Like Mice in a Cornfield by Denny - Chapter 7
Spike played with a strand of Buffy’s hair with his fingertips.
“What?” She smiled.
“I know the kind of woman you are,” he said earnestly. “I met you a long time ago.”
Buffy leaned back against the bathtub. “I don’t get that.”
Spike brushed aside the hair in her face. “I’ll try and explain it to you.” He pulled her to him and kissed her on the mouth.
“What are you doing?” She murmured against his lips.
“Kissing you.” He pressed his mouth to hers firmly.
“Is that going to explain how you used to know me?”
“Don’t you remember?” he said. “We used to make love.”
“I don’t remember that at all.”
He moved his lips from her mouth to her throat. “Yes, you do.”
“That feels odd.”
He stopped kissing her. “Because you enjoy it?” His moved his lips down the side of her neck to base of her throat. “Or because there’s no biting?”
“I guess that’s what’s missing,” she said. “The biting.”
###
If LA circa 2082 was Spike’s hell, Buffy was having a hard time understanding why. Here, he had everything a vampire could want. He could traipse through the streets of LA all night and all day. Suck human blood from breathing humans at the corner Lust Club. Even fuck his new partner without regret.
Spike ruled in 2082.
He was a big, bad cop in charge of his city, respected, and with the clout to do whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted to do it. Spike never had it so good. In Wolfram and Hart’s hell dimension, he had everything he could ever want. It was tailor-made to keep him as happy as he could be.
Buffy shuddered.
So how were she and Xander going to convince him to come back with them?
Damn. Willow had left out some serious pieces of the puzzle.
“Xander.” Buffy said to the man she’d thought of as Dr. Harris, drug dealer extraordinaire, until a few minutes ago. “How are we going to get Spike out of here and back home?”
“Buffy?”
“Yeah, Buffy,” she replied. “Who else do you think I’d be?”
“Well, you still have a pair of fangs creasing the corners of your mouth, so forgive me for not being positive that you’re the girl you claim to be.”
Buffy rolled her eyes. “If we’re going to be fussy, you need to get rid of those scrubs and horn-rimmed glasses and,” Buffy paused, surprised she hadn’t noticed the change in his appearance. “Your two good eyes, which you didn’t have two nights ago.”
“Hell dimension,” Xander raised an eyebrow.
Buffy shrugged, concurring. “We’ve got to think of a way to get Spike out of here, which isn’t going to be easy. We keep merging and un-merging with ourselves. It’s like our brains are hop-scotching back and forth through the portal.”
“I think I’m following that.”
Buffy huffed. “The longer we stay here in these bodies, the more wonky things are.” She grabbed Xander by the shoulder. “Sometimes I’m me and than I’m her.”
Xander exhaled. “Same here.” Then he blinked a few dozen times. “Well, I don’t think I’m you. I’m me, and then I’m a vampire doctor in the year 2082, who is me.”
“You’re babbling.”
“Can’t help it,” he replied. “Willow should have told us more about what to expect. She sends me here to help you and I’m having the same problems as you.”
Buffy pointed at the blond vampire, moving through the crowd toward them. “Spike is heading this way. We’ve got to come up with something.”
Xander turned to the half-dressed brunette who had moved to his side and was straddling his leg. “Faith,” he said. “Maybe she can help us.”
“How?” Buffy asked. “She doesn’t look like she’s interested in anything outside of stripping off her clothes and humping your leg. Other than that, she hasn’t had much to say.”
“You do remember that back in our time, she’s a slayer, too.” He gulped.
“Yeah, I remember. She’s just like me, except this is not our Faith. This one is a stripper and a vampire.”
Xander rubbed a shaky hand across his mouth, noticeably affected by Faith’s hand rubbing his crotch. “I think she can help us, nonetheless.”
“Do explain,” Buffy insisted. “How can she help us convince Spike that this is a hell dimension and not the future.”
Xander shrugged. “Faith has a way with men.”
###
This wasn’t going to be easy. But Spike bloody refused to lose another partner. Be it 2082 or 2004, he’d had his fill of dead lovers and dead comrades.
Crossing the room cautiously, he got as close to Harris as he dare. The doctor was waving a stake at Buffy. And the mostly naked brunette vampire was holding Buffy's hands behind her back.
