long fireplace sorts. "I'm pretty sure God won't make an appearance."
"Yeah. 'Cos that'd prove his existence and we can't have that." Good one Spike. But the snarky 'tude wasn't doing anything to quell the numb terror creeping into his bones. There were some things that were too boundless, too radiant even for humans to gaze upon without bursting into flames. Surely she realised that.
And he could feel it, a gathering presence as she walked around the ring of black candles igniting each, calling upon energies and forces whose names danced elusively in his mind like fire sprites. A frisson of sublime anxiety, an ionic charge, made his skin twitch and jump. Spots of white light flared, little explosive flashes like the after-image of fireworks behind his wide-open eyes. What was she doing? How could this possibly work? Calling up an energy that was anathema to his kind to protect him from it? That was just crazy. Oh god. She was just a girl. She couldn't possibly hope to contain them with her charms and potions.
His circle was facing north, with sigils and sage and rose quartz between the black candles. It was like socks with sandals. Wrong somehow with the love and the cleansing smoke and devil's hearts. With a white lily lying in the point of the inverted pentagram in which he sat. This couldn't be right.
Tara moved through the thickening air, a dolphin riding waves of light and dark, and he thought he could see her aura, smudged clean all around her, tinted pink and yellow-gold like a tea rose. And she was closing the circle even now, sealing him off, a specimen under a murky glass dome. But it was all illusion. There was nothing that would ever be thick enough, or dark enough that they could not penetrate, nothing between him and the air beyond this ring of candles and the hugeness of space where they would come, they would come to fill the world with all that light and trap him forever beneath the glass, blind and flailing, pinned like a bug to a board-
"Spike!"
Buffy jogged after him, finally had to race to catch up, grabbed him by the sleeve and tugged hard. Goddamn, vampires could move so freaking fast when they'd a mind to. "Spike! Come on. Come on. Stop. Just stop a minute. I didn't mean - look, I'm sorry okay? My bad."
He jerked from her grasp and rounded on her. "And what...I'm supposed to be grateful? Thank you for apologizing to me. That was ever so gracious."
"What did you expect? You went off at a tangent! You were going to tell me something and then you- I hate when you bring him up! You know that. Why do you have to do that?"
"Because it was germane to the topic."
"What does Angel have to do with these angel thingies? I mean he's not one, right?"
He stared at her, open-mouthed stunned disbelief. "Were you listening to me at all? At all?"
"Yes!"
"Eternal beings? Tremendously powerful? Big fucking scary ANGELS!"
She swallowed and heard it echoing inside her head. "Anya called them the Daemon Luminati."
"Yeah. Those. That's what got me in the alley. Not Angel. Not angel thingies. Those."
Oh. And she'd known all along hadn't she? Known since she first heard Anya speak the name they were called and she just couldn't -
She sank to the ground, which happened to be the sidewalk outside the cemetery gates, sat in uncomfortable sprawl just a few yards from the drive with its flanking statuary of nondescript seraphim pointing the way to the parking lot, her mind looping round and round.
"Why?" she asked finally. He was sitting on the curb next to her now, tapping the filter of a cigarette on his thumbnail.
"Apparently, I asked for it. Because I wanted you to love me back."
"Breathe, Spike."
"I don't have to!" He was only reminding her that he didn't technically have to breathe, but the words rang with mortifying Dawn-like petulance.
"Spike," she murmured. "Just breathe."
And he did because it was something, something at last to focus on. Concentrated on the rhythm of in and out, paraffin and beeswax smoke on his tongue and in his nose, eyes closed to make the dark bubble darker, crushing the lily in his fist to his breast like the dead do. Just breathe. And after a while a sound drifted in, like snoring and distant church bells.
She put her head in her hands and shook it mournfully. "Jesus Christ, Spike. Jesus." What had he done? What had she done?
"Buffy, I didn't mean- Not blaming you, or like that."
"I know...but...I mean Jesus! What were you thinking?"
"Don't get me wrong. Not like I prayed or anything. I don't even know how I-I don't know any of this for sure. Only I'd finally got that you couldn't love me. Because it wasn't right. Because of what I'd done and what I'd been. No matter what I did in the present or the future, there was no making up for that in your mind. Didn't matter what was in your heart. You've learned the hard way not to be ruled by that. But I'm immortal, you're not. And I wanted you to love me while we were both sharing the same world. Because we won't meet again. I don't get another chance."
"You don't know that. You just said- all that stuff about souls and...you can't know that."
"Yeah. Yeah, Slayer. Think I do. I suspected it before, but it didn't mean anything. 'Cos I had darkness, my princess, groceries on parade nightly, blood and fags and fists. I had the whole world. So it didn't matter. Now that it does, well," He gave her a smile, grim, melancholy, certain, "it still doesn't matter. This is all I'm ever gonna be. This. Right here. When I go, my soul or whatever it is I surrendered for the chance to strut around in a beautiful corpse, that goes with me. Poof. No more."
His eyelids were so heavy he could only peer through a slit between them. For a moment he couldn't reconcile what he saw with what he was hearing, feeling. Like viewing a desert sunrise through the slats of a window blind. Murmurs that had sounded like sleep and bells had deepened into the floating heaviness of morphine and spine-shaking Chinese gongs.
Stupid, stupid girl.
Tara was kneeling towards the east with her upturned face, veil aflutter and the candles flaring up, spitting and sputtering, casting fewer and fewer shadows on the floor and the walls as the light expanded.
"Zagzagel. Ashriel. Uriel. Raziel." Bloody bloody hell! No!
He stood up, sub-sonic vibrations rumbling beneath his feet, stabbing pain through his temples. NO!
"Nafriel. Lahatiel. Naoutha. Puriel." She was calling them by name! Names of fire and lightning and winds of change.
"Abraxas. Naadame. Rogziel. Hutriel."
Wrath mysteries punishment wisdom division flame and light and light and light and light and
Wings beating so fast the world stopped spinning.
TBC