Chapter VI: Convenient
"The past is not dead. In fact, it's not even past."
-William Faulkner
She was warm and comfortable. There was nothing but warmth and silence, and… she was so tired. Was she dreaming? Was it possible to be tired in a dream? She'd felt something pinch her in her arm, so she couldn't be dreaming. Didn't pinches mean you were awake?
Buffy slowly opened her eyes. Her stomach sank as she realized, yes, she had been dreaming… and she knew what the pinch in her arm had been, too. She couldn't have nodded off for more than a couple minutes, but it was enough - enough for him to keep poisoning her.
There was no more warmth or comfort now that she was awake. Just the chains and the pain.
Fine. She could deal with pain.
"Tell me the worst thing, Spike." She rasped mostly to herself, in a voice that almost didn't sound like hers. She couldn't see him - he was hidden in the shadows, the torchlight extinguished completely – but she knew he was there.
"Love to." He said from somewhere far away. Or maybe he was close. Or maybe she was far away… getting further which each second that passed. She was dying. She was dying, and Spike was going to let her. No, Spike was going to kill her. He was killing her now, even as they spoke. "But I don't know what you're—"
"Come on… since you're being so honest with me." Buffy said. "You wanted me to know the real you, right? Your inner most vampirey self. Tell me the worst thing you've done."
Spike was silent for a moment.
"Not sure you want to know."
"Maybe not." She admitted without hesitation. "But I need to know."
Again, Spike was silent.
"There wasn't a worst thing." He said finally. "Just a very long string of bad, one after the other."
Buffy didn't hear the remorse in his voice anymore… it scared her, but it wasn't enough. She needed to know the worst thing. She needed to hear it from him; to gauge his interest in it… to know how far gone he really was. When or if she got out of this she had know if he was worth trying to save.
"Pick one."
"How about you pick for me?" He asked, and Buffy could almost hear the smile in his words. "Name something off. Man, woman, child. On land, or sea. England? Sunnydale? Whatever suits your fancy. Give us something to start with and I'll give you a story."
Buffy thought. She didn't want to hear any stories about children, and she was suddenly glad that Spike hadn't picked his own story to tell.
"Woman." Buffy chose.
Spike let out a small puff of air in place of a laugh.
"Plenty of those." He said, his voice filling with something she hadn't heard in it since… she didn't even remember. " One, in particular, I think it was around 1914… Picked up a couple on their wedding night." Buffy closed her eyes, but Spike continued. "I've never been one for the torture, you know. I'm too trigger-happy. Get too excited. My style's always been more direct – get my rush from the kill, not the lead in. Railroad spikes to the head… ripping spines out through the throat. That kind of..."
He stopped. She had shuddered when he said that, but barely. He couldn't have seen it. He must have felt it.
"You asked, Buffy." He said quietly… the eerie mirth disappearing from his voice. It was disturbing how quickly he could go from talking almost proudly about murder to sounding so normal.
"I didn't say stop." She responded firmly.
Judging by the kind of laugh he gave her, that bit of irony didn't go unnoticed by him.
"I cut off her eyelids so she couldn't close them like you're doing now." He said lowly. Buffy opened her eyes and clenched her jaw. Spike went on. "Like I said, I wasn't usually big on torture… but when I went for it, I laid in to it, and this girl? She was so… beautiful. I wanted to hurt her." He paused. "I tied the two of them up in chairs to face each other. I cut her boy apart piece by piece in front of her – anything that dangled went first. And I used a butter knife. Do you know how much a human body can take before it gives out, Buffy? The pain could go on for hours… and hours."
Buffy swallowed, her mouth was dry and her eyes stung.
"How did you kill her?" She asked.
There was a long pause before Spike answered.
"I didn't." He said, sounding every bit the evil thing she had met in the ally behind The Bronze. "That's why I consider her one of the worst."
"You made her watch—" Buffy stopped shortly, shaking her head. "You made her watch that, and then you let her live?"
