Disclaimer:  I don’t own or profit from BtVS

Thanks ever so to Obscurebookwyrm for looking over the last few chapters.  All errors are completely my doing.  She’s a terrific beta.

A/N:  After the last chapter I realized that I should give, not warnings per se, but perhaps reassurances.  As an author, I know what I’m about to impart ruins the tension building in the story, and if you are comfortable so far, feel free to skip this and move on to the story.  However, if you are getting worried, and I know as a reader, I’d be getting worried that I was going to read something I could never unread, let me reassure you, there will not be any kiddie rape in this story.  Not gonna happen.  Period.  That being said, there will soon be a pretty disturbing chapter or two, but if we hold hands and take deep breaths I’m confident we’ll make it through to the other side, where spuffiness awaits us.

Spoilers:  Passion

Remember When

Chapter Twelve

For the first time in weeks he was full.  He’d been surprised when he found the undisturbed cooler of blood still under his bed after Angelus and Dru left the factory.  He’d been more shocked to find the two bottles of human blood slathered with slayer musk.

The pig’s blood in the cooler was a bit off, but it didn’t stop him from gulping it all down.  He would have drunk the human blood as well, if his stomach weren’t already bulging.  Instead, he slipped the bottles into the deep pockets of his duster.

It was past the witching hour and the factory was deserted.  All the minions were out hunting their dinner, and who knew what Angelus and Dru were up to---causing mayhem and bloodshed wherever, he was sure.

He tooled around the main room in the factory, cursing the disability that didn’t allow him to leave the building.  Without his legs he was easy prey.  Not just for the Slayer, but for other demons as well.  Anyone who wanted to kill him could, and there was fuck all he could do to stop them.  He was as helpless as a soddin’ child, incapable of protecting, feeding, or dressing himself.  Fuck, he couldn’t even bathe himself.  It was a good thing he didn’t have to shit like a human or he’d smell a hell of a lot worse right now.

He wanted to strike out at something, kick the walls down, tear at the foundations, rip the whole bloody world apart, but he couldn’t.  All he could do was sit on his arse like a wanker and whine about what he couldn’t do.

He neared a grouping of ratty couches where the fledges piled atop each other like a cackle of hyenas during the day.  There was a half bottle of Jack sitting on the floor and he swept it up as he rolled by.  He fucking hated himself.  He hated being forced to live off the scraps of fledges---forced to scavenge like a dog.

He took a swallow of the burning liquid only to spit it out when he tasted ashes from an extinguished cigarette.  He threw the bottle at the wall with a roar, his anger at his pathetic existence unappeased by shattering glass.

He spun his wheels, backing up so he could….what?  Return to his room?  The place stank of Angelus’ and Dru’s cum.  Worse, it smelled of the two little girls who were making his unlife pure, torturous misery.

He needed to find himself another place to sleep.  A room far from those noxious scents and even further from Angelus’ room and the sounds of the constant fuck-fest coming from within--except he didn’t have anyone to help him set up a new place.  Dalton was gone.  He sacrificed himself to the sun to keep the Bit safe.  Spike felt a speck of pride for the minion.  The useless sod finally did something right.  Finally found his purpose.  That’s all anyone could really ask in life, to find their purpose.

Spike used to have a purpose.  It was to love and protect his woman--to be the black knight to her wicked princess.  It was a role he was born to play, shaped by boyhood romps through forests while pretending to be Galahad, doting on his sick widow of a mother as an adult, and devouring the romantic poetics of Byron and Keats during every free moment.  William was only happy when he had someone to care for, someone to protect.  As sick and wrong and twisted as it was, he only flourished in an environment where he loved and was loved equally in return.  The problem with Drusilla was equality.  She cared for him, but she never loved him.  Not in the manner he craved.  Not in the manner William secretly thought he deserved.

He pushed forward, intending to scout out a new room, but was pulled up short.  He glanced down at his wheel.  Some electrical wiring from one of the many debris piles lying around the factory was tangled around his spokes.

“Bloody, buggering, fuck.”

He strained against the wheels, trying to roll away, but only spooled the wire tighter.  He leaned over at an awkward angle, careful not to overbalance himself.  The last thing he needed was for Angelus to find him helpless on the ground because he was a stupid git and tipped himself over.  He yanked at the wires, but they held fast.

“Well, fuck.”

He braced his elbow on the arm of the chair, and plunged his fingers through his hair.  The gel crackled and loosened.  There was no point in maintaining his image anyway.  Anyone who saw him would know immediately he was a pathetic excuse for a man.  There was no reason to continue this charade of unlife he was currently bumbling his way through.  Maybe he should wait for dawn and roll himself out into the sunlight?  Dru’d feel like shite then, wouldn’t she?  Make her regret her treatment of him good and proper.  Once her dark prince was gone, she’d have no one to take care of her, and she could whine and worry herself into madness without him.  Spike slumped in his chair.  Would she even miss him if he were gone?

