He has never liked the silence. Silence to him is lack of sound, and lack of *anything* in his opinion, cannot be good. He likes things to be filled. Space with furniture, stomach with fast food, throat with beer and blood, lungs with smoke. Silence with words.

It`s not the talking that he misses so much as...being talked to. Having conversations occur around him. He remembers the decades when their house was never still. When even in sleep he could hear small feet stomp in protest, a low voice rumbling with anger or pleasure, and wicked, gleeful giggles.

Now there is silence. Broken only on occasion by the ludicrous babblings of the blond fledgling he has not killed simply out of...apathy. And now he is certain the old adage is true. The opposite of love is not hate. It is indifference.

It is silence.

It is void.

He keeps the television on all the time now. Even when he lays down to rest. It had worked to keep the dreams at bay for a while. But lately he finds himself needing to turn it up, louder and louder...

//``Are you certain this is the one you want, Drusilla? He`s rather...small.`` Hands lifted his arms, testing their weight and measure. Finding them lacking.

``Oh, Daddy, look..look at his eyes. So blue. Like berries in summertime. `` Soft, cool fingers on his cheeks.

``Dru, his eyes are closed. He`s half dead for godssake.`` Larger hands in his hair, tugged back his head, inspected the wound. ``Must say ya did a fine job though, lass. Best decide soon then. He hasn`t got much longer.``

``I want him Daddy. I want *him*.`` Fingers twirled through his sweat soaked hair. And bells. He thinks he remembers bells.

Puff of air by his cheek. ``Well, boy, consider yerself fortunate then. Myself, I`d have just killed ya. Must be yer lucky moon.`` Bitter liquid forced between his lips, teeth clamping down of their own accord, and shadows swaying...

Then, lost inside the thicket of black and crimson, her voice like carousel horses, colors and revolution... ``Not luck at all. No, my pet,`` she whispered by his ear, `` you see, wounded animals always know who to come to for mercy.`` //

He breathes. Opens his eyes to the inky darkness around him, runs a hand through his hair.

The owl is out there again.

He doesn`t need to get up and look outside to sense its presence. Years of laying with Moon majik and witchery and fuck all Catholic archetypes have left him with the taste if not the desire.

So he knows the continued presence of the godamn bird probably *means* something. But Dru isn`t here, and Angelus isn`t here, and he couldn`t give a fuck-all about mystical symbolism. Owls. Supposedly great hunters, nocturnal and swift, killing skillfully and without remorse. But noone is actually *afraid* of owls. A medium sized harmless black snake draws more girlish terror than a full grown Great Horned Owl, and really, how is that fair? In Spike`s opinion, the gods gave owls a shitty deal in the whole predator department.

Symbolism be damned.

The owl is out there and it will *still* be out there whenever he gets up off this slab of concrete and opens the crypt door.

(((Whenever he can shake off the cobwebs of black lace gloves, and swallow down the taste of flames and blueberries. Whenever he can blink and not see visions of red velvet waistcoats and well-polished riding boots. )))

Let it wait.

Two weeks ago he awoke with hairs standing on end, the thrill ancient and strangely reminiscent.

It was being thirteen, caught with Elsibeth in the alleyway by her mum. It was the hiss of his Sire`s leather belt being slowly stripped from its casings. It was Dru singing nonsense as she cut small stars on his naked flesh with her pearl handled blade.

He threw open his door expecting none and all of them, and there it was. A bird the size of a large dog, sitting motionless on the grave which passed for his front porch and staring at him with eyes the color of lemons.

He hadn`t stopped to consider whether the thing owned a soul before he threw his boot at it. When no blinding headache greeted him he assumed it did not. The owl effortlessly dodged his well placed toss, with a small rustling of feathers and a long, slow blink. He shrugged, and closed the door.

(((Dreamed of an alleyway in London. Of shredded papers and petty, mortal tears. Of small,cold hands around his throat and down the front of his trousers, of the sharpest eyes on his, and the sharpest teeth in his flesh. Of living shadows watching him die. He heard himself screaming, a far away sound, the wail of a giant bird.)))

(((Dreamed of a brutal coupling in the back of a carriage, as it rumbled down the back alleys of Ireland. Of Blood and mastery. Saw dark brown eyes melt into the color of sunshine as the handsome face lowered to his. Searched the amused countenance half-hidden in shadow, felt the breath warmed by a recent feed tickling his ear. Whimsical promises, words of lust.

Whisper. ``William.``)))

He awoke with the taste of soot and Irish Whiskey in his mouth. When he spit on the dirt floor, his saliva was tainted with blood.

He opened his door again later that night and the owl was yet by his crypt, perched on a tombstone, staring at the darkness. On the dry earth beneath it was the remnant of some small animal...a partial pelt of matted fur, viscera covered in red, still blood.

He froze. Swallowed. Muttered a few choice words in its general direction, and stalked off in search of something to hurt. He did not come home that night, �returning instead just before the sun rose, in time to watch the owl take off into the pink and gray sky. Its wings beat a steady, sedate measure in the stillness.

He stood beneath the owl, and watched it rise. That day, he did not sleep at all.

He paced and he cursed and he drank. And the voices were so loud, they were so damn loud...and the volume on the TV wouldn`t turn any higher...

(((They were four, and he was a part, they were Pride and Pack

fuck the vampires as solitary hunters crap. Forever is long. Forever is lonely. Forever is so godamn fucking *quiet*.

fuck the pain that came with it all. It doesn`t hurt nearly so bad when the hand that beats you caresses you afterward. Doesn`t shame nearly so much when the words that fall as easy as the whip are so pure, so sweet, so full of love...