"That's the thing about books and research." Spike offered. "You see, I'm sure you lot looked in to me when I first reared up in Sunnydale… but what did those books tell you, love? They told you I was a bad bad man who'd done some nasty things to a lot of good people. But did they give you the names of those people? Did they have pretty little illustrations?"
"What are you-"
"You wanted to know how it got worse than slaughtering thousands." He cut her off before she could get her question out. "It gets worse when you realize that each and every one them had a story… and none of them are prettier than the one I just told you."
No. They wouldn't have been, would they? He was right. Thousands of people dead, in theory, was sad. It was a horrible thought. When it really got down to it, though, she had never stopped to ponder the lives Spike – or Angel, for that matter – had taken. Thinking about them, really thinking about them, did make it worse.
"As for the worst stories?" He continued. "Well, I suppose you can get the idea that there are no worst stories… just varying degrees of worse. I do have my favorites though."
Of course he did. Slayers. Two of them.
"Buffy makes three." She said quietly.
"Care to elaborate on that one?"
"I'll be the third." She said.
Spike said nothing.
"Right?" She asked. "I mean, that's what this is all about. Killing another slayer. I'm a part of some great legacy… I inherited them all. Even the ones you killed." She had to pause, but only for a second. "They all had to die for me to be called. One in every generation. One after another. Like a parade in my mind." She wanted to cry. Or laugh.
"I'm there with them." Spike said knowingly. "Them and the thump-in-the-night's that got to 'em."
It was the truth. The deep and dark truth. All the slayers' murderers, whatever finally got them… each and every one from the very first until the very last, were all a part of her. They had been with her since the beginning - in the visions, in the nightmares. In the instinct. She carried them with her always. Maybe she'd never noticed Spike swaggering around in the background with two notches in his belt and blood dripping down his chin... But he must have been there, somewhere. Somewhere in the blood of those slayers he killed. It was sick, but it was just like he said earlier. He knew her before he met her. She was in him.
But he was in her, too.
When he killed those slayers - those women, he gave them to her. A blood soaked gift with his fingerprints all over it, moving her up two spaces in line. He may have had two for his collection, but she had all of them. A collection passed down generation after generation, growing bigger by one from one girl to the next. And now she was going to be part of it. Join Spike's other two dusty girls on the shelf.
"So what… this is my destiny?" She asked with weak disdain. She was going to die now because of some contract signed in slayer blood before she'd even been born?
He half laughed, half scoffed.
"Hardly, love. No such thing." He answered her, but remained hidden from her view. "The ponces that be… God… destiny." A beat. "All words we invented to try to give our lives meaning. Whatever's up there, whatever's out there, it doesn't take an interest in us. It turns us on and shakes us about, but in the end no one's operating the switch."
He was wrong. She couldn't – she wouldn't – believe that they were all just roaming around aimlessly and purposelessly. She'd lived through too much, had seen too much, to believe it.
"You know it." Spike said before she could say anything. "You used to be the slayer, and now you're just a slayer. You did that, remember? If all that 'slayer destiny' bullocks really meant anything, then you'd think a great big hand of destiny-fire would have stopped you from lodging that fantastically large wrench in to it's engine with the whole 'slayer army' thing. Bit of a game changer, wouldn't you say?"
The room echoed slightly with the sound of Spike's lighter as he opened it, the flame momentarily lighting his face as he lit the tip of a cigarette. She saw for the first time that he was sitting on his knees on the ground. His eyes burned blue by the small light of the fire, and then the flame was gone with a snap.
"If we have destinies, they're not etched in stone…" He said, and the tip of his cigarette glowed orange in the darkness as he took a drag. "They're just scribbled on a bloody napkin somewhere."
Buffy either had nothing to say, or she agreed. She wasn't sure which one. She wasn't even sure that she cared. She didn't want to talk anymore. She didn't want to listen anymore. Spike was gone. This wasn't him anymore, and she just wanted… to sleep.