His fingers tightened, and his skull tingled at the pressure.  If he concentrated hard enough he could almost imagine it was Dru tugging his hair in the throes of lovemaking.  His lovemaking, not that freak show Angelus made her enact.

Spike scrubbed his hand down his face.  What he needed was a pick-me-up.  Something young and fresh.  There was nothing like a delicious woman squirming on one’s lap while drinking her down to make a man feel like a demon again.  All hot and pumping.  Her blood feeding his starving cells with life-giving essence, not that animal rot he was forced to choke down.  Something that would fill his cock to near bursting.  Some blonde little chit, golden skin, lean muscle, high, tight tits and hazel eyes that would widen when he thrust his cock into her…

Spike jerked upright, eyes white at the edges with panic.  What the fuck!  I absolutely wasn’t imagining the Slayer!  She was just a little girl, barely older than Snack Size.  Killing her, yes.  Drinking her down, hell yes.  But no fucking.  Abso-fucking-lutely not!

Oh, God.  By all that’s unholy I’m turning into a soddin’ pervert like Peaches.

He glared at his hard-on until it wilted under his intense disgust.  This was it.  Rock bottom.  There was no way he could sink lower than this.  First he wasn’t man enough to take care of his woman, and now he was fantasizing about little girls like a buggering pedophile.

She’s seventeen.  More than old enough.  Older than most of the chits being married off when you were human, a seditious voice whispered tauntingly.

He growled, setting his jaw.  It didn’t matter, because he was going to kill the girl.  The Slayer and her entire family were the reason he was a miserable git in the first place.  She needed to pay in blood for all her wrongs against him.  Besides, once he presented her head to Drusilla, his princess would love him again.  She would turn her back on Angelus, forgetting about Daddy completely.  She would.

She would….

He pressed his fingers to his eyes, trying to stem the burn of tears he could feel forming.  Crying was useless.  It wouldn’t get him anything but grief when Angelus came back and smelled tears.  It was better to focus on the anger.  He needed to channel all his hate and rage towards the Slayer.  If he had a goal then it would be easy to focus on healing.  And he desperately needed a goal to focus on or he’d fall too easily into despair.

He straightened in his chair, shaking off his melancholia.  He needed to approach his situation with a renewed sense of purpose.  He wouldn’t allow himself to brood.  He would overcome this.  All of it.  The chair, his family, and this god-awful, unnatural predilection he had for the Summers clan.  He would overcome it all, and be the stronger for it.

He reached for the wires, freezing when something twanged along his senses.  Spike scented the man before he threw open the shuddering metal doors.  He smelled of rage, agony, and unwavering vengeance.

“Angelus!”  The empty factory echoed with his bellow.  “Come out, you bloody wanker.  I’ve got something I want to shove up your arse.”

“Bugger.”  Spike renewed his efforts to untangle his wheel from the debris.  The wires seemed to twine themselves insidiously around the spoke, thoroughly chaining him to the spot.  He glanced up to see the man skim the edges of the factory, squirting liquid onto the walls and ratty couches.  Spike identified the acrid stench of kerosene.

Spike tried to blend himself into the shadows, but he knew it was useless.  Soddin’ wheelchair stuck out like a white flag.  The man stilled, his eyes riveted on Spike.  Knowing he was well and truly trapped, Spike leaned back in his chair, waiting with seemingly lazy nonchalance.

The man approached slowly, as if knowing his prey couldn’t flee.  The Watcher, whom Spike had seen at the fringes of the Slayer’s circle throughout the months he hunted her, didn’t look like the man he used to be.  Gone was the bookish, well kempt scholar and in his place was roughened thug looking for a little payback painted in shades of red.

In his hands he held a bottle of lighter fluid and a baseball bat wrapped with torn linens.  Spike had seen enough mobs in his time to know an improvised torch when he saw one.  The Watcher stopped a few feet away, his eyes burning with an unquenchable rage.  His hair stood up in tousled tufts, as if he had tried to pull it out by the roots in order to assuage his grief.

Spike lounged in his chair, careful to keep his hands visible and seem as unthreatening as possible.  He wanted to light a cigarette to round out his Big Bad image, but self-preservation made him think twice as he kept one eye on the squeeze bottle that dripped liquid death from its tip.

“What’s got your tweeds all aflutter, mate?” 

