She
"If bullshit were music, you'd own a record label. You can't love," She taunts.
I'd lived the last year and a half of my life, always doing everything with making Her happy in mind. And yet She doesn't believe that I love Her more than anything... more than unlife, more than blood. It's eating away at me slowly. It kills me to stay, but I know that I would die if I left.
CRACK
My head snaps to the side as She backhands me again. I don't talk, as She bloodies and bruises me. I'm hoping that She'll stop when She looks into my eyes and sees that I really do love Her. You know, in a manly way. But She doesn't, and I know that She won't. Never does. And as much as it'll hurt like hell, I need to let go.
Her fists thud against my torso, and I lie there docilely, bleeding and aching terribly. I know that once this round of Kick-the-Spike is over, She'll go back to Her warm little house with its cheery windows and forget this, leaving me to mend once more. My cheeks are wet. I'm not sure if it's blood or tears. I feel like I was eaten by a wolf and shit over a cliff.
My eyes are closed, unneeded breath coming in gasps as She makes sure to mar every inch of my body. And fuck, I can smell Her, and She wants me. But I'm in too much pain to care. I know I stink of death right now, borrowed blood trickling out of my long-dead veins onto the concrete floor of my dark, musty home. She must decide that I've had enough, so She breezes out of the crypt and I roll gingerly over onto my side, curling up into a ball and shivering, whimpering as the pain overtakes me and I fall into blackness.
*****
"Spike, I'm here for our study ses - OH MY GOD!" Nibblet shrieks the next afternoon as she enters my crypt. Her piercing scream awakens me. I'm still curled up, my clothing torn and crusted with dried and putty-like blood, my vision gray. I hear the thudding of running feet retreating from the crypt. Blackness swallows me again.
*****
"He's coming out of it," someone whispers as my eyelids flutter. The crypt smells different, like warmth and life and I'm no longer on the cold concrete floor, but beneath slippery satin sheets and a warm blanket. One of my eyes is swollen shut, the other I can open only a crack. The whole-body ache is throbbing through my dead flesh and I whimper like a bleeding puppy as I attempt to move.
A mug of warm blood is lifted to my lips and I gingerly close them around the plastic straw. Deja vu. Only difference is, this time I'm not chained to a bathtub. I suck the life-essence from the mug almost daintily, and it burns as it goes down my throat and is sucked into my veins, running through my unbeating heart. And suddenly the air changes, like the life has been sucked out of it, and I know that She has entered the room.
A tremor runs through me as She approaches. She leans close and whispers, so softly that I almost miss it, "I'm sorry." She's always sorry after She kicks the shit out of me. And I know that She came back wrong. I know that I can hit Her, but I... can't. See, somewhere in the back of my mind She's still the same girl that I fell in love with. And as I cling to the memory of the woman that She once was, I push away the idea of inflicting any harm on Her empty shell.
I crack my one good eye open and through tears of pain and bitterness, through the blurriness, I make out the shapes of the whelp, his ex-demon, 'lil Bit, Red, and Glinda. And then there's Her. And I know that I sound like a complete wanker as I lie on the satin sheets in the soft bed that they've brought me to, whimpering. "Make it stop," I ask pleadingly.
And Glinda and the Bit come up to the bed and lean in, their hands hovering over me. And suddenly the Bit's hands are glowing and I can see this perfectly as the green leaves her hands and surrounds me. I scream as my body sucks the green in and the mystical energy courses through me like a lightning bolt. It hurts like a mother and suddenly... I'm whole again. Nothing out of place. And I look around, at the people who stare at me as I lie naked...? in the bed where they have placed me.
"You could've just staked him," the Whelp sneers, and I make a mental note to pull out his toenails with needle-nosed pliers after I get the chip removed. And Red is shaking with withdrawal after the healing spell and Glinda and Bit are staring down at me with such concern in their eyes. The ex-demon is looking at me half-drooling and I pull the covers up over my bare chest, noting her look of disappointment. But it's Her eyes that send me running for the door, wrapping the sheets around me and fleeing as I nearly trip and fall down the stairs of the cheap motel that they've taken me to. Her eyes are cold, filled with hatred and disgust and desire and it frightens me so much that I run naked, wrapped in the fake satin sheet all the way back to the crypt.