She closed her eyes, and she dropped her head, her chin touching her chest.
The next instant Spike was upon her, lifting her head in both hands. He was saying something to her. What? She couldn't hear him. Was he mumbling? Why did he sound so far away when she could feel his hands on her face?
"—ffy!"
Did he sound scared? She couldn't tell. She just wanted to be left alone. She was so tired, and the chains hurt too much. Her throat burned when her eyes were open, but now that they were closed she didn't feel anything. She was numb.
"Buffy!"
Why was he screaming her name? Still mumbling something. Incoherent words.
Not-time-yet-love-god-wake-up-buffy-please-not-yet-please …
It all bled together.
And maybe he wasn't mumbling any of it.
"Buffy, please. God, not yet… Buffy!"
He was screaming.
He was shaking her.
She opened her eyes.
"Spike…" She said quietly, furrowing her forehead. He stared her in the eyes,
seeming to try to get a glimpse of something deep down inside of her. Some kind of tortured noise escaped from the back of his throat, and his arms were around her the next moment.
Buffy bit down hard on her jaw and clamped her eyes shut. He was scared for her just now. That meant she had probably just taken a very sharp nose-dive in a very bad direction. He must have sensed that she was on the edge now.
No. No, not like this. She wasn't going to go out like this. She had to pull deep from whatever reserve of slayer strength she had, and she had to stay here. She had to stay with it. She was better than this.
"Get. Off. Of. Me."
"Buff—"
She bucked him off with her shoulder. Spike was thrown just a bit off his balance, but regained it within an instant. The look of surprise on his face that she had been able to do even that mirrored how she felt.
"Look at you." She spat. "You're pathetic." She knew didn't have the muscle to back up the sentiments. Maybe he knew, maybe he didn't… but either way, he watched her silently. Curiously. The tears were still drying on his face, but he no longer seemed hurt or sad. He looked blank. She knew that look. It was the look right before he got angry. She went on anyway. "You killed your conscience so you could come and turn me, but still all you can do is stand there and cry? Looks like you can take the soul out of the Spike, but you can't—"
He must have backhanded her in the face, but she wasn't sure. All she was sure of was the stinging pain across her left cheek, and the taste of blood on her bottom lip. Fine by her. It woke her up.
"Right then, love." He growled at her. "Chained up, no strength. Seems like a perfect time to piss me off."
Buffy laughed.
"'Oh, Buffy. Buffy, don't die yet. Pretty please?'" She mocked him. Her face went hard. "If you're going to kill me, then kill me. I'm done listening to you."
Spike took one step toward her, his body inclined at an angle so that he was not completely turned to her.
"Must get under your skin." He said. "With you so used to being in charge and all that. So used to lighting those hoops on fire and watching me jump right through them. Catching fire myself sometimes. You loved to watch me burn."
"That wasn't me back then."
"Oh…" He said on a laugh. "It was you. Every scratch, every bite, every lick, and every word."
"Keep telling yourself it meant something, Spike."
It did mean something. All of it did.
That second kiss didn't end much differently from the first… Except maybe there was even more visible disgust in your face when you finally pulled away from me. The kiss itself was much different, though. At least in it's meaning. I couldn't deny the fact that you had been under a spell when we kissed before, but the kiss at The Bronze? No, that was all you… and in public, no less – which may, now that I think about it, have had to a lot with you looking more disgusted. I couldn't have cared less at the time, though, because now I knew I was in your head. You never meant to let me in; I think you'd always just meant to watch me from your window, but I was there now. There was no pain when you ran away from me this time. All I could feel when I watched as you ran away was… happy.
Wish there was a darker word for that.
You let me too close to you. That was your own fault. You thought you could tug me around like a dog on a leash, because that dog couldn't bite back when he was bitten. But then I could bite back.
And when I knew I could, I did.
