No one knows what it’s like
To be the bad man
To be the sad man
Behind blue eyes
LONDON (1880)- VICTORIAN PARLOR- NIGHT
William is sitting and composing poetry off in the corner of a dinner party. The spirited laughter of the party-goers can be heard in the background. William's hair is long unruly curls and he's dressed as a proper gentleman, complete with tie and reading spectacles. He's awkward and bookish- none of the confident swagger we're used to. He mumbles to himself, “Luminous... oh, no, no, no. Irradiant's better.”
A servant approaches and holds out a tray asking, “Care for an hors d'oeuvre, sir?”
“Oh, quickly! I'm the very spirit of vexation. What's another word for "gleaming"? It's a perfectly perfect word as many words go but the bother is nothing rhymes, you see.”
The servant smiles patronizingly and moves off into the crowd. William's eyes are drawn to Cecily, a young woman just entering the party that he is absolutely infatuated with. He whispers her name, “Cecily...” He then turns back to his poem with renewed purpose and jots down several more lines, then gets up and moves through the crowd toward her.
A group of young aristocrats, a woman and her two male companions, are gathered discussing current events.
The woman says in a slight snooty tone as most of the aristocrats of the party tend to, “I mean to point out that it's something of a mystery and the police should keep an open mind.”
One of the men turns to William as he passes by,”Ah, William! Favor us with your opinion. What do you make of this rash of disappearances sweeping through our town? Animals or thieves?”
William answers in a haughty tone, “I prefer not to think of such dark, ugly business at all. That's what the police are for.” He glances towards Cecily, “I prefer placing my energies into creating things of beauty.
The second man snatches the poem from William's hands. “I see. Well, don't withhold, William.”
The woman adds, “Rescue us from a dreary topic.”
William responds nervously, “Careful. The inks are still wet. Please, it's not finished.”
The second man says, “Don't be shy.” He then starts to read, "My heart expands/'tis grown a bulge in it/inspired by your beauty, effulgent." He pauses laughing before repeating, “Effulgent?”
Everyone laughs, mocking William. Uncomfortable, Cecily glances at him and walks off. William shoots the second man a sour look, snatches back his poem, and follows her.
The first man laughs pointing out, “And that's actually one of his better compositions.”
The woman adds, “Have you heard? They call him William the Bloody because of his bloody awful poetry!”
Before William is fully out of earshot the second man states, “It suits him. I'd rather have a railroad spike through my head than listen to that awful stuff!”
William approaches Cecily, who is sitting on a sofa, away from the main party, and looking out the window, he says softly, “Cecily?”
She turns and sighs when she sees him, “Oh. Leave me alone.”
He nods his head towards the others saying, “Oh, they're vulgarians. They're not like you and I.”
“You and I? I'm going to ask you a very personal question and I demand an honest answer. Do you understand?” When he nods she continues, “Your poetry, it's... they're... not written about me, are they?”
Nervously he answers vaguely, “They're about how I feel.”
“Yes, but are they about me?”
“Every syllable.”
“Oh, God!” She says, appalled by his admission.
“Oh, I know... it's sudden and... please, if they're no good, they're only words but... the feeling behind them... I love you, Cecily.”
“Please stop!”
“I know I'm a bad poet but I'm a good man and all I ask is that... that you try to see me-”
She interrupts him to say, “I do see you. That's the problem. You're nothing to me, William. You're beneath me.”She stands and walks off, leaving William devastated and alone.
LONDON STREET- NIGHT
William staggers down the street in tears, ripping up his poems as he goes. He bumps into a passerby and drops the pages. His voice dripping the pain he feels, ”Watch where you're going!” He gathers up the torn sheets and makes his way toward a nearby alleyway.
William is sitting on a bale of hay and finishing the job of destroying his poetry. He looks up at the sound of a woman's voice to find Drusilla standing serenely in the dark alley with him.
She says in that hauntingly sweet voice of hers, “And I wonder... what possible catastrophe came crashing down from heaven and brought this dashing stranger to tears?”
“Nothing. I wish to be alone.”
“Oh, I see you. A man surrounded by fools who cannot see his strength, his vision, his glory. That and burning baby fish swimming all around your head.”
William backs away from her, nervously. ”That's quite close enough. I've heard tales of London pickpockets. You'll not be getting my purse, I tell you.”
“Don't need a purse.” She points to his heart and head in succession before adding, “Your wealth lies here... and here. In the spirit and... imagination. You walk in worlds the others can't begin to imagine.”
William is intrigued by her insight into his character. ”Oh, yes! I mean, no. I mean... mother's expecting me.”
She opens the collar of his shirt. ”I see what you want. Something glowing and glistening. Something... effulgent.”
William is beside himself, finally someone who understands him, or so he thinks. “Effulgent.”
“Do you want it?” Drusilla asks.