I pull on a pair of black jeans and a black tee-shirt, shrugging my red. silk. shirt. on, then rummage about the crypt for socks and a pair of Doc Marten's that I know are lying around here somewhere. Eureka. I finish my ensemble and start dumping things into boxes, but then I realize that none of this was mine to begin with and I leave all my stolen things lying in a heap in the middle of the place that, without me, will become just another crypt once more. I pull on my duster and feel in the pocket for my cigarettes and my silver Zippo lighter, lifting a fag to my lips with trembling hands and lighting it, then pulling deeply on it. The tobacco calms me and I'm more collected as I pull out a sheet of paper and begin to write. Then I realize that I don't need to leave a sappy note ((It's not you, it's me...)) so I crumple the paper and write one word atop the concrete slab of the sarcophagus that had been my bed for years. And the permanent marker stands out sharply against the stone slab as I finish.
Goodbye.
I heft my rusted, dented, ancient black footlocker that contains my entire history, tucking it under my arm and walk out of the crypt into the moonlit night. And I leave everything else behind as I walk to the DeSoto that I've had for longer than She's been alive, climbing into the driver's seat and starting the engine. I pass the sign that says 'Thank you for visiting Sunnydale,' underneath which is scrawled 'we hope you survived' and smile sardonically. And I don't know where I'm going, don't really have any real direction, as long as it takes me away from Her.
I think maybe I'll go to Switzerland and get some money out of Angelus's bank account that he has neglected to discover, maybe pay one of those brilliant docs to take out the chip that has been the bane of my existance for two long and painful years. And the Big Bad will be back. No Initiative to neuter me anymore. And for the first time in what feels like forever I will be able to feed, clear across the world from Her and Her rules and regulations. And I ignore Her pull, beckoning me to return to the Hellhole that She calls home.
*****
"Gone," the petite blonde woman whispers in my imagination, staring at the one word that I so meticulously wrote there in my Victorian script. "Gone." And She shakes Her head in denial as the miles between us weaken Her pull on me until I can shrug it off altogether.
I lie face-down on the operating table in Geneva, the doctor's heartbeat racing as he sews my head back up. And I hear the scissors as they clip the stitches he's put into my head. I sit up on the table and raise an eyebrow at him and he places a tiny square of metal and plastic in my hands. I grin evilly at him and at lightning-speed I'm upon him, my fangs sinking into his throat and the pain that I don't feel as I drain him is the most amazing sensation in the world. And I carry the chip out of the hospital with me and walk down the dark streets toward the house that I paid for with "Daddy's" money that has been leaking into the Swiss account from major firms all over the world for fifty years.
I enter my home and open the false wall in the foyer where my footlocker is hidden, pulling it out and finally willing myself to relive history through the items within. I carry it into my living room where I empty the contents onto the black metal and plate glass coffee table. After I plop down onto the couch, I clap my hands and rub them together, then pick up a random item. I thumb through the faded, softened leather-bound book that William had filled from front to back with drivel about Cicely. Toss it to the side with a snort. I finger a scrap of lace from one of Miss Edith's dresses, a piece of bloodied linen from when Angelus took my virginity. I slide the large skull ring that I'd thought lost back onto one of the fingers of my left hand, frowning when I notice that it fits looser than it used to. Guess I'll have to do something about that.
