It burned.

Not like the sun or a stove or the flame of a candle.

“Someone should teach you to use candles in foreplay, love,” he muttered, and rolled his tongue behind his teeth as he enjoyed the look of irritation and disgust that flashed across her features.

It was inside him. Inside his chest and his lungs as he took ragged breaths of air his mind told him he didn’t need but he couldn’t help anyway. It was in his veins, like his very blood was on fire.

So much blood. Hot, thick and pulsing as he tore into the skin of person after person, ripping their necks apart with his fangs and groaning in satisfaction as the warm liquid filled his mouth and throat, listening to their sounds of fear with relish.

It wouldn’t go away.

He scratched and tore at his skin, snarling as he dug his fingernails into the wound on his chest, whimpering when it didn’t help. Nothing helped.

He gasped when he finally tore free from the earth, clawed the rest of the way out of the coffin and fell trembling to the cold ground. His hands were broken and bleeding but the pain was nothing compared to the burning inside him. To the thirst. It raged and howled beneath his skin and all he could focus on was the need. He didn’t know for what and he whimpered at the agony that coursed through him.

“Shh shh..” He jerked as a gloved hand came to rest on his shoulder. “Mummy’s here now, and she knows exactly what you need.” He was pulled into a surprisingly strong hold and turned around. And that’s when the scent reached him.

Blood.

Thrumming erratically through someone’s veins. This was it, he knew. What he needed. Before he knew what he was doing the demon had burst through.

He didn’t even look at the young woman before he tore her throat out.


“Oh, god,” he cried as the memories assaulted him. He clawed at the sand in the cave, clutched at the rocks beneath him until his hands bled, hoping the sensation would ground him.

He hadn’t known. Angel never said it was like this, the soul.

God, it burned.

“Stupid boy!” The hand crushing his windpipe shouldn’t bother him. After all, he didn’t need to breathe, but Angelus knew very well how much he liked to, how it made him uncomfortable not to. The hand gripped tighter. “You never think, do you, William?” Angelus leaned down to snarl in his face. “With that stunt you pulled you could have gotten us all killed.” He threw him down in disgust.

He rubbed at his throat. “And here I thought we vampires were immortal,” he rasped out.

Angelus back handed him.

“Don’t you take that tone with me, boy. I don’t know what Drusilla has allowed from you, but I’m telling you. You are nothing but some worthless fledgling, and that’s all you’ll ever be. Worthless.”


He was right. Stupid William, not thinking things through again.

Thought you’d go and get a soul and everything would be all better didn’t you?

“I’ve changed, Buffy.”

“What? That chip in your head? That’s not change.”


God it hurt. Everything hurt. And the entrance to the cave was so far away. He tried to sit up and collapsed as soon as he put weight on his arms. He whimpered.

Pathetic.

Is this what Buffy deserves?

“Won’t let me be a monster and I can’t be a man.”

He laughed, a high desperate sound that caught in his throat.

Not a man. Not a man.

Never a man.

“You’re a thing, Spike. An evil, disgusting thing.”

Why had he thought anything different? She was right. And the proof of that was right here, pouring through his mind as he relived every moment of his one hundred and twenty years as a vampire.

The sound of a neck cracking--he loved that. Loved the strength of his arms and the force of his hands as he gripped their skull, the exhilaration over having someone’s life in his hands, then extinguishing it--

The girl’s hand was warm as she grasped his, and she followed him trustingly into the back room of the mansion. “Look what I’ve brought you, love. A new guest for your tea party.” Drusilla looked up from the doll in her lap, licking her lips as her eyes trailed over the plump form of the child he lead to her---

He knew she could tell that there was something wrong when he pulled her into his arms, but he held her close and soothed her the best he could. “It’ll only her hurt for a bit,” he whispered, before he sank his fangs into his mother’s neck--

He watched her from the shadows of the club, eyes raking over her form as she danced, assessing the power and strength that was revealed in the confident way she moved. He could smell it from here, the Slayer blood, seeping between her legs into the tiny cotton tube used to stem the flow. He couldn’t wait to taste it again, to sink his fangs into that young neck and rip--


“Oh god.” He gagged, his throat making odd, dry gasping noises as his long dead stomach twisted on itself in an attempt to react to the massive amount of disgust that roiled through him.

“Please, please,” he whimpered, curling his burnt and blood caked hands into the rocks. “Stop. Please just stop.”

“Ow! Stop it! Please, stop!”

“I know you felt it… when I was inside you. I’m gonna make you feel it again.”

“No! Please, please, Spike, please…”


“No… I didn’t--didn’t mean…” The burning in his chest grew worse, consuming him.

“The last Slayer I killed, she begged for her life. You don’t strike me as the begging kind.”

“Please, Spike. Please don’t do this…”


He thought it would burn him until there was nothing left. He prayed that it would. Dust. That is what he deserved to be. Dust.

“Do you trust me?” The handcuffs swung lightly in his hand.

“Never.”

“Ask me again why I could never love you!”


He couldn’t take this. It was too much. The pain, the memories, the burning. He scratched at his skin, sobbing as his nails created long, bloody gouges along his arms and chest. The pain didn’t help. Nothing helped.

Monster. Evil.

Stupid, worthless William. What did you think this would accomplish?

Beneath her. Always beneath her. No soul would change that.

“I don’t hurt you,” he said firmly as he placed the camera back in her hand.

Her voice was quiet. “I know.”


He closed his eyes with a cry, feeling as if he was breaking apart. Bright, hot lines of pain roared through him until he was shattered, fractured into a million tiny pieces that were scattered, never to be found again.

He moaned, tears seeping from his clenched eyelids. “’m sorry,” he whispered. “Never--never meant to hurt the girl.”

He took one last shuddering breath, and was still.





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