Did it scare you to think you came back wrong? I hoped it did. Something in me cracked open at the knowledge that I could hurt you again. It was something I thought I had lost completely, but it'd always been there laying in wait. I didn't lie when I said I was happy to be the one to break the news to you. I wasn't just happy, I was bleeding elated. It knocked you down off of that pedestal you'd been building higher and higher for yourself your whole life, and I was the one to tell you. It felt good to have some semblance of control back in my hands. It put us back on level ground. You couldn't swing at me from your perch anymore because I could finally reach you again.
I did enjoy the look of fear on your face. I reveled in it. It'd been too long since I'd been able to scare you… and it was beautiful, even if it wasn't exactly me that you were afraid of. When I hit you, though, it was as much just to touch you as it was anything else. When had been the last time we had really fought? When I came to Sunnydale for the Gem of Amara.
Our last fight had been fought in the light of day.
We were bringing it back to the dark now, though, weren't we?
And then…
I don't think any amount of waxing poetic could describe just what exactly was going through my head when I had you in my arms and I felt you reach between our bodies. I knew what you were doing, I think, but I know I didn't believe it. My mind was racing, and all I knew for sure was that we had been fighting and then you kissed me. Maybe I'd been expecting that at some point. You thought you were wrong so it gave you an excuse to keep being wrong. That's the truth of it, but I didn't look at it that way at the time.
What I thought was… God, I thought I'd finally won.
There was an initial push that was a shock to my system. It was a shock to my everything. The heat from your body made its way in to mine… and my skin felt hot for the first time since I'd died. All I could do was stare in to your eyes at first. Was this really happening? Could I trust this? I had wanted you so badly for so long; I'd wanted you since I met you. I had always wanted to be inside you in some form of another… with my teeth, with my words.
Now this.
My heart stung painfully when you didn't pull away from me. It stung with the same feeling that I'd always gotten when I watched Drusilla sleep; the agony of being utterly and completely in love. I loved you so much it hurt to be that close to you. It hurt to feel your skin against mine… but I wanted it. I wanted it for the rest of my life, and you didn't stop. We fell through the floor all the way to the bottom, and you still didn't stop. Hours went by, and you punished yourself with me. I didn't think that at the time either.
I know now what that night was about for you, but you never asked me what it was about for me… and for me; for me it was all about worshipping you. It may have been violent, but then love always is. If it hurt when I pulled your hair, or if I bit a little too hard with human teeth, or if my hands bruised your skin for holding on too tight – it was all to show you how much I loved you. I had always wanted to devour you whole, and I did that night. I consumed your whole body, and you let me. With each push and pull and scream, I just wanted to show you I loved you.
I didn't know what was going to happen in the morning. I didn't care. That night was all that existed for me, all that had ever existed, and all that ever would exist. There was nothing outside that house. There was never any sun in the sky. We'd always be there in the dark, wrapped up in each other.
The hunter had finally caught his prey, and instead of eating her alive he was drowning in her.
And also, just as a side note, I liked the tattoos.
The sun, though, did come up.
You woke up first.
Now, let me make this next part perfectly clear. Convenient? Yeah, I watched while you wracked your cracked little skull for just the right word. I knew you were going to try to hurt me, but I waited to hear it anyway. Why? Because I liked the way you hurt me. But then you said convenient. Convenient. I knocked over convenient stores for fun. It was easy and, on the whole, pointless… but it was something to do. I'd put lamps in my crypt because they were more convenient than torches. Convenient was at the top of a very inconsequential list of crap, and if there was one thing I didn't want to be, it was that. There was no passion in convenience… and it wasn't just that you wanted to hurt me. You wanted to be cruel.
There was one of only two ways that could have gone. One was what you saw. I just stared at you for a second, stood up and put my pants back on.
The other was ripping your fucking throat out.
I probably could have ripped Willow's throat out, too, for what she did to Dawn. I'd spent way too much time protecting the girl just to have her snuffed out by Big Red. I guess it would have have been funny in its irony, but I did love the nib unfortunately… and I wouldn't have fancied having to brave the fallout.