I sigh in remembrance as I discover the plain white envelope that holds locks of hair from both the Slayers I killed, both strands now brittle with age. Rifling through the remaining objects on the table, I discover a folded-up Woodstock poster, a dollar bill autographed by Sid Vicious, and the remains of a Ramones tee. There's a blunt eyeliner and a small container of mascara toward the bottom of the pile, and a set of army dog-tags that I stole off a serviceman in New York after I fucked him and ate him. A rusted railroad spike sits on the glass of my coffee-table, and I lift it, my hands curling into faint grooves worn there from decades of use. It smells of death and old blood and I chuckle softly. A pair of spectacles, one lens missing and the other fatally cracked, the frame bent and twisted, sits amid the rubble of my history. They belonged to my former self, yet I can't bear to throw them out.
My eyes fall onto one of the last items on the glass. It's a pair of tiny, silky panties and my undead heart constricts at the sight of them. I pluck them up between my thumb and forefinger and can't help but draw them to my face to inhale their scent deeply before I become disgusted with myself and toss them back into the footlocker.
I pick up the stack of photographs and look through them quickly, smiling as I remember more moments in time that had long since escaped my mind. Tying the black ribbon back around them, I place them gently back inside their metal home, then tuck the chip, my newest bit of history, into the box with them. Locking the box again, I carry it back out to the foyer and stow it in the hidden space once more, then turn and walk slowly up the stairs. The sight that greets me is not one that I had expected, nor one that I had hoped for.
"You left me," She whispers as She walks slowly toward me, a deadly-sharp stake clutched in Her shaking fist. Then, louder, "You left me."
"I did," I agree, trying to walk past Her. She doesn't budge. "And now I'd like to take a shower, so if you don't mind," I say, nudging Her out of the way.
She notices the small incision at the base of my skull. "You got the chip out," She says.
"Thank you, Captain Obvious. Now, unless you have something important to say, I'd suggest you leave my home." I walk down the hall to the bathroom, tensing slightly when She follows.
"Why did you leave me?" She asks.
I sigh, turning back to Her. "I left SunnyHell because I couldn't deal with your constant bullshit, Slayer," I say as I turn back toward the bathroom, stepping inside and closing the door and locking it behind me.
She is still there when I leave the bathroom, a burgundy towel wrapped around my waist. And I can see the hunger in Her eyes as I pass Her once more, brushing Her off as though I wasn't still mad for Her and it wasn't killing me to ignore Her. I walk into my bedroom and sink down beneath the covers of the gigantic bed that I slept in alone.
"Why are you here?" I ask when the door creaks as She opens it just a bit to peer into the darkness at me.
"You left me," She mumbles, walking into the room, and it's obvious that when I left the Hellmouth I left a broken woman behind. I clench my jaw as She walks slowly, deliberately toward me. "I found you."
And then She's on my bed, and our mouths are fused together and Her nails are scraping down my chest and Her warm hand is groping me obscenely as I pull at Her clothing, seeking familiarity. Amazingly Her clothing falls from Her without being destroyed and we roll so She lies beneath me, and I'm painfully hard and rubbing against Her. And it feels like I'm alive as I slip inside Her and She clenches my cock with those muscles She talked about so long ago.
((I could ride you at a gallop until your legs buckled and your eyes rolled up. I've got muscles you've never even dreamed of. I could squeeze you until you pop like warm champagne and you'd beg me to hurt you just a little bit more...))
She wraps herself around me as I surrender myself to the bittersweet fact that She'll never love me, as I pump inside Her and She whimpers beneath me, as we both explode and spasm against each other. The name that I hadn't spoken since She beat me within inches of my Undeath rolls easily off my tongue like a prayer and I'm cursing myself for that as I collapse atop Her. And I roll off Her, onto my side, away from Her and try not to think about the fact that She is in my bed.
No such luck.
She snuggles up against me, Her warm fingertips stroking down my arm. "Come back?" She asks.
"I can't," I mumble to Her as I attempt to sleep.
"Why not?" She asks, and I know She's pouting like a petulant child, I can feel Her mouth against the back of my neck. Why not. That seems to be the question of the millenium. And I can't answer that as long as I'm naked in bed with an equally. naked. Her. and She's pressing that little body of hers against mine tightly and bloody hell Her hot little hand is on my cock and I'm gonna be hard again in a matter of seconds... so I get up. I start pacing and jabbering incoherently but it all seems to make perfect sense and what it seems to translate to is that I just. can't. deal. with it anymore.
