Chapter Twenty-Nine
Blood.
Rushing through him as if his heart was beating.
He’d tasted blood that rich before. Now he could remember when it was. China over a century ago. His first Slayer.
Spike’s eyes opened slowly and he rubbed at the gritty feel of the blind one with the fingers of his left hand. Groaning, he pushed himself up until he was sitting and then glanced around the room beyond the cage.
“Welcome back,” said Buffy, smiling warmly.
“The boy?” He coughed and spoke again, this time with less of a croak. “Cameron? Is he okay?”
“He is thanks to you.”
Sighing, Spike nodded his head. “Good.”
“I thought you didn’t remember us?”
“I didn’t – I still don’t, not really – but I remembered him shooting me with a crossbow and then when he said they’d put him in that chair, I just…” He looked off to one side. “I dunno…it just made me mad. Then when he had trouble breathing, all I could think of was to help him – to save him.” Shaking his head, he glanced back at Buffy and said, “Weird, huh?”
Buffy shrugged. “What isn’t weird about our lives?”
Spotting the bag of blood, Spike reached out for it and brought it to his mouth; he had a little trouble nipping a whole in it as his fangs had been blunted when Cam had trimmed them.
Seeing his frown, Buffy said, “Cameron had to clip your fangs. Something had happened. They were longer and cutting your lips.”
Spike just stared at her and Buffy wished fervently that his eyes were his own so they’d show his emotions. She moved closer to the cage and pushed her fingers through the bars, wriggling them, hoping that he’d reach out and touch her. Her heart twisted when he just transferred his gaze from her face to her hand.
“Can you change?” she whispered.
“Change?” He cocked his head on one side in that oh so familiar gesture.
“Your face. The Initiative controlled what face you showed. When you lived with us they made it so only your human face showed. Now…well…obviously you’re vamped out.”
Spike touched his lumpy brow and wrinkled nose. “Do you want me to change?”
Smiling, Buffy said, “If you want to.”
“Do you like the other face better? I mean – Cam said that’s how I was before…”
He looked down at his hands and shuddered when he saw the metal thumb on one hand and the missing digit on the other.
“Hey!” Buffy said, tapping the bars to get his attention. “I like you…no, I love you, however your face looks.”
“But…” He stood up and turned away.
“Spike?”
“What’s going to happen to me now? I remember killing a slayer. Then another one!” He whirled round holding his hands up. “I snapped her neck.” Throwing his head back he roared with manic laughter. “Don’t think I’d manage it now!” He ran at Buffy, slamming his hands on the bars at either side of her, making her squeal and back away. “Can’t even bite, can I?” His metal thumb tapped against his temple. “They saw to that – so what am I?” He voice rose to a yell. “What the fuck am I?”
“I love you!” Buffy stepped back up to the cage.
“How can you? I’m a vampire! You’re a slayer! It’s…it’s against nature.”
“I don’t care! Listen to me, Spike. We lived together for years. You shared my bed.”
Spike turned away and stalked to the far side of the cage.
“I shared your bed. Wasn’t ours then? Earlier you said that you owned me.” He glanced at her over his shoulder. “It’s true. You do own me.”
“Look, they’ve messed with your head. You’re not remembering things right.”
“Oh, so you’re keeping me in a cage for…?” He waved a hand in the air as he faced her. “What was it you said? Oh, yeah, that’s right – to make sure I didn’t kill you!”
“You’re twisting everything round!” Buffy’s face contorted with frustration, and now she was the one to bang against the bars. “Before Cam managed to reverse what they’d done to you – you were…feral! They made it so the chip fired all the time unless you killed.”
Spike frowned and put his hands against his temples, crouching down. “I—I remember…”
“Remember what?” Buffy’s voice softened and she sank to her knees opposite him.
“The rage. The pain. So the boy helped me? Is that why I needed to help him?”
“No, Spike. You helped him because deep down, you know that you love him.”
“I can’t do this. My head—”
“Oh, God, is the chip firing?” She rested her forehead against the bars.
“What? No. Just too much going on in it. Feels like it’s going to sodding explode.”
“Well, the chip shouldn’t fire again. Willow hexed it.”
Looking up, Spike said, “You shut down the chip?”
“Yes. You’re in here because they’d made it so you had to kill. I know that if you hurt any of us when you had no control that you’d never get over it.”
Buffy’s eyes filled with tears. Standing up, she walked to the shelf near the door and took down the key. As she approached the cage, Spike scrambled to his feet. Their eyes locked together, Buffy’s hand shook a little, making it difficult to put the key in place. When the lock finally clicked open, she swung the door wide.