“Oh, yes!” He touches her chest before saying again,”God, yes.”
Drusilla looks down for a moment as her face changes and her fangs descend. William reacts more confused than afraid. She pulls back his shirt collar and buries her fangs in his neck, his bright blue eyes closing the moment they do, but not before catching a brief glimpse of the slayer in the distance behind Dru. William cries out in pain but his cries quickly turn to moans of pleasure as Drusilla ends his human existence. Then in the distance, like a harsh echo, Buffy's voice repeats Cecily's words, “You're beneath me...”
Simultaneously Buffy and Spike wake with a start, sitting bolt upright in their respective beds. Spike can feel the tears spilling untouched down his cheeks in the pitch black of the guest room he's in. He reaches up with shaking hands to brush them away with the heel of his palms before curling in on himself on the mattress. Cecily's words still cut him to the core almost as much as they had that night, now almost two centuries later. The bit that hurt the most was hearing the slayer's honeyed voice repeating them. He'd cried the first night she'd told him that after telling her what she needed to know, how to keep herself from dying young like the rest of her line, but in all the times he'd relived that night in his sleep, this is the first time he'd ever heard her voice tormenting him more.
Just down the hall from him Buffy climbs silently out of her bed, in her light gray thin sweat pants and white spaghetti strapped top, quietly walking down the hall to the guest room he'd moved into. Her hand pauses on the door knob before she turns it silently, pushing the door open and bathing the room in the dim glow of the hall light and casting her shadow clear to where he's curled on his bed in the fetal position. “Spike?” She calls to him softly.
He sniffles trying to curb his quiet sobs at the shattering he feels his heart is doing over and over again, like a broken record, the moment he hears her enter the room. He sits up quickly facing in her direction, “Slayer?” As much as he tries to disguise it, the heart break is evident in his voice, the utter devastation. “What are you doin' in here?”
She closes the distance between them, leaving the door slightly ajar to offer her human vision a bit of aid in seeing him as she sits down on the edge of the bed. She fidgets nervously with her hands for a moment before really looking at him only to find evidence of what she'd feared the fresh tear tracks against alabaster cheeks. “Something's not right, Spike...”
He flinches, pulling back from her touch as his eyes grow a wide. “You were really there? Just now? Red do some sort of hocus pocus again?” Anger creeping into his bruised chords towards the end.
She shakes her head, “I don't think so... I think this might have to do with getting your soul, or... well I'm not sure what else but it has to do with you for sure, not anything she could have done.”
“What in the bloody hell would make you think that?”
“Not the first time I've made a cameo appearance in a souled vampire's dreams, Spike. Or in yours for that matter. Just the first time you saw me too, and that we were in the same place.”
“What else have you seen, Slayer?” He scoots back against the headboard of the bed pulling his knees to his chest and wrapping his arms around them as he watches her, but not allowing himself to find comfort in her presence now. The dreams prior to the biggest that she even made it into, and the voices, have all left him feeling utterly unworthy of her comfort or concern.
“Bits of your human life, before Drusilla. Why is that what you dream of now? I mean when... Well it just seems odd as far as guilt goes to relive your mortal days with your mom.”
He laughs, the sound dark and broken as it passes from his lips and he lowers his chin to rest on his knees, his blue gaze looking past her now. “I guess you haven't been privy yet to how it ends for her and I have you? Would make sense seeing as I don't remember reliving it since I went and got this soul of mine back...” He pauses, his brow wrinkling in thought when he catches onto something she'd nearly said. “You wandered about in Angel's dreams, pet?”
“Only right after he came back from hell... He'd gotten his soul back in him just before I used him to close Acathla, you'd already left with Dru by then. But he felt guilty for being back after all he'd done when he'd become Angelus again...” Her own death and just the roller coaster of the last few years robbing her for now of the real reason for the dream sharing the two had done. “So what happened with your mom then? Did you kill her like Angel did his parents or something?”
He shakes his head rapidly but not trusting his own voice as he nestles his face into his folded arms now to hide from her concerned olive colored eyes. He sniffles again and silently curses himself for being such a bleedin' ponce and blubbering like a child in front of the girl. He knows he's beneath her, but it doesn't stop him from loving her in a way he'd never loved any other woman in his life or unlife. He flinches when he feels her weight causing the mattress beneath him to shift as she crawls closer to him. He can feel the warmth emanating from her body the closer she gets to him. He stiffens even further as he feels her fingers start working their way through his gel free curls.
“Spike?” But that only caused him to tense further, a frown painting itself upon the soft curve of her lips. She slides her hand down to his shoulder gripping it slightly as she tries to pull his attention towards her and get him to lift his head. “Look at me, please, William?” His human name whispered so softly only his enhanced hearing would catch it.
