Okay, this is a little (alright, a lot, I think) hard to follow, but if you can follow the crazy twists of my – or Spike’s – mind, then you should enjoy it. Hopefully, you’ll enjoy it anyway. You probably need to have watched pretty much since Spike appeared on the scene to get all of the references, especially since I’m none too specific about them. Oh well. Good luck. It takes place in the middle of Help (heh, I just realized: Beatles! Ok, off topic…), and everything important in the universe belongs to Joss and ME. Okay, done here. One more thing: All pronouns are very important, and if I change from he to she suddenly, it’s not a typo, there’s a reason. Go with it. Now read.
Spike shuddered awake, gasping, eyes wide in the dark. Her face still floated in his mind, eyes wide in fear, neck white, white, in the dark alley. He’d hurt her again, she was hurt, he hurt, they hurt him, they…
He closed his eyes hard, hands now clenched in fists. “Go away,” he whispered harshly. “Go away, go away, go away!” he finally screamed hoarsely.
The room was silent. And empty. Spike cradled his head in his hands, mumbling to himself brokenly. They wouldn’t leave him alone. He just wanted some silence. He wanted to be left alone, and he wanted them to shut up and be quiet.
He didn’t want to be alone anymore. He needed someone, needed anyone but these people who wouldn’t leave him alone! He pushed himself off the floor, heading for the door. But no. The last time he had been out, he’d hurt the man in the alley where Dru changed him. He hadn’t meant to. But the man hadn’t been there one minute, he’d been a demon, and he was allowed to hurt those. And then she’d changed, but it was different. One time, it was beautiful; he was powerful when death came. The other time, it hurt, in his head and in himself, and it was horror, not ecstasy.
He sat back. He couldn’t risk that horror again. It replayed often enough in his mind. The voices and faces rose around him again, and he clamped his hands over his ears. “I’m not listening, you know,” he called out. “Not listening,” he repeated to himself.
He sat perfectly still, eyes shut, concentrating on not allowing any of the voices through. Voices, hallucinations, dreams ran through his tortured mind, shifting wildly, as everything seemed to for him these days. Was this what it was to be mortal? He couldn’t remember. What was the difference between mortal and souled? He knew. It was harder to end the pain when you were immortal
The only constant for him anymore was a lack of peace, and the guilt.
Dru was taunting him, enticing him, cruel one moment, seemingly innocent the next. She swirled around him in a red and black cloud, her eternally young face pouting unhappily. “Spike,” she said in that particularly enticing soft voice she had. “You promised me we’d dance. I wanted to dance forever, and be your princess. You said I was your queen, forever.” Her face accused him as hauntingly as her words. His queen. Black goddess, he’d called her. He’d worshipped her, dark goddess…Dru was taunting him, enticing him, cruel one moment, seemingly innocent the next. She swirled around him in a red and black cloud, her eternally young face pouting unhappily. “Spike,” she said in that particularly enticing soft voice she had. “You promised me we’d dance. I wanted to dance forever, and be your princess. You said I was your queen, forever.” Her face accused him as hauntingly as her words. His queen. Black goddess, he’d called her. He’d worshipped her, dark goddess…
And younger fingers, with manicured nails, dug into his skin. He gasped with pain, but gritted his teeth, refusing to scream. He wasn’t allowed to talk, he couldn’t talk, he deserved this pain. For everything, for Buffy, for the countless others, for the girl behind the library that night, for the motel room, for the bus driver, the million others, and he remembered every one of them. One stood out above the rest, though, and the arm inside his gut led to a different girl suddenly, face not so cruel, but more painful to him.
She stared at him in horror from across the harsh white tile. He stared back, shoulder throbbing from where she’d thrown him against the shelves. He didn’t care, his own horror was so great. He reached for her in apology, and she shrank back in fear, fear that repulsed him more than any harsh words, no matter how degrading. “Buffy,” he whispered, eyes tearing in sorrow. Slayer. It was her job. So why hadn’t she done it? He wanted it, now. Wanted it to all go away, the guilt, the hurt, the voices, the madness, the dark. He was so tired of the dark, where everything shifted constantly, just to attack him again, where he was cold, always cold… He couldn’t remember ever being warm. He shivered, looking up at her.
“I’m cold.”
“You’re dead,” she informed him in that no-nonsense manner. “You can’t feel cold.”
They watched her walking down the street, sunlight spilling generously down on her and her friends, Willow and Xander. It was warm, and inviting, and he knew without question that he didn’t belong there, and it hurt.