"I hate her." Dawn had said while we sat in the overcrowded emergency room at Sunnydale Memorial. I could smell blood everywhere and I would have been a little distracted from her even if Popeye hadn't been on the flat screen in the corner.
"Yeah, well, I don't blame you, pet." I said, not looking at her. "I'm no doctor, but I think your arms broken right and proper."
"Where was she?" She asked. I sat staring at a little girl with a very badly scraped knee, and was still not giving her my full attention.
"Couldn't tell you, love. Wasn't there."
"She should have been home with me. Not Willow."
That was when I looked at her, but she wasn't looking at me. She glared straight ahead of her, holding her injured arm.
"You mean Buffy…"
"She doesn't care what happens to me."
"Looked like she cared from where I stood watching her kick that thing's ass."
"That's her job."
I turned took her chin and faced her to me. I could smell the anger coming off of her. I was surprised I hadn't noticed it before.
"No, that's my job. I'm the one deals in death and pain. Your sister—"
"Hey! Who's up for a whole lot of Spike getting his hand off of Dawn?"
I bit down hard on my jaw and rolled my eyes to the side. That was the voice of my eternal punishment. I was convinced that he was an immortal sent to annoy me for the rest of time.
I curled my hand away from Dawn's face, and looked over to see man/boy Harris looking at me with his hands clapped in front of him.
"What are you doing here?" I asked.
"What did you think?" He answered my question with his own. "Buffy's going to let you sit here with her sister all night?"
I scoffed and stood up. Yeah, that is what I thought. Blood unbelievable, right? Who could have ever thought that anyone would let me stay with Dawn all night— Oh wait, all your stupid friends did until just a few months before. Bloody tosser.
The idiot immediately took my seat.
"Thanks for keeping it cold for me." He said.
I stood there for a moment seething in anger. It wasn't just you who thought you could treat me like something you stepped in and wanted to scrape off on the sidewalk. It was all of them. I'd done more than my share to help when I could. I'd fought against my nature to do that, but they'd never see me for anything more than the demon face I rarely even showed them anymore.
"On second thought, Dawnie…" I said through clenched teeth. " You're right. She should have been there, just like she should be here now instead of sending one of her flunkies to do the work she didn't want to. Guess big sis just doesn't give a bloody damn about any of you."
Then I walked away. I hated you and I hated them, and it'd be too good for all of you if you ripped each other apart.
I could smell the garlic from the front lawn. You must have had your room plastered with it. Did you think that would have kept me away if I had really wanted to get in? I wasn't even sure if a deinvite spell would have worked on me at that point. You couldn't kick me out of your home when I'd already been invited in to your body.
That was probably just the poet in me who thought that.
Either way, you never did do the spell. You kept saying you wanted me gone, wanted me out of your life… but you never took any real steps to make it happen. I almost wish you would have.
37 times. Maybe I should be too embarrassed to admit to having kept count, but shame might possibly be an emotion that the soul takes with it when it goes. Also, I can't imagine that the fact would surprise you anyway.
Once, the only time you let me in your bed, you let me go slow. You didn't stick your fingers in my mouth when I tried to tell you I loved you… so I think I might have said it a hundred times before we were done. You kept your eyes closed tight. I knew you were pretending I was someone else. Probably Angel. That would have made sense with my cold body. You couldn't have hurt me more if you staked me. I tried to fill you with me, bent my head low to your ear to whisper to you. Nothing nasty, just how much I loved you, worshipped you. How badly I needed you. You still kept your eyes closed. You were concentrating on keeping me out of your head even when I was so deep inside your body. When you cried out, it wasn't my name… just sounds. I wanted you to open your eyes and see me.
When you finally did, it was probably because you felt the tears dropping on your face. Pathetic? Yes, I agree.
I rolled off of you on to my back.
