For the past few hours Spike had been feeling incredibly unsettled. There was something that just hadn’t been sitting right with him since he arrived home. Of course, he was still grieving for the loss of his wife so he figured that accounted for some of it.
Although they had their problems, he had cared for Joyce in a way that he had never cared about anyone except for his mother before. Maybe that was part of the problem. Although they were similar ages, only 3 years apart, she had been very maternal toward him. When he lost his own mother, he lost that comfort and she was there to give it to him.
In the end, however, he believed he failed her.
And it hurt like hell.
The fact that her murderer was still out there, and that there was no way the man who gunned down his wife would ever go to jail also felt like a knife to the gut every time he thought about it.
Not that Spike just planned to let him get away with it. He knew that the reckoning day would come sooner or later, and he would make that man suffer, but that was a whole other story.
Of course it wasn’t just residual grief and guilt over the death of his wife that was eating at him. He also knew that a part of his distress was the thoughts he had been having about Buffy and his ever growing sexual attraction to her. He seemed to have so little self control that every time his mind flickered over thoughts of her his dick stood to attention.
Her body was like an altar at which he longed to worship. Unfortunately, it was a forbidden altar. Not just because of her age, but also because she was his stepdaughter, and hell if he didn’t have to remind himself of that fact repeatedly.
Still, it didn’t force his dick to stand down.
But alongside all that, there was something else niggling at the back of his mind that he just couldn’t put his finger on, like a voice that’s familiar but you just cannot place. However, with his mind fogged up with alcohol, now wasn’t the time to try and identify it.
He wasn’t drunk enough yet though, and in all honesty he wasn’t even sure what his limits were these days. And it wasn’t as if he had much else to do, alone and lonely with only his dirty forbidden thoughts to keep him company. Not that he would ever act on any of them.
Who was he kidding? He already had bloody well acted on them several nights before. Still he wanted Buffy, despite all the factors which should have made it impossible. A huge part of him wished she was right here right now. If he could take her in his arms and kiss the hell out of her, he couldn’t help but believe that the world would melt away, the same way it had the other night.
Except he couldn’t ever act on it. For both their sakes. Because if he did then he would damn them both.
He hated having all this time to think and reflect, and alcohol fuelled thoughts never ended well.
Yes, time was his enemy and so was the clock on his office wall. Spike was sure of it. Ticking out the seconds of his solitude until Buffy returned home, like a general marching to its own painful tune. He was torn between wanting her to come back and not wanting to have to face her, and he knew that either scenario would be equally painful.
It was close to midnight and it had been over 3 hours since Buffy had left. Pouring himself another drink, and downing it in a single swallow, he grimaced and lit up a cigarette. He’d tried to quit so many times, but, along with drinking, it was one of the only habits from his previous life that he hadn’t be able to surrender.
He just wanted to take his mind off the girl who dominated his thoughts so thoroughly recently.
Pouring himself another drink, which he quickly finished, he made his way back to the bedroom, heading straight for the closet. Kneeling down at the back he pulled out a small wooden box that he had kept concealed there ever since he moved into Revello Drive.
It was rare that he looked in it, but lately his past seemed to be catching up with him and he knew that he would be forced to confront it, sooner rather than later.
Sitting down on the bed, he gingerly opened the lid of the teak box, filmy tears clouding his vision as he saw the first photo on the pile inside it.
It was a beautiful picture depicting Drusilla and Darla in the dimming twilight, sitting by a fire on the beach. He lovingly traced their faces lamenting their lost happiness…and his own.
The two women were hugging tenderly, vibrant smiles illuminating their faces. Darla’s bubbly demeanor and Dru’s darker beauty offset each other. It was before everything went bad for them. That day, more than a decade ago, had been one of the best days in his whole life.
And also one of the worst.
It was that day that Darla had met the man who managed to systematically destroy them all.
Feeling his breath hitch in his chest, he laid that picture to one side and delved farther into the box, encountering several photos from that time. But the farther he went the more sinister they became. It was almost like watching a TV show of his life, seeing how they degenerated from happy, vivacious young people, to drug-addled and desperate degenerates.
The ones at the bottom of the stack physically pained him to look at.
