Chapter Sixteen
It only hurt when he opened his eyes.
He did it once, at the beginning when he first regained consciousness. Dru was there, her face serene in that confused little girl way of hers while she held her doll—that bloody meddlesome Miss Edith—and looked at him like he’d been the saddest most upsetting thing to happen to her in a long while. When the sword was thrust through his gut, wrenching a shout of ragged agony from his lips, he saw her tiny smile and could guess the way she would have it be made better. She stood back from her minions as they thrust more sharp blades into his broken body, wary of getting his blood spatters on her spotless filmy white dress. It was her encouraging little clap and bounce that finally did it, and Spike closed his eyes.
It didn’t hurt if he couldn’t see. He wouldn’t let it hurt. They could slice open his testicles for all he cared, on the inside of his eyeballs was a vision in the sunlight, her golden hair swept about her face in a sudden gust of wind as she giggled and the tinkling sound of her happiness gave him something to hold onto.
Something that wasn’t Dru and her disloyalty.
If he was honest with himself, he’d let go of Dru in that moment of irritation and sarcasm when they’d first rolled into town. When it became clear that his opinion was again inconsequential to her bigger plan, Spike had had enough and allowed his feelings for her to dull. And then she’d left him wandering around the town while she shacked up with the wrinkled up old git and the rest of their family. It had been, for the most part, convenient while he researched the Slayer with his unusual soul card. Until the impromptu deception turned into something else entirely. Until it became opportunity that showed him many different paths and ways toward true happiness.
Like was apparently his tradition, he’d buggered that up in no short order. His commonsense had become skewed from a century of evil thoughts and actions so he wasn’t quite aware of what was acceptable or not in this world of many alternating shades.
Buffy might be smiling in his dreams, but he knew his nightmares would be closer to reality. Each hot painful lance in his body, each and every blunt punch that shattered his bone could have been her. He knew that hatred could be the only response to what he’d done. It seemed only fitting that he realise his mistake and almost immediately being captured by Dru and her minions.
Up to now he just hadn’t wondered why.
He knew that Drusilla wouldn’t react well to rejection, but he never pictured her going this far. He’d never taken her for a hypocrite, not really. Mixed up for sure, especially if she had her git of a sire prodding her into confused loyalties. So why was he here when he could be ducking and diving into hiding spots until he was ready to face the stake that Buffy had most assuredly carved his name upon?
As holy water was thrown in his face and he felt and smelled the way his flesh burned, he gave up caring. It seemed more than apparent that whether Buffy or Dru had him, he was the proverbial toast. And as the image of a drained Jesse and a desperate Xander came to his mind, he couldn’t summon up the will to care.
To be condemned was to be condemned, didn’t much matter who took care of the sentence. At least he wouldn’t have to see her face as he fluttered into dust. At least he could die remembering her lips and her smile for him, and imagine that that one time they’d committed their feelings for one another had been more explicit and she’d said the words to his face.
His jaw clenched until his teeth felt pained, his eyes flowing water through the tightly squeezed barrier, Spike imagined how her lips could convey the words, and he felt it alright to give up.
His last moments had been an effort to do good by her, to try to turn the leaf she needed to be with him guilt free. He could pass with the knowledge that in his last he’d made peace with himself and his actions. He made peace with being a demon and killing indiscriminately until pain painted the world over.
Feeling serenity sweep over him, Spike opened his eyes and soaked in Dru’s frown. He smirked and winked at her, knowing that she could tear him apart limb by limb and he wouldn’t even feel it. Self-absolution was powerful.
He waited for the final toll to be paid and his chance to pass beyond.
Bloody hell it was slow.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
Buffy kicked Angel out of the apartment so he couldn’t stand over them with his ironic judgement about what they should or shouldn’t do with Jesse. One missing vampire was all the stress she could handle from that quarter and to have a souled yet unrepentant demon staring at them with judgemental disdain and disapproval was too much even for her.
Buffy had phoned Giles, requesting he take Willow home before meeting them with the intention of transporting Jesse somewhere they could control the situation when he rose. Not that she’d told Giles that. Only that they had a man down and needed his trusty car. It was only after as much of the plan was relayed that she felt comfortable sharing over the phone and she’d hung up the receiver that Buffy marvelled at the existence of a phone line in an evil vampire’s apartment in the first place.
And a comfy bed, though the ewwness of that discovery so didn’t want to be visited at this time. Buffy felt like she was doing pretty well at holding the consuming grief at bay, but realising the truth, she knew that she ultimately hadn’t gotten that close to him. It was that fact that upset her more than anything—even that Spike had sired him and run. This was what made her feel the tight constriction of guilt in her throat. It seemed like as soon as she’d arrived in the school she’d come between such a strong trio of friends, offering up a secret that only two of them became privy of. Oh, it had been Xander’s call, and evidence was pretty good at showing that that may not have been the best course of action to follow, but she’d still given Xander enough of a situation for him to make such hard decisions.
It was like she’d walked in and just taken his place in the group and it made Buffy feel such wrenching guilt that she almost felt the need to collapse and cry against Xander’s shirt.