For what seemed like an age they just stood staring at each other. A strange feeling ran over Spike’s face and for the first time in years he changed his features of his own free will.
“Oh, God, Spike!” Buffy’s hand flew to her mouth as she began to sob in earnest. “I’ve missed you so much. I thought you were dead.”
His voice hoarse, Spike said with a shrug. “Vampire, yeah? Already dead.”
With her sobs turning into a snort of laughter, Buffy ran in the cage and flung herself at Spike. The force of her embrace knocked him back a step or two and he wrapped his arms around her, tentatively at first, then with more conviction. Closing his eyes, he buried his face against her neck and clung to her. Her scent at once both familiar and new to him.
His lips brushed over the pulse point in her neck, and they both moaned with the pleasure it gave.
“Buffy…I…”
She pressed her body up against his and tilted her head back, exposing her neck and shuddering as he licked his way along the vein. She’d missed his touch so much…
Then she was on her backside outside of the cage, a feral growl ringing in her ears. She looked up to see Spike, back in game face, pulling the cage door closed.
“Lock it!” When she hesitated, he rattled it and screamed at her. “Now!”
Leaping to her feet, she twisted the key in the lock and stood panting, staring at Spike.
“What the hell?”
“Sorry…just…” He licked at his fangs. “’M hungry. Wasn’t sure I could resist getting another taste of you. Not with knowing the chip is broken.”
Buffy rubbed her butt and shook her head. “You’d never hurt me. I trust you.”
“Well you shouldn’t! I could feel it, bubbling inside, the need to feed – to kill.” He leaned on the bars, pushing his face close to them.
“But you didn’t! You pushed me aside and demanded to be locked up again. That tells me that you won’t hurt me. Trust yourself, Spike. They’ve screwed with your head but you’re still you. You’re still a good man.”
“’M not a man,” said Spike, but his tone now was more petulant than angry.
“Yeah, I know – vampire. Evil, nasty vampire. So evil you played with my sons everyday from the moment you came home with me. So evil you helped Cam with his homework and pitched ball after ball for Craig, even though you had to stand in the shade in the backyard. So evil you used to cook meals for me. So evil you cleaned the bathroom everyday.”
“I what?” Spike’s eyebrows rose.
Buffy began to giggle, “Okay, well not the last one.” She found she couldn’t stop and soon was wheezing and holding onto the bars to remain upright. “Sorry, just had a visual of you on your knees with rubber gloves on, scrubbing at the toilet you never use!”
Spike found her laughter infectious and although it was more of a chuckle than a full blown laugh, he couldn’t help it. He touched the fingers of the hand that she was gripping the bar with and her laughter faded. Straightening up, she gazed into his eyes, willing him to remember how life had been with them.
“I did the other stuff though?” His voice low and hoarse.
“And more. You were a part of our family. In truth, you made us a family. When they took you and we thought you were dead, we fell apart. We need you, Spike. I need you.”
Something stirred inside him, but it remained just out of reach and he growled with frustration.
“It’s just…” He shook his head, as if it would help clear his muddled mind. “I feel it – I think, but I don’t remember it!”
“You always said you were ruled by your instincts, so trust them now.”
His face vamped out and he snarled, curling his lip at her. “Better get me some blood now, if you don’t want me bouncing off the bars. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, trying to calm the demon within. “It’s so strong – this urge to feed. Never had trouble keeping it down in the past. Mind you, I didn’t try very hard as I recall.”
When he opened his eyes, he saw Buffy staring at him. “It’s good you’re remembering things.”
“Not so good when all I can really remember is when I was killing. Bet you wished you’d left that chip alone now.”
His voice now had a bitter edge to it and Buffy had to grit her teeth not to react to it. He was an emotional wreck right now, and arguing with him wasn’t going to help.
“I’ll get you some blood,” she said evenly.
“Ta. If the boy’s up to it, send him with it, yeah?”
He couldn’t face seeing the hurt expression on her face any longer, but he couldn’t give her what she so obviously wanted. He couldn’t be like he was before when he couldn’t really remember anything about living with her. Buffy’s face clearly showed him that she knew what he was thinking, and he wanted to apologise for not being what she wanted him to be, but he remained silent as she nodded and fled.
Spike made his way back to the cot and sat on it, cradling his head in his hands as his features returned to human. The pain in his head was almost as bad as the chip firing, as memories collided in a confusion of snapshots.
Being shot by the young Cameron was there.
Being blinded was there. He moaned pitifully at the remembered pain and the fear the loss of his sight gave him.
Tracking was there – running free across fields and roads.
Being punished was there. Countless times in numerous different ways.
“Oh, shite.”
The clanking of the elevator door opened made him look up, his vision blurry with tears.