It was too much. I couldn't be there in your room like we were some kind of real couple. You didn't want me and, at least that time, I couldn't pretend I didn't know. My heart broke for you and my heart broke for me, and it was all too bloody sad to ignore.
You didn't say anything when I stood up and put my clothes back on. You didn't say anything when I opened your window and climbed out.
I never tried to have it out with you in your bed again. That place wasn't for us. I'm sure you didn't want me there anyway.
The very last time, you told me to tell you I loved you. God, you probably could see the hope in my eyes. You'd never asked me to tell you before. In fact, I usually got some manner of ass kicking when I forced the issue… but you came to me and wanted me to tell you. I didn't hesitate even for a second. I thought…
Doesn't matter what I thought. I was wrong. Nothing had changed. You were just there to pull me apart from the inside without me even knowing you were doing it.
You called me William… and it was over. Just like that.
I went on a killing spree. If you didn't have much to do on patrol for the next few nights, you can thank me for that. I think I probably offed anything without a heart beat within a ten-mile radius, and quite a few things with one for that matter. I'd drink with the sun, and kill with the moon. I kept waiting… hoping that you would come back. I waited every night for the crypt door to swing open, but you never came. Not even for a fight. I knew you wouldn't. Something told me you were finally done with me, but my heart wouldn't let it be true.
Everything went to hell after that.
"I was a monster." Buffy said, remembering what she had done to him, but she wasn't sorry. She was sorry then, but she wasn't sorry now. She'd moved past it, and if he couldn't… well, he would chain her up and remind her about it relentlessly. "Like I said: that wasn't me."
"Oh, you mean like the monster isn't me?" Spike asked incredulously. "The monster, the saint, the hero, the villain… they're just parts we play, Buffy. When we're not playing one, we're playing another – but the other parts don't disappear just because we're not showing them. We're all of them, all at once, and all the time."
"No, Spike. You got rid of your soul so you could kill me. That pretty much puts you back on the 'all monster, all the time' channel."
"I never said I got rid of it."
Buffy didn't know what to say to that.
"Huh?" She asked, rather a bit confused. Wait. No. He couldn't have it. He couldn't. Spike wouldn't do this. Not with a soul.
"I didn't get rid of it." Spike reiterated. "Didn't have to."
Spike disappeared in to the darkness and said nothing more for a few moments. Buffy's head swam with confusion.
Then… there was light.
Buffy clamped her eyes shut to the sudden pain of light hitting her retinas after so many hours spent in the dark. It took her several seconds to be able to open them a little, to finally be able to see where she was. The light was dim enough to adjust to quickly.
Whatever she had been expecting to see, this was not it.
"See anything interesting?" Spike asked, standing a few feet away from her in what now appeared to be…
"Your crypt?" Buffy asked quietly.
She was in a tunnel to the side of everything, but she could see it all. Spike's bed. His bar. That rug. They were underneath his crypt… and all was illuminated by a lamp on a nightstand. It was all still so familiar. This couldn't have been possible. She and Riley had blown this place up years ago. No, wait. That was a moot point. This room shouldn't even have existed at all. It should have gone out with Sunnydale's bath water.
"I didn't have to get rid of my soul." Spike said, stepping in front of her, and Buffy noted vaguely that he looked somehow much thinner to her than she had noticed earlier. Maybe because it'd been dark and he'd been wrapped in his leather coat. Now he stood before her in the light wearing a dark blue button up shirt that was almost too big for him. The thinness was unmistakable. It was his equivalent of looking younger. "I just had to take us back to a time before I had one in the first place."
Buffy's mouth hung open in shock. If ever there was a time in her life to pass out, this was it. She didn't understand any of this, but she was filled with cold dread anyway. Taken them back to a time before—taken them back? Taken them… She couldn't grasp this. It was too much to take in.
Spike gestured toward the lamp.
"See?" He asked with a dark grin. "Convenient."