“You’re not gonna stake him, are you?” Xander looked at her with big earnest brown eyes and Buffy felt the anger that had begun to rise at being put in this position falter and dive. She’d thought all vampires were black until Spike had introduced the concept of a soul. Now that she’d met the true vamp with soul, she was glad that she’d learned of it from Spike first or she might have felt the need to disbelieve the possible good in whatever incarnation. Despite the tableau spread out dead centre of the bed—and she was so ignoring that unintentional pun!—Buffy still believed it was loving motives that made Spike do something so monumentally stupid.
“What did you think was going to happen?” She couldn’t stay mad, even though she had every right to be. “Why did you ask Spike to do this, Xand? You know that vamps are evil. It’s my job to take them out.”
He hefted a crazy sounding sigh in a mix-up of laughter. “Well, thank God that’s not true or that crazy blonde bitch might have killed us all. If it was your job then you’ve slacked off with Spike—and that so isn’t a criticism right now.”
Buffy jerked in surprise. Did that mean that Xander suspected…
“I know, Buff. I know Spike is soulless and yet, I’m so not with the caring right now. I know it’s something that’s supposed to make me wig spectacularly, but he’s been nicer to us and more helpful when we’ve needed him than Angel—and he’s the one who claims to have the real soul.” He snorted, his lip curling in obvious disgust for what he saw as soulful behaviour. His friend was dead because of that soul. “Nah, I took advantage of him. Kinda goaded him into doing it. Yeah, he might be trying hard, but I could see he didn’t quite have all the knowledge the soul crowd have inbuilt to do the right thing. Strangely—not that concerned. He still seems no worse than Cordelia on a bad hair day. So yeah, he may struggle with the technicalities, but he tries to do the right thing—if he can work out what that actually is.”
They shared snickering laughter before settling with a fond smile. Buffy knew she should have been worried—should have started to prepare herself that Xander might one day take this act and hold it against her. Use it to drive a wedge between her and Spike. Ever since they all discovered her secret they’d had the badness of vampires almost beaten into them. Hopefully this relaxed and accepting attitude he held now would exist long enough for her to show them that Spike really did intend to do good, and that he was a great vamp to have around. Obviously the collar of a soul wasn’t enough to keep them safe, just using Angel as the only example they had, so it was left to their instinct and reliance on example to decide if being around any vampire could ever be considered risk free.
She so hoped nothing would happen to jeopardise the one thing she had full belief in.
The hesitant knock on the door broke her from the uncomfortable reverie and Buffy felt a tightening in her stomach. Giles poked his head around the door and found them sort of shielding the body on the bed. He stepped inside, shutting the door with a determined click before making his way around the bed and stopping at the obvious corpse.
“Oh dear lord. I-I understand why you wanted Willow home.” Giles’s eyes seemed to focus on the ragged puncture marks at Jesse’s throat and he slumped a little in sadness. “I’m so sorry, Xander. This must be tremendously difficult.”
Xander shrugged, about to open his mouth and get on with the telling of the dilemma when Buffy subtly elbowed him in the ribs and he clamped his lips shut.
“Giles, we have a bit of a sitch. Jesse’s kinda about to be undead. We need somewhere we can keep him comfortable for when he rises, but somewhere that we can chain him up and stuff.”
Giles looked at them as if they were insane. “Are you mad? Your job is to stake vampires, Buffy. Not make friends with them. We are not about conducting experiments with our friends. A-as painful as it is to lose a friend—” Giles paused and both Buffy and Xander could see the sudden hollow guilt that tinged his eyes. “You can not expect that he will rise to be anything but a monster in the body of a boy you once knew. He will not remain your friend. He will wake a vicious monster who will want nothing from you but your blood.”
Buffy swallowed hard, knowing in her heart that in this situation that was exactly what would happen. But she had to support Xander and she also owed Spike the benefit of the doubt. Besides, if he’d created a disaster it had to be one he dealt with on his own. Perfect learning opportunity for him, too.
Xander’s face was lined with tragedy and a knowledge no boy his age should have to deal with. “I know that this is probably a mistake. But I have to give him the chance, right? He’s my friend. He’d do the same for me.” He implored the Watcher to see what he meant—and hoped that he could recognise the desperation that had spurred on this act by a vampire who would now be struggling with these people to be trusted and accepted.
Rather than fight further, Giles helped them carry the dead boy out to the car, glad that rigour had not quite started to fully set in as they manipulated him into the back seat.
“I guess my place is the only one that is even half set up for something like this. He can sleep on that old bed in the basement and I have chains—plenty of chains.” She studiously ignored the raised eyebrows aimed her way. “Ooh, but we’ll need blood and—” Buffy stopped babbling, running out of things to say and the energy to say it with. The night had been exhausting and she still had a wayward vampire to find.
The look on Spike’s face had been worrying, and teemed with his rather sudden disappearing act, Buffy felt a chill settle. Something was making her feel that it wasn’t so simple—not any of it—and not having Spike there to guide them was way beyond wiggy. This was his experiment—his childe. How were three humans meant to know what to do to pave the way for a newly born demon?
The little car zoomed through the streets of Sunnydale, preparing all of them for what was yet to come. The urgency of it all escaped none of them, and an edge of apprehension settled over all of them.
The night had been forever altered; a new level of darkness had corrupted their lives and Buffy was left staring out the window, imagining what kind of future there would be for them all.
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