Cam pushed the chair close to the cage. “Bad day, huh?” He said with a hint of a twitch of a lip.
“Could say that. Thing is I don’t really remember many good ones.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t do a better job on you.”
“What do you mean?” Spike straightened up.
“I could only reverse what they’d done to you the day I had the records for. I couldn’t give you back everything.” His voice hitched and Spike stood up.
“Seems to me you did a good job, yeah? According to your mum, if you hadn’t done something I would still have been totally out of my skull with what they did.”
Cam looked down and rocked the chair backwards and forwards slightly. “But I wanted to give you it all back. Wanted things to be like they used to be.”
Ticking his metal thumb against the bars, Spike said, “Don’t think that’s possible, Cam. What’s done can’t just be undone and forgotten – it’s going to stay with us.”
“But it’s not fair!” Cam stared up at the vampire.
“That’s the one thing that life isn’t, Cam. You’ve learnt it the hard way, for sure, but life is hard.”
A low growl and the appearance of a lumpy brow reminded Cam that he’d got a lapful of blood bags. “Um…Mom said you were hungry.” He pushed a bag between the bars, waited until Spike had drained it before pushing another through for him.
Three bags later, Spike’s features slipped back to human, and he inclined his head to Cam. “What about you? Are you doing better?” He returned to his position on his cot, so he was at eye level with the boy.
Cam smiled properly for the first time since entering the basement. “Yes. My arms are stronger and I…” He flushed and stopped, no need to mention that he was toilet trained again. “I saw my foot move.” His smile faded as he added, “Can’t do it again though.”
“Just need to keep having some of my blood, then.”
“I can’t.” Cam shook his head rapidly. “Aunt Willow said you nearly dusted the last time.”
“If I feed well it won’t matter, and for the record a vamp doesn’t dust through lack of blood. We just sort of shrivel up.”
“Ugh.”
“Yeah.”
They grinned at each other.
“Spike?” said Cam a moment later.
“What?”
“Why did you make Mom cage you back up?”
“I was going to bite her. The urge just got stronger and stronger.”
“So why didn’t you?”
Frowning, Spike said, “Did I just hear you right?”
“Yes. If you wanted to bite her so bad and you can’t remember her, why didn’t you feed?”
“Oh, I get it.” Spike pointed his left index finger at him. “You’re just the same as your bloody mother.”
Cam smiled. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“You should. She’s one hell of a woman.”
“How do you know?” Cam leaned forwards, his smile broadening even more.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake! I don’t know! There’s something there, just telling me I don’t want to do it. Probably just the years of training and having a chip I reckon.”
“Or deep down you know you love her.”
Spike rolled his right eye and smiled. “Yeah, or that. Okay. Okay. I get the point. But I’m still not sure that I can control the demon any more.” He ran a hand over his hair. “You said they unleashed it and after decades of being suppressed he wants out.”
Sighing, Cam leaned back in the chair and said, “You sound like the demon’s separate from you.”
“No, we’re one and the same. I just talk like that when my head is wanting to behave more like a human and the rest of me is crying out to rip someone’s head off and drink from the body’s neck!”
“Okay. Okay,” said Cam, raising his hands. “I get the point.”
The repartition of his own words made Spike pause, then grin. “You’re a cheeky git.”
“I know!” Cam rested his hands on the chair’s wheels. “Things might not be able to get back to how they were, but things will get better – for all of us.”
Spike snorted. “Looking at the pair of us, it can’t get much worse, can it?”
They both chuckled, and then Spike said, “I’m knackered. Want to leave a vamp to get some sleep?”
“Okay. Do you want me to bring you anything? A book? More blood?”
“Book?”
“Yeah, you used to read all the time.”
“Oh…” Spike realised he had no clue as to whether he could read; he had no memory of it.
“I’ll bring one down when you wake up.” He pushed his chair until his knees touched the bars. “Here.” Cam pushed his cell phone between the bars. “Just press one when you wake, and it’ll call Craig’s phone and someone will come down, okay?”
Spike nodded. “Thanks.”
When the elevator rumbled, Spike curled up on his side, drew his legs up to his chest as if trying to make himself as small as possible, and within a few minutes was asleep.
[Reviews - 161]
-
Table of Contents [Report This]
Chapter or Story |
Chapter or Story | 
Chapter or Story
Has been viewed 1256 times
- Text Size +
-
Table of Contents [Report This]
Chapter or Story |
Chapter or Story | Chapter or Story - Text Size +
Author's Chapter Notes:
Banner and beta by dawnofme.
Chapter End Notes:
Thanks for reading. This will be the last chapter posted until after Christmas. I hope you enjoyed it.