``You bleed so pretty, William. So godamn pretty.``

fuck that the constellation didn`t revolve around him.. let Angelus have it, damnit, let him be the fucking Sun.. it`s too much work and it`s too much bloody responsibility. It was comfort enough just to be within the gravitational pull....

It was hearing a voice in the night. It was knowing what came next. It was rolling over and there was always someone there. It was being full..... )))

His teeth were still humming when he broke into Giles` house and pinched a well worn text on Animal Spirits. Owls. Some rubbish about them being the harbingers of death if they called your name. And he found that oddly amusing, because noone is afraid of owls. Death by Owl. He got a good laugh, and realized he couldn`t even remember the last time he had laughed aloud.

Some voice inside, ((deep inside))..Which one of his names would the owl know him by?

In the end, he couldn`t find anything of greater interest in the book, so he sold it to some demon for money to buy beer, blood and cigarettes.

Ran into the Slayer. Let her hit him. Once. Twice. Again. Only the fists did not uncurl into caresses afterward, and the curses that fell from her lips were not tainted with any sort of lust or affection. Just contempt. Thinly veiled boredom. Indifference.

Harmony arrived that evening. Wearing something flimsy, bearing a bottle of cheap wine, and a fresh kill. Empty stare and cold thighs, but oh so eager, and she always cried out his name.

She let him eat first too. And the blood was almost warm. He drank until he thought he might be sick. It had been so long...And when Harmony came to him, cooed words of comfort and concern, he whirled around, fists in the air, and hit her so hard, she split her head on the concrete.

That night, he slept without dreaming.

The bird re-appeared the next night. And the next. Each night less and less cautious of him. Each night closer and closer to his crypt. On the fifth day he tossed some Mcdonald`s hamburger in its general direction.

Then, it stared at him. Wary, still.

The thing cocked its head to one side, as if in silent debate. Spike watched unblinking as the bird apparently made its choice, and picked up the handful of cooked meat �in its sharp beak.

Something broke inside of him, just then, something old and terrifying, and he fought the horrible urge to cry. He threw another shoe at the owl instead, ignoring its unflinching gaze as he returned to the darkness of his tomb. Harmony`s dried blood still stained the side wall.

(((//Congratulations. Looks like you`re finally one of us.//

How gorgeously ironic that of course, by then, there was no longer an *us* to be a part of. It had already fallen to dust and ashes and ruin, and he was left with unwilling spoils. And no matter how desperately he worked to piece the sandcastle back together again, it was never quite..perfect. It was never how it *was*. �Never a legend like Angelus. Never a champion like Angel. Never a lover like Daddy.

And now.. too light for his Princess, too dark for the fucking Slayer, the television blaring day and night and night and day and it`s not enough either...it is never fucking enough. What he says, what he does, what he *is* will never be *enough*, godamnit.... And this bird, this stupid, random animal, taking him to pieces, and there just isn`t that much left to take...)))

And now it is out there again. Or still. He has lost track.

He stomps to the crypt door with a sigh, throws it open. Looks to the tomb it has claimed as perch for a fortnight. Nothing. Scans the grass, the dirt, the distant darkness. Nothing.

Then he hears it. A small, simple sound. As if whatever is making such a noise cannot summon any other from its throat. He looks down.

Sees it laying there, impaled clean through the shoulder with a large, wooden arrow, its wing fluttering uselessly against the brass point and the dark blood, its eyes glazed and distant. That noise coming from its chest, still nothing at all like a cry.

``Shit,`` scoops it up and carries it inside, listening to the unsteady //thump thump//. Finally, the sound it makes, almost like a wail.

``Well, I`m gonna fix you, ya stupid thing. So shut up and be still.`` Lays it on the flat surface of the crypt, and cocks his head. ``Gonna fix you.``

He binds the sharp beak with a bit of tape and inspects the wound closer. The arrow has pierced muscle and bone, and it doesn`t really occur to wonder who the hell shoots birds with arrows nowadays, because it`s not as if this is the single strangest thing that has befallen him in this stinking town.

He presses his fingers into the wound. The bird won`t be able to fly again, that much is certain. Assuming it lives once he removes the shaft, its hunting days are come and gone...

But hell, apparently it has a taste for McDonald`s, and it seemed bloody well content to hang around before it was injured. It will just have to get used to hanging around after. And to eating take out...

It watches him calmly. It knows.

//Wounded animals always know who to come to for mercy.//

``Gonna fix you,`` he says again. Reaches down, grasps the base of the arrow`s shaft. Holds the animal still. Closes his eyes.

And breaks the owl`s neck.

He doesn`t bury it. Dru would have done that, but he does not. He tosses the body out into the darkness, and lays down on his coat to sleep. He dreams.

Of glass enclosed rooms and the stench of alcohol and ether. Of pain that comes without pleasure. Of screaming without voice, of cries unheard and unheeded. Of starving. He looks up to the tiled ceiling, waiting for the blood bag to fall.

The trap snaps open, but no plastic bag tumbles out. Feathers. Dozens of brown feathers drifting in the airless space, coating his hair and clothing. Tries to stop them, to brush them off, to keep from smothering ...

Looks down and the steel floor is covered in the bodies of owls. They drop from the hole in the ceiling, one after the other, until he is buried to his ankles in their twisted, bloodless corpses. And still they come, raining down on him, while he stands, arms at his sides. Not even trying to stop them as they fall.

*****