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| Loose Ends, Cont'd |
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| He popped the tab on his can and took a healthy swig before casually closing the distance between them. He shoved the second can into the agitated man's hands, took him by a shoulder and propelled him towards and into the chair opposite the sofa. Spike then resumed his previous sprawl on the couch. He waited for the questions that didn't come, and studied the man opposite him, who was alternating between an affectation of cool indifference, taking large swallows of his Red Bull and staring at Spike with surprising boldness, and moments of palpable panic, when his breath would grow short and his eyes would shift rapidly about the room. Those waves of terror lapping at his senses were something Spike used to crave almost as much as he craved the blood that sped through the veins of the terrified. Like an alcoholic, he sometimes still missed it -- or maybe he missed reveling in it. Now it made him uncomfortable. He'd begun this thing, intending to get a kick out of giving the guy a harmless scare, but as his demon began to lift its salivating head, he realized it might just be backfiring on him. 'At's it, Spike, jus' doin' wi'out thinkin' things through....now best defuse this bomb you've set.... He mentally gave the demon a kick in the chops, took a breath, and made an attempt at reassurance. "I said, relax, I'm not goin' t' hurt you...there was a time, but...I'm just indulgin' a curiosity. I'll bet you'd convinced yerself it was all a hallucination, eh? "Well, I wasn't much pissed, but I'd had a bit o'grass, so fig'r'd 't was possible...so, why the fuck are you here?" Even as he was still trying to process what was happening, his fear appeared to be giving way to anger. He got to his feet then, crossing to stand over Spike, punctuating his words with broad gestures of his Red Bull-holding hand. "Since when d'you not 'not hurt' people, eh? 'At's not your way -- I may've been a wild man by times, but you're a fuckin' monster. So, either bite me, or get the fuck out!" At the last he deliberately exposed his neck in Spike's direction, a movement that was accompanied by his trademark curl of the lip, sending Spike into a fit of derisive laughter. "Oh, quit posturin'! It's not goin' to work on me; I bloody invented it! Now, sit down and tell me where you come off goin' about lookin' like me!" " 'S 'at what this is about?" This time, his emphasis was such that some of the drink splashed out of the can onto the leg of Spike's jeans. He paid no apparent mind, however, to the raised eyebrow that served as Spike's response, but continued his diatribe, still flailing to make his points. "Yer in a snit 'cause I learned to live wi'the most fuckin' horrifyin' thing that's ever fuckin' happened to me, and that includes my drug O.D.s and bein' the father o' two teenagers, by usin' the image t'get ahead? 'S not like you'd patented it!" "Gotta hand it t'ya, mate, knowin' that the boogie man's real, an' that 'e's right 'ere with you, you seem pretty sure I was tellin' the truth 'bout not bein' here to kill you." "I guess you don't seem so scary as I remembered. Maybe you weren't so bad after all! Maybe I didn't see what I thought I saw and you're jus' here lookin' for somethin' to steal that you can sell on the Internet!" He finally sat back down, the charges that he didn't really believe still serving to take the edge off of his apprehension. "Piffle! You should talk...I get 'ere, 'xpectin' all kinds o' booze, drugs and wild sex to go wi' the rock 'n' roll, but instead, I find roughage in the refrigerator an' nary a broken bit of' furniture to be found. Not even properly upholdin' the image yer cribbin'! Bloody poof! I bet most of those stories about your hell-raisin' days aren't even true!" "You take that back!" "Don't get your knickers in a twist. 'S not like I'm evil anymore...course, still a vampire, so could give you a good thrashin' wi'out much effort. But, got my soul back..." here, his voice dropped, " 'cause of a girl, no less...." He paused a bit wistfully for a second, before continuing at a more normal volume, " 'n' now, I'm bein' all Boy Scout and savin' the world from destruction. Repeatedly. Go figure...So, what's your excuse?" "Finally outgrew my protracted adolescence, guess you'd say. I got kids who don't want a baddass rockstar, just want a dad." He gave Spike a wry smile then. "What?" "Jus' realized I 'ave you beat." " 'Ow's that?" "I was only 'bout 25 years late in approximatin' a responsible adult, 't least in my real life. How long'd it take you?" "Bit over a hundred," was