Spike had more than just an inkling as to why the solemnly restrained Watcher had suddenly flown the coop, leaving living vengeance to take his place.  It was his experience that only grief could cause such outpourings of rage and agony together.  His mind flashed to Snack Size and the Slayer.  Had Angelus and Dru finally caught up to one of them?  Would he soon be in mourning as well?  Or would he be welcoming new family members to the clan?  The thought made his heart constrict.

They’re the enemy, he reminded himself.  Hadn’t he just resolved to rid himself of the Slayer, even if it meant cutting a swath through her meddling family to do so?  He shouldn’t have any thoughts of grieving, only of glee.

“The bastard killed her and left her for me to find.”  The Watcher heaved as if there wasn’t enough air in the whole world to relieve the constriction in his chest. 

Spike swallowed the burn in the back of his throat.  Not Snack Size then.  Angelus would never let such a tasty treat escape his grasp by outright killing her.  He certainly wouldn’t leave her for the Watcher to find.  If he had killed her, he would have laid her out all pretty and virginal in her bed or barring that, her front porch, where her mother and sister would find her.

That left Buffy.  Angelus hadn’t wanted to kill her either.  He wanted to claim her, just as much as he wanted the little one.  Sisters, he said.  A matched set in bed.  But the Slayer was a fighter.  She may have forced Angelus’ hand, leaving him no choice, but to kill or be killed.  Yes, that definitely sounded like his Slayer.  Never let them get you down.  Never let them get their fangs in you.  Wasn’t that the rule Snack Size imparted to him?  If you were still breathing, then you were still fighting.

His hands curled around the armrests of his chair, and when his claws scratched against metal, he realized he was vamped out.  He shook his head to rid himself of his demon, but it refused to be banished into the darkness along with his errant emotions.  He closed his eyes, hunching forward to make himself less of a threat.  The Watcher was one hand-flex away from ending Spike in a fireball of fury, and he couldn’t even rein in his own demon to save his life.

“The Slayer?”  Spike whispered through tight lips.  He refused to look at the man who towered over him.  He wanted to know the truth before he died.  He wondered if there was a crossroad in the afterlife where all souls were siphoned off to their destination, and if he would see the Slayer one last time before he took the long trip down.

“No.”

Spike exhaled in a gasp.  He hadn’t realized he was holding a pocket of air behind his heart.  His demon melted back, and he looked up at the man who watched him with curious impartiality.  Fuck!  He was such a wanker.  Why was he behaving like the worst kind of ponce?

It was the chair.  It had to be.  It made him weak.  It stole away everything that made him a man.  He might as well cut off his wrinklies and grow tits.  If he could just climb his way out, just walk again, he could reclaim his virility and kill the Slayer as he was meant to.  He was just reacting this way because he wanted to be the one to kill her.  So he could prove himself to Drusilla.  So he could show his family once and for all that he wasn’t useless.  That he wasn’t a perversion of his species.  He wasn’t a bloody awful vampire.  He was the Big Soddin’ Bad.

“My Jenny.  My love.”  The Watcher’s eyes clenched shut in pain.  “I loved her so much, but that didn’t stop me from punishing her, from blaming her for Angelus.  Better to blame her than my Slayer.”  The Watcher opened his eyes and pierced Spike with a look.  “You ever hurt anyone you love?”

Spike could barely swallow around the expanding ball of heat in his throat.  He wished vehemently to scream no, but he knew it wasn’t true.  He hurt his mother in the worst possible way.  He suspected he hurt Dru every time he behaved like a man instead of a monster.

“Of course not,” the Watcher scoffed, answering his own question before Spike had the chance.  “You’re a vampire.  You can’t love.”

“Oh, I love,” Spike spat.  “I’m soulless, not heartless.  I’ve loved for over a hundred years, and there’s one thing I know to be a fact.  We always hurt the ones we love.”

The Watcher’s face morphed into a twisted mask of sorrow and regret.  He hunched at the waist, moaning long and deep.  Time froze and for long moments they were immobile, Spike unnaturally still in his chair, the Watcher bent in half by his grief.  When time reasserted itself, the Watcher drew himself tall, all grief wiped from his face, until only vengeance remained.  He lifted his bat, soaking the rags wrapped around the tip with kerosene.  Spike tensed as he watched.  This was it.  He was going to die a big, flaming death.

“Buffy told me what you did for Dawn,” the Watcher said conversationally, like he was commenting on the fine weather.  “What has it been now?  Three opportunities to kill Dawn, and yet she lives.  Why?”

Something shifted inside of Spike and the despair he had kept at bay for decades surged forward.  He felt as confused as the Watcher sounded.  He had no reasonable explanation for his actions, other than what he had been told by his family for the entirety of his unlife.  He was a bloody awful vampire.