“Harris, I wouldn’t make that mistake mate, if I were you.” Spike stopped a few feet from the threesome. “We can talk this through or else someone is going to get dusted.”
Buffy narrowed her eyes at Spike. “What the hell are you seeing?”
He stared at Buffy. "You know what I'm seeing. Harris is Horace Cross," he said. "The redhead I was talking to over there, she’s our snitch, and she confirmed what we came to Club Zero to find out. Dr. Harris of West Hollywood and King Cross, the fresh-water dealing drug lord of Culver City, is one in the same.”
“That’s not true, Spike,” Buffy said. “That snitch is a lying witch."
“You're confused,” Spike said to Buffy. “Be quiet so I can save you.”
“Come on Spike,” Harris smiled. “How could I be this Cross character?”
Spike rubbed his hand over his face. “You are a murderer and I’m going to enjoy killing you.”
“I don’t think you’re seeing the world the way it is," Harris said.
“He’s right, Spike.” Buffy’s eyes were wide. “Whatever you think you see, it’s not real.”
Harris lowered his stake and turned to the brunette. "Let Buffy go. Let her talk to him."
Spike chuckled. "You think my partner is going to convince me not to kill you?"
Buffy walked up next to Spike. “You're not seeing reality. I know it’s weird, but just listen to me, and I’ll explain, okay?”
Spike looked around. Club Zero didn't appear any different than usual. Geronimo was at the bar, serving up bad booze to a throng of customers. The dance floor was crowded. The music was loud. Vampires and humans were cuddled in corners blood-lusting after each other. It was another routine evening at Club Zero. For a moment though, he had sensed something. A stage in the middle of the dance floor, spotlights beaming, a dark-haired vampire girl had danced across it, stripping off her clothes. That explained the half-dressed brunette vampire holding onto his partner and wearing a feather boa wrapped around her neck. Then there was Buffy and Harris, or Cross, they were changing, too. Although Spike couldn’t figure out exactly what was changing about them.
“Spike?” Buffy’s hand moved to his arm. Smartly, Harris and the brunette vampire kept their distance.
“Who’s she?” Spike couldn't help it. He had to ask about the girl with Harris.
“Faith,” she said. “My name is Faith.”
“She works for you?” Spike said to Harris. “Another fresh water drug dealer?”
“No.” Harris was emphatic. “I work for a witch.”
The music stopped and the crowd that had been dancing and lusting parted like the Red Sea. It was as if Spike and the threesome were center stage, the stars of a melodrama, and all of Club Zero’s customers wanted to see how the story ended.
"You know what Dr. Harris is?” The one called Faith asked him.
“What?” Spike took the bait.
“He's a figment of your imagination, part of this dream you call living."
Spike looked at Buffy. “Get out of the way. I've got to dust these two."
“You’re getting confused again,” Buffy said.
She squeezed his arm. “A week ago, you were in LA, but the year was 2004, and you were in a fight with an army of Wolfram and Hart demons.” Her hand moved to his face, her fingertips touching his lips. “You weren’t alone. You were with Wesley Wyndom Price, a former Watcher, Charles Gunn, a vampire hunter, a god king you called Illyria or Fred, who was a scientist turned god king, and Angel.” She took a deep breath. “They were all killed.” She took another breath, this one more jagged. “Me and Faith, another Faith, not this one, we wanted to help you, but when we got to the alley it was too late.”
Buffy wiped her eyes. Spike hadn’t noticed she'd been crying until then.
“When we arrived,” she continued. “The demons had no interest in us. They were standing in the alley, weapons at their sides, and you were standing with them, and when they vanished, you vanished, too.” She took hold of his arm again. “Willow, she's a powerful witch in 2004, she figured out you were here and created a portal to bring you back home.”
"And where is here, Buffy?" Spike asked.
"This is a hell dimension," she said. "Wolfram and Hart brought you here to suffer, to suffer horribly."
"Why?" He grabbed her shoulders. "Why would this world be hell to me?"
"It's a reset, Spike," Harris interjected. "It keeps playing the same tunes over and over again."
"So when does it reset? What's the big bad thing that keeps happening that makes it hell for me? Is it you?" He pointed at Buffy. "Showing up and looking like her. Pretending to be her." He laughed out loud. "That's not hell. That's just my new partner, giving me shit."
