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DISCLAIMER: No Joss here.
SUMMARY: It's not the end of the world, but he's too tired to go on.
RATING: PG-13, just in case.
WORDCOUNT: 1523
DEDICATION: For Dana. I know I've been promising to write this story (well, not
this story, but the pairing behind it. *g*) since your birthday and, finally!, here it is.
*hugs* Merry Christmas!
THANK YOU: to Kristi, for the beta.
BELONGING
by Leni
There's only so much loneliness a vampire can handle. There's only so many deaths he can
witness before he has to leave. To live with mortals is to live in perpetual mourning, and
Spike can only take so much.
He doesn't know when he decides to leave, to stop watching them. Probably after Dawn's
great-granddaughter had a miscarriage, he couldn't imagine why such a tiny life had to be
lost. Or maybe when a branch of the Harris (though they're not called Harris anymore, but
the boys always ran blindly into danger's mouth so it's impossible not to know whose blood
they have) was killed in a house robbery gone wrong. Spike supposes it was one detail at a
time, how it came the time where he was only a character in bedtime stories. Or how
decades later he was often confused with Angel, or Xander, or Giles, until he was sure the
three would raise from their graves, if only to stop the indignity of it. How one day the
thought didn't make him laugh, or chuckle, not even smile.
He didn't know whether to laugh or cry when two toddlers played together at the park, the
girl looking adoringly up at the boy and trailing happily after him. The parents didn't
know each other, only one remembered the fire-haired witch in her ancestry. If Spike
believed in reincarnation, he'd be rooting for not-Willow to get not-Xander this time
around. But the souls of the Scoobies are resting peacefully already, they fought and they
won and they had the hardest lifetimes an human could have. Spike has to believe they rest
now or everything will come crumbling down.
Otherwise, what was all that madness for?
Spike has stayed as long as he could, even longer than they remembered his name. Over the
decades (centuries) that tight-knit family has grown until he can barely keep tabs of
them. They know nothing of vampires and the underworld, and Spike makes sure they stay
that way. He knows that no mortal deserves the burden; they are never the same afterwards.
Neither do they have a reason to learn, there has never been a Slayer in their midst, as
if the Powers were compensating these bloodlines for their past intervention.
After he leaves, he has no route or plan. The world has died and been reborn in the last
decades and everywhere he goes there's something new to explore. In the beginning. But
then Spike realises the world hasn't changed at all. It's still made of cities and
society, a loner can never fit in them. It's ruled by power and authority; and he who
obeys to no one stands in the sidelines. It's still lonely. Lonelier than ever because
he's alone.
There is no vampire who would welcome him. No human that knows his name. The only way he
knows to be famous is now forbidden and, was it always this hard?
Of course it wasn't. The first time he left home, he did it under Angelus' protection,
clinging tight to Drusilla's arm. When Angelus left, he still had his goddess keeping him
focused. After Brazil, he found a niche within the Slayer’s friends. He wasn't feared
anymore, he wasn't even respected, but somehow they still made space for him. Then came
the loss, the pain, the soul. And suddenly he was with Angel again, those too short
months that now are but a breeze in his memory. Afterwards he joined the Scoobies again,
stood by them until they fell one by one. Stood by their families until they didn't need
him anymore. Now here he stands, his past only a picture of nevermore, his present a world
wider and lonelier than it ever was before.
So he goes after her.
Because she is the only one that may still remember him.
It isn't hard to find his old lover. As someone that stayed at her side for a century,
Spike knows what to look for. Churches in fire, missing families near the convents, babies
found still in their cribs. Drusilla hasn't changed her habits since he last saw her, and
right now that's his only silver line.
He quickly traces her to Spain, follows the clippings of newspapers as a breadcrumbs
trail. He doesn't know what he'll do when he finds her, what he expects to find. Mostly he
isn't sure this is the sane thing to do, and the rest of the time he knows he
should head back and forget this craziness.
But he can't.
This is familiar, to chase after her. Spike can close his eyes and be in the nineteenth
century again, when Drusilla was healthy and playing hide-and-seek with him all over
Europe. He can't tempt her to return by staging a great massacre anymore; he can't send a
minion to her with a drugged boy as a present or a nun's corpse as an apology for whatever
his mistake had been. Spike can't call her to him with whispers of blood and promises of
frigthened cries. But he can need her all over again.
Need. Spike needs to hear someone to say his name and know what it stands for. He needs
recognition, a connection to his too long past. Vampires are eternal, and eternity looms
too solemnly to face it alone. He needs to be at Drusilla's side again, to show her the
world and proclaim her his absolute queen. Maybe then she will give meaning to his
questions, as she used to do so long ago.
Not much time passes until Drusilla shows to know her pursuer. She teases him mercilessly,
staying in the same room during the daylight, only a block away from him, yet disappearing
as soon as the sun sets. She lets him see her sometimes, smiles at him over a little
girl's head before disappearing and he must stay or her minions will go for their
mistress' chosen prey. That's Drusilla's way to tell him that he is not who he used to be,
that he's not her dark knight anymore.
Then the presents begin. Girls' bodies across the city, blonde and athletic, always with a
wooden stake in their cold hands. Or sometimes redhaired girls, their feet burned in a
resemblance of marks from witches' pyres. She never misses the younger or older versions,
going so far as to leave them under his window, or just across the street.
Once she hit the pot. Delivered a girl directly to his doorstep, a teenager with green
hair and pierced tongue. Miraculously her ID still said Summers, and her terrified open
eyes were as dark as Angel's had been. Spike had kneeled at her side for hours without
end, not able to move or even call for help. Something broke right then. An ideal, a hope.
It smashed against the floor and looked up at him with dead brown eyes. He should have
been repulsed, reneged of Drusilla and his pursue. He should have hunted her instead,
sworn to rid the world of her murderous madness. He should begin to carry a stake at his
side, with her name engraved on it, and push it into her dead heart instead of dreaming to
hug her close to him.
But he can't.
It is a test, the hardest one she's ever made for him. Spike recognises it, she did the
same when she fell ill and believed he'd abandon her to her luck. Drusilla has always
distrusted him, and this time is the worst. But if he passes it... This is Drusilla
telling him she's about to open the door, that he is close to getting back to her good
graces. So close...
Because he can't do anything but follow her. It's the first rule ever ingrained in his
universe: Drusilla beckons and he follows. He may not burn the world for her anymore, but
nobody could protect her better than he does. Not the stupid minions she sires, or the
countless lovers she's had. Nobody has ever loved her as fiercely and blindly as he did, does.
Only he has stayed at her side for hundred years, and he intends to improve that record
this time.
Because saving the world led him nowhere, protecting mortals transformed him in one of his
kind, left him alone to fight. Spike never liked the loneliness; he always had friends,
allies, enemies and purposes to protect himself against it. So he can't help but remember
the time when Drusilla was his only purpose, to tend and protect his dark goddess.
Drusilla could be that goddess again, the only place where the world would make sense.
Never again would he have to worry about the future or think about the past. It only took
him centuries at the fringes of an large family to realise that Drusilla is his family.
That she is his reason.
Drusilla can consume him, Spike knows that. She can swallow him whole and hold him tight
against her chest until he can't escape. But that's all right, it's where he belongs.
That's where he will finally rest.
It sounds like freedom to him.
The End
22/12/04
Feedback,
sing in this alley!
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