“She’s wrong,” he remarked quietly to Spike, dark eyes taking it all in, and letting nothing out in return. “It’s very cold, living in the dark. She doesn’t understand that, or that she’s the one who takes that away. She is the light, don’t you see?”
Spike looked at him questioningly. “Why did you leave?”
Angel shrugged, looking away again. “I couldn’t laugh. And she couldn’t laugh when she was with me. I couldn’t stand to see her light go out.” He turned back urgently, kneeling beside the wheelchair. “Can you?”
Spike opened his mouth to reply, but Angel cut him off, eyes flaring gold as his vampyric face slid into place. He grinned, points glistening. “I forgot. They won’t let you out yet.”
He stepped out of the cage room, leaving Spike locked in the sterile, white horror. Angel stepped towards Buffy, while Dawn looked on. He saw the hair being brushed off her neck, and he hurled himself at the front wall, screaming in protest, but she jumped and fell anyway, and fell, and fell, and then there was a surge of power like nothing he’d ever felt before, except he had, three times now:
Dru, in the alley, when she sucked the life from him and replaced it with something infinitely more powerful…
Buffy, when she fell from the tower, and closed the portal with a life freely given, a Slayer’s life, a power so great…
The demon in the cave, where everything he’d known suddenly changed, forever, and he felt something incredible enter him, and it was a force so huge, but then the force disappeared, leaving behind only pain, and it hurt, it hurt horribly, it hurt…
“Spike?”
He focused with trouble. This was different from the other voices. He eyes traveled up to that beautiful face. All this time, all these warring emotions, and she still took his breath away – figuratively. But around her, he sometimes felt the need to breathe, though it’d been decades since he actually had. She was talking, but he had trouble comprehending. She wanted to know something.
He had done wrong, he knew that. He had hurt people. He had hurt her. He needed her. Past that, all was whirling madness.
Then she was leaving, she couldn’t leave, they would come back for him…
“Don’t leave me,” he pleaded. She was the only one who could drive them away, make it safe and quiet again…
She left.
Sometimes the madness drew back, as it did now, allowing him to think at least semi-rationally. Even that was a struggle, though, and he fought to remember what she’d said.
There was danger, or evil, or both. And a girl was in trouble, and Buffy… Spike let out an aggravated sound, burying his fingers in his hair. What had she said?
His mind refused to work linearly, but one thought kept beating at him. Buffy needed him. It was as if she’d cast a calling spell over him, and he had to find her or he’d explode. He found himself at the door without even telling himself to get off the floor, and hesitated only an instant. He opened the door and stepped outside. He had to find her.
He was hesitant at first, but became a little more courageous as he continued on to her. It was better, here, with a purpose. As long as he was going to her, he was alright. He wasn’t good, but he was better. She made him better, just by her connection with him. He grew a little hope, even. He felt a semblance of normality returning. If he could see her, help her, maybe he could escape the people that haunted him.
Somehow, he could regain his mind, if nothing else, and it was all tied to her. She was the only thing he could focus on, and he clung to it like a drowning man. If he could focus, he could think, and it was frightening when he couldn’t even do that for the mad whirling of his mind. But with the thought of Buffy, his mind… didn’t clear, but there were no longer a million things attacking him at once. Only a few dozen.
He had to find her. She needed him. He could remember that thought. He let his mind wander over her in relief, now that that mind wasn’t immediately swallowed up by madness. He loved her so much. He was never happier than in her company. He frowned as a new emotion surfaced in his mind. There hadn’t been anything but guilt and sorrow for ages now, it seemed. It was annoyance, now, and hurt. He remembered that he hadn’t always been perfectly happy with her. When she had been sleeping with him, then rejecting him, he’d been upset. He’d actually told her to go away a few times. It was just… he frowned again, secretly pleased that he could think again. Why was it so hard for her to say? He’d come to terms with the fact that he loved her. It hadn’t been easy, but he’d accepted it, professed it. Why was it so hard for her? He couldn’t accept that she didn’t really love him. She’d come back too many times for that to be true. Why couldn’t she say it? Would she ever?
He’d lived – well, not really, but – for so long without hearing it, it wasn’t urgent anymore. But he had to hear it sometime. Just some reassurance that she would one day acknowledge him, and her feelings in return. He had to hear it. Some day.
He was getting close. He could smell her. God, she smelled good. That was one thing he could always do, was find her. He could always find his love. Always.