"What are you talking about?" Buffy cried. "We're here to save you."
“According to the story you just told me, you always arrive too late to save me or anyone," Spike said. "I think you’re here because you want to be here."
“You've got to believe me," Buffy pleaded. “You can come back with us. You just have to believe.”
"No.” Spike snatched his arm away from her. “I don't have to believe a bloody thing."
###
A little before dawn Spike parked his jeep in front of the ruins of the Hyperion Hotel. Captain Thomas was shuffling back and forth on the sidewalk, pacing. Spike had called him from Club Zero.
“Did you take care of Harris?” he asked as Spike jumped out of the jeep.
“Yeah, he’s dead,” Spike said.
“His assistant?”
“Her name was Faith,” Spike replied. “She’s dead, too.”
“How about your new partner?”
“She’s in the backseat of the jeep.”
Captain Thomas walked over to the vehicle and peered in. “Sound asleep, huh?”
“Yeah.” Spike frowned. “After she killed Faith, she drank a couple of bottles of Geronimo’s Jack Daniels and passed out.”
Captain Thomas sighed. “Do you really want to keep working with her? She’s dangerous.” He was still looking through the back window. “You should put her down, Spike.”
“She’s Buffy, Captain.” He walked up next to him. “My partner for eternity.”
“She’s broken.” Captain Thomas took off his glasses and wiped them off with a handkerchief he'd pulled from his vest pocket. “She’ll never be fixed. She’ll keep playing out this same scenario over and over, and taking you with her.”
Spike chuckled. “It does seem like we’ve been through this a few thousand times already.” He turned from the car and faced the Hyperion, hands thrust into his pockets. “But it doesn’t matter as long as we catch the big bad, as long as we’re doing our jobs. Doesn’t matter, the toll it takes on our souls.”
Captain Thomas laughed. “You don’t have a soul, Spike. Neither one of you do. You’re vampires. You’re like mice in a cornfield. You scamper around, picking up kernels, and doing whatever you have to do to survive. You have no conscious and no remorse.”
“Yeah, and some might call that hell.” Spike pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. “You got a light?”
The Captain snapped his fingers and a small ball of fire appeared in front of Spike’s face.
“Thanks," he said.
“See you tomorrow?” Captain Thomas asked, heading toward the end of the street.
“Where else would I go?”
Spike pulled the smoke deep into his lungs and watched as Captain Thomas disappeared around the corner at the end of the block. He took a couple more puffs of the cigarette and then flipped the butt into the broken slabs of concrete and brick that was once the front yard of the Hyperion Hotel.
“Hey Spike.” It was Buffy’s voice behind him. He turned. She was standing with her feet spread apart, one hand on her hip, and in the other, she was twirling a stake.
“Buffy?”
“I’m sorry it has to end this way, Spike.”
“I know, Pet. But it always ends this way.”
“Damn you. I was telling the truth.”
“No, you weren’t Buffy," he said. "Not the entire truth.”
“You’re never going to go back, are you?”
“Nope, bloody never.”
“And every night, you’re going to let me dust you.”
“No, I never do.”
“Why?”
He moved quickly, grabbing the stake from her hands. “Because this is my hell. Not yours.”
The next thing Spike knew, he was sitting in his Jeep Cherokee, driving down Wilshire Blvd, heading for Club Zero.
He’d had the dream again. There was sunshine. Birds. Trees. And Buffy was standing on a precipice.
He looked out the window at the rain; the acid rain was falling from the sky. He looked up. There was nothing in the sky but clouds and darkness, and gloom. It was all going to happen again, and somewhere in him, he wished he could change it. But he never would, even if he could.
Because the girl he'd find at Club Zero wasn't Buffy, couldn't be her. Never be her.
Because like the rest of the world – she no longer existed.
The End.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
This is the last chapter. Please let me know what you think. I haven't finished a story in a long time:)...so I'm pretty excited about finishing this one.
Chapter End Notes:
Final thoughts - I like time travel, distorting time and perspective. Vampires and the world of the paranormal are a perfect playground. I love to write sci-fi vampire stories, as well as contemporary, so maybe I'll write some more of these:).
But mostly, I hope you enjoyed this story and found it a satisfying read.
But mostly, I hope you enjoyed this story and found it a satisfying read.