"I... I just can't. I can't do this anymore, I can't go back to you like a bleeding puppy and go back to loving you unconditionally when I know that you're just using me... I'm tired of being a toy." I run my hand through my hair. Dru once told me that I did that 'when the pixies played with my noggin'. "I can't love you anymore. It's killing me."
And She whispers, "Oh," like She's resigned herself to the fact that I'm not planning on setting foot in SunnyHell ever again.
The doorbell sounds and I tell Her to put Her clothes back on, then I walk over to my dresser and pull out a pair of athletic pants that I quickly yank over my bare legs as I walk back down the stairs to the door. And I open the door and the Whelp and Red are standing there looking like the world had ended again.
"We lost her," Harris begins as he stands in the threshold of my home and I stand aside to let them both in. They walk in and look around curiously. "Didn't know you liked houses, Spikey," he says sarcastically.
"I found Her," I say, knowing that I spit the words as if they left a foul taste in my mouth. "And it's no crypt, but it'll do." Red giggles. "She's upstairs. In the bedroom. She... told you, right?" I ask, hoping they're not armed, but realizing that even if they were I could eat them now.
"Yeah. Yeah, she told us. She told us that you guys fucked on a regular basis, and that you broke her heart when you left." Whelp's got a bit of a mouth on him. I'm surprised, to say the least.
And then She descends the stairs, clothed in the same outfit that She had been wearing when I saw Her first, standing at the top of my staircase and looking for all the world like someone had eaten Her puppy.
((... broke her heart when you left... ...when you left...))
I've never felt more guilty. Bloody. Fucking. Hell. I'm turning into bleeding Peaches. And I can't have broken Her heart. She didn't love me.
"I guess it's confession time," She whispers as She floats over to where the three saner members of this cheery little reunion are. "You have something to confess to Xander and Willow, and I... I have something to confess to you."
"What? Confess? Confess what?" the Whelp asks and I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing.
((How? What? How?))
I open the false wall in the foyer once more and pull out the box that I thought would get at least a few decades' rest before being opened again. And I open it, wincing as the hinges creak, then pluck the tiny bane of my existance from its confines. I hold it up between my thumb and forefinger and the Whelp nearly collapses in front of me from cardiac arrest as he realizes what exactly I'm showing him.
"Stake! Someone! He's... gonna... eat us!" he squeals like the cartoon warthog in The Lion King (bloody good movie, that) and I can't help but laughing, and soon She is laughing with me, and just when we calm down a little bit we look at each other and then we're rolling around on the floor, giggling ridiculously and clutching our sides.
I finally stand up and brush my pants off and then help Her to Her feet. "Xander, if he were gonna kill you, he'd have done it already," She snickers at Her slightly dense friend.
"Oh. I knew that."
I'm hoping that they'll take Her back and She'll leave me alone. No such luck.
"Spike, we want you to come back to Sunnydale with us," the witch says.
"What's that pet?" I ask. I heard her right, but I'm a little bit shocked at all of this.
She sidles over to me and puts Her arm around my waist. She nips at my ear, then whispers, "Come home, Spike. Come home... to me. I love you."
My eyes widen. "What?" I sputter. Can't believe I actually sputtered, but it happened.
"She loves you." The Whelp says this, and I can see the truth on all their faces, especially Hers.
"What, you think I'm just gonna leave all this behind and come back to Sunny--oh, who the bloody hell am I kidding. When do we leave?"
Author's Note:This was fun. I knew that Spike couldn't stay away from Buffy and Sunnydale, but I wanted to play with him for awhile and make him think he could. He's terribly complex, and that makes him absobloodylutely the most interesting character to write about. Yay multifacetedness! [Yes, I realize that that isn't a word.] Okay, this revision is done. Magz has left the document.