Some of them showed Dru splayed out on a grimy bed, half full bottle of wine swaying in her hands as she laughed maniacally.
Others showed Darla sitting on the hood of her lover’s old ’67 Plymouth coldly staring right into the lens of the camera as she came down from one of their pill binges.
And the worst ones showed him, thinking he was badass as he snorted lines of blow from a dirty table, clad in the rebellious attire of a man who had simply stopped caring about anything except for where his next fix was coming from.
He had a lot of blanks from that time, and no matter how much he wished he could remember, it was as if someone had taken an eraser to his memory and randomly slashed at it.
It was a grueling time for Spike, and the period that followed was even worse.
But Spike had thought that part of his life was over.
Until a few weeks ago. Then it all came rushing back as he saw the silvery flash of a gun leveled at his wife. In his mind’s eye he could picture the mocking sneer on the face of the shooter. The shot still echoed in his head, and the image reverberated in his mind every single time that he closed his eyes.
God, everything that had happened was his own fault. Darla, Dru, Joyce…he had ruined everything and there was no one else left to blame. Well there was one person left other than Spike who did deserve to have the fault laid at his door, but unfortunately to all intents and purposes, he was untouchable. At least as far as Spike was concerned.
With an animalistic roar, all the tension bubbling up inside him exploded and he picked up the box, launching it against the wall.
“Bloody fuckin’ hell!” He yelled, unbridled rage dimming his vision with its fiery haze. “Soddin’ god-damn buggerin’ bastards!”
A certain satisfaction settled within him as it splintered wildly, the contents scattering all over the carpet.
Taking deep panting breaths he waiting for the haze to dissipate, and for some kind of rationality to seep back into his psyche.
That rational voice sounded suspiciously like Joyce when it sounded in his head.
Yes, it was true, he had done things which had hurt other people, but he was sick of wallowing in his own misery. However, so much had changed since those days that he hated to think back to the person he was then. When he thought of the things he’d done and the things that he’d been made to do.
It was a tangled web and he was right at the center of it, stuck like a magnet on a refrigerator. He didn’t want to get anyone else involved in this, and in his heart he prayed that it was over and done with. That vengeance had been served. But there was someone else hurting because of the things that he had done in the past.
Buffy.
So many terrible things had happened to all the people who he loved in the past and the last thing that he wanted was for something to happen to her.
Not that he loved her in any way but the absolutely appropriate way.
Of course not.
Fuck, he was screwed.
It hadn’t even been a month since his wife died, and he was thinking about her daughter…her own bloody flesh and blood…in that way. Lust was one thing, something that was clearly undeniable on both sides from him and Buffy. But love was a whole other animal altogether and he was sure that he definitely was nowhere near ready to face that though. Can true love really even happen so fast? Spike was positive that he had only felt fatherly affection toward the girl before Joyce was killed.
And he wasn’t even sure if what he was feeling came close to love. It was probably just lust.
Yeah, good idea, Spike. Keep telling yourself that.
After the things he’d said to her the other night he doubted she would ever let him touch her again anyway.
What if she was out there, in that club, grinding her sweet body against some other man? What if some undeserving little git was tasting the sweat that pooled at the hollow of her collar bone or molding his lips to her sweet ones at this very moment?
Groaning, he rose to his feet from the floor, feeling a wave of dizziness wash over him. Stumbling down the stairs, he grabbed his leather duster from the banister and threw it on.
Buffy was out there, alone and angry, still stinging from both the loss of her mother and the way he had treated her recently. She was out there alone when there was a murderer with a grudge against him running around.
“Bloody hell!” He swore as the realization hit him. If Angel was still around here then Buffy was in serious danger. An image of her dead body flashed before his eyes and he almost doubled over in pain at the thought.
Not willing to wait another moment, he headed out the door and into the cool night air.
He was going to get his girl.
However, he still had no idea just what he was going to do when he found her.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Thanks for all the reviews!! I love reviews, they inspire me!
Okay, so here's the next installment. Enjoy!
Okay, so here's the next installment. Enjoy!
Chapter End Notes:
I hope you enjoyed this chapter. I know it probably raised a few questions...
Reviews (as always) are appreciated. :)
Reviews (as always) are appreciated. :)