the grudging reply. They were quiet for a bit, while they both digested the foregoing ten minutes. The erstwhile doppelganger finally relaxed enough to put his feet up on the coffee table, mirroring Spike's laid-back attitude. The previously charged air became almost companionable. Spike, at length, continued as if there'd been no pause, "but at least I 'aven't lost my looks!" "Bugger off!" The remainder of the night was a bit surreal. They conversed like old acquaintances, but of a sideways variety. When Spike remarked on the star's crucifix jewelry phase, he learned that he'd viewed that as an element of self-defense. He explained how, after that night in North London, he'd gotten paralytically drunk every evening for many months, in the hope of sleeping without the nightmare image of what he'd seen re-surfacing. Spike asserted that, if one thought about it, he was now much tougher than when he was soul-less, since, back then, he generally just preyed on a weaker species (he declined to go into the convoluted details of his history with slayers). Now, on the other hand, he was whaling on other non-human types, often older, bigger and/or stronger than he was. He was told to "stuff yer braggin', I'm not some piece o' arse to be impressed at the pub." They swapped life, and un-life, and near-death, and back-from-death stories into the small hours. As Spike finally departed the club, not long ahead of the sunrise, he thought ruefully of the chuckle he and Buffy might have shared over this improbable encounter. And he discovered that, although he wanted to share it with her, with each new experience that he could call his own, it hurt just a little bit less that he couldn't. It was a strange sort of comfort. But then, he was a strange sort of vampire. ~ The End ~ |
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| Acknowledgements: Thanks so much to PJzallday (check out her website here) who gave this a beta-read, and generally soothed my fevered brow at the end when I had a crisis about certain choices I'd made! Author's Thoughts, at the end: No kidding, every time I'd sit down to work on this, a Billy Idol song would begin playing on the radio. That's just a weird sensation. I'm sure I've just grown more aware of them as I've been writing -- though that's not quite true either. Ever since Sleeper (BtVS 7.8), I've been aware of the connection, and the idea, and would be reminded of it every time Mr. Broad's "more, more, more" shouted through my speakers! It's like I have to write the story if I'm going to exorcise the idea. We'll see if it works! Of course, in the story, I've never actually called "His Rebelliousness" by his actual name. It just seemed not quite right, to drop that wall of separation between the real person out there in the world (despite the fact that he's never going to read this), and the fiction I chose to write. I hope my gyrations to avoid a name, and still keep clear who "he" was at any given time, didn't detract too much from the narrative. Interestingly, I noticed, once I started doing some research in order to try and get the chronology and details right, and looking at old photos that...I think Idol really does look more like the derivative entity. He really didn't adopt the "look" that we associate with him until well after the true, semi-underground punk movement had passed it's heyday in the late '70s ~ like he invented the pop version of punk...which, of course, is exactly what those who considered themselves "true" punk accused him of. Either way, putting 1982-83 Billy Idol next to 1977 NYC Spike, the latter strikes me as more the "real" thing. Go figure! Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this little stroll through a version of Spike's past, at least alluded to within the "canon." For those who are interested: Bibliography: My online sources in researching for this story Idolise ~ some terrific, comparatively recent interviews Rolling Stone ~ basic bio Idollinks ~ all kinds of stuff, including old photos from the Bromley days 3am Magazine ~ an interview with Bromley Contingent member Bertie Marshall Punk 77 ~ all about 70's English punk The Filth and The Fury ~ all about the Sex Pistols Vogue.com ~ Vivienne Westwood bio Victoria & Albert Museum of Decorative Arts ~ Vivienne Westwood bio Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy ~ article on abandoned stations of the London Underground The Free Dictionary.com ~ encyclopedia entries on the Sex Pistols, the Bromley Contingent and Billy Idol ~ many, many, many links within each entry. It's the ultimate for a dictionary dredge! |
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