The shock of the gentle use of his given name forces him to lift his head and look at her, the pain and confusion evident on her face. She'd done this another night, the night Red had come home and he'd told her of the figments he'd been tormented by since the school basement. But as she uttered it this time there was something different, she's searching for something and he knows it. “Buffy, please... don't do this.” His voice is soft and pleading.
“Don't do what? Care? Bit late for that don't you think? I'm sorry I ever said that to you, you know that, we've been over this... Why are you believing a dream over what I'm telling you right now in front of you?” With his head free of his arms she reaches out and touches his cheek with her fingertips.
“Bit hard to think you've really changed your tune about me luv, even while stayin' here under your roof. But you saw what I went through, and you know our history as well as I do... I mean I know a soul changes all the rules for you, pet, but it's not the same for me...”
“You think that's all this is about? You being gone made me face things, made me see what was really there. I don't really think there's a difference between you now and you before you went off and got your soul back. Except maybe the insanity part... But I don't know for sure if that's the soul or what's coming for us all. Or both... I'm sorry for how I treated you; I know you don't believe me... But what you're going through... the pain you’re in actually breaks my heart too...” The last of her words almost too soft even for him to hear.
“I don't want your pity, Slayer...”
She shakes her head and takes a deep breath, she knows she's going to regret this but she does it just the same. She lifts her hand and promptly thumps the back of his head with the heel of her palm. “I don't pity you, idiot. But I do care that you're hurting. I know it's a hard concept for you to grasp but, try!”
He looks at her utterly dumbfounded by the definition of her actions but he knows her well enough to read her expression and the sincerity it holds. “Do you really want to know what happened with my mum then?”
“If you want to tell me and it'll help you, yes.”
He nods slowly before sliding out of the bed and walking towards the window. He pulls back the black out curtain to stare out into the black night, the moon casting an eerie glow over his too pale skin. His voice is distant and thoughtful as he retells the story. “She was a wonderful lady, my mum, loved me with all of her despite the pathetic excuse for a man I was. She'd listen to my pathetic ramblings day in and day out and act as though they were masterful. But she was ill, something that in my time wasn't curable as it is now...”
As his voice drifts off for a moment as he sniffles a bit and takes an unneeded breath to steady his emotions she climbs off of the bed and closes the distance between them. She places a hand on the center of his bare back, his skin almost like ice in contrast to her warmth even to her. “It's okay.” She urges him on gently, her voice barely even a whisper as she offers faint comfort with the simple touch, for now not pushing it any further.
“Consumption... Tuberculosis is what you'd call it now; it was destroying her from the inside out a little more every day. But like a good son I took care of her, loved her, and did everything she asked of me. Well, with the exception of finding a proper lady I suppose. She didn't want me to be alone, was her greatest fear I wager...” He sighs, finally relaxing a bit into her touch as he feels her fingers move softly up and down along his spine with every syllable. He takes in an unneeded but habitual breath before going on, recounting his last memories of his mother. “I went back to her after Dru sired me... I wanted to save her, you know? At the time I hadn't really grasped what had happened to me, what it means to sire someone and bring them into the darkness. So I turned her, but when she woke she wasn't the same woman she'd been. She wasn't my mum any more; she was just a monster in her lovely shell...”
“But...”
As if he can read her mind he turns to face her, “But how is it I retained enough of myself to even want to save her like that? To mourn that when she awoke into this life she was no longer the woman who had given birth to me? I don't know, pet... I mourned what she became enough to put her out of her misery too. I staked her not long after she awoke and showed me what she really was...” He leans his back against the window, sitting down on the sill hanging his head. “I over heard Angelus and Darla talking about me a few times, saying how Dru had done something wrong when she made me. Not so much that she made a poor choice, though that was implied too, but that she'd literally done something wrong because I'd retained too much humanity. That was really what lit a fire under me, so to speak, to prove to them I was as corrupt and evil as they were. That's actually what drove me to pick the fight with him, the night he told me of your line luv. It's also what first gave me the desire to hunt your line down and take them out. After all, it was one thing even Angelus feared.” He can feel the tears renew themselves as they steal pathways down his pale moonlit cheeks.
This time he doesn't flinch as she kneels in front of him, her warm thumbs brushing away the tears almost as quick as they fall before her hand gives up and curl against both of his cheeks. “You truly are one of a kind aren't you? I think they might have been right about one thing... I think something went wrong when Drusilla sired you, but while I guess from that side it's a bad thing... I don't think it was. If she hadn't messed up you'd be as bad as Angelus, maybe worse... Her mistake is why you didn't abandon her in Prague isn't it?” When he nods, finally letting his blue eyes meet her gaze she goes on. “You really love us, even before you ran off to earn your soul.” Her words a statement rather than a question, she can see the answer in his eyes, whether she wants to or not. She could also hear it in the story he'd just told her, and the dreams she herself has witnessed lately. Reality just seems to finally be sinking in, what's been in front of her this entire time.
“More than you'll ever know, pet...”