“Honestly?”  Spike asked, and the man nodded.  Curiosity pushed hints of Rupert past his Ripper persona.  “I don’t know.  I just…” Spike lifted his hand helplessly and his eyes cut away.  He was well and truly lost, and he had no clue on how to find himself again.  “It didn’t seem right.”

The man watched him stoically.  The factory creaked as it settled around them and the stench of kerosene was burning Spike’s sensitive nostrils.

“The Summers women are quite remarkable.  I have yet to meet someone who isn’t fundamentally affected by them.”  Giles intoned.

Well, that just brassed him the fuck off.  He was a master vampire, as in masterfully striking fear into the hearts of the innocent while painting entire villages red with blood.  He had been remorselessly terrorizing people for decades; they certainly did not affect him.  Especially not some flock of fluttering females bent on making him their group rehabilitation project.

“That’s not it at all.  I could give a good goddamn about any of those wretched women.  I just don’t like to nosh on babies.  Bad for the digestion,” he snarled.

The Watcher-man’s brow set itself into a vee and Spike didn’t like the look of it at all.  “That’s not what your histories indicated.”  If his tone were any icier it would have frozen Spike’s arse cheeks together.

Spike crossed his arms defensively, glancing away.  “Dru has a taste for the little ones.  Had to make her happy.”  Spike looked back at the man, his eyes narrowed maliciously.  “It’s what a man does for the woman he loves.  Keeps her happy.  Keeps her safe.”  Spike’s voice was silky as he went in for the kill.  Watcher-man didn’t keep his bird safe.  If Spike was going to die, then at least he was going to cause a little damage before thumbing the world goodbye.

The Watcher’s full mouth thinned and a white line throbbed at his temple.  “You’re not a man.  You are a demon.  A monster.  Just like him.”

Spike didn’t reply as the man pivoted on his heel to walk over to the banquet table.  He sprayed down the wood, tossing the empty bottle into the center.  He fished around his front pocket as he turned back to Spike.  He flipped open a silver lighter, similar to Spike’s, and the flame danced as the Watcher looked over at him.  Spike could have sworn the man’s eyes were yellow in the light.

“This is your one and only pass, vampire.”  He lit the end of the fabricated torch, and then threw the lighter into the center of the table where it instantly flamed into a wall of fire.

Spike didn’t have to be told twice.  He reached down, yanking frantically at the wires that imprisoned him.

“What’s this?  Company?  You should have rung ahead.  We would have set out appetizers.”  Angelus’ voice boomed from the open doorway.  Drusilla twittered, and Spike felt a sense of unease run down his spine.  The idea of two master vampires like Angelus and Drusilla being in any danger when facing a mere human was ludicrous, but there was something about the Watcher that set Spike’s teeth on edge.  He suspected physical weakness wouldn’t serve as a hindrance to the man.  His rage would give him all the strength he would need.

“Dru.  Quick.  Come help me,” he called.  He was somewhat surprised when she floated over to him, giving the Watcher a wide berth.  Then again, Dru always had a knack for feeling out situations, especially those fueled by human suffering.  She undoubtedly knew the Watcher was more dangerous than he seemed.

She freed him easily, and it only enforced his own feelings of inadequacy.  All that was pushed down as the Watcher roared and attacked.  He swung with viciousness that Spike thought only reserved for the soulless.  Flames leapt up the factory walls, the heat as intense as any hell dimension.  Spike’s skin itched as he remembered the last time he was caught in fire’s burning embrace.

The Watcher’s bat caught Angelus upside the head with enough force to make the master vampire stumble to his knees.

“God.  He’s going to kill him,” Spike gasped with awe.

The Watcher drew back for a downward swing, but Angelus countered with a boot to the man’s gut.  He flew across the room and skidded to a stop on the cement.

Drusilla clapped her hands in delight, bouncing on her toes.  Angelus flashed her a heroic grin that made Spike sick to his stomach.

Suddenly, the doors burst open and the Slayer was there, full of righteous fury.  Her blonde hair tousled, her cheeks flushed and her eyes sparkling with more than battle lust.  She was gorgeous.  Truly, the Valkyrie he compared her to at Halloween.

She zeroed in on Angelus with intensity that sent a shiver down Spike’s spine.  The girl was in a killing mood and he didn’t want his dark goddess anywhere in the Slayer’s vicinity.

“Time to go, luv.”  He clasped his hand over hers where it lay on his shoulder.  She didn’t respond and he gave her long fingers a tight squeeze.  She tore her worshipful gaze off Angelus and graced him with a look. “Time to go,” he repeated.

She glanced around the factory, flames reflecting in the dark glass of her eyes.  She gifted him with the fey smile he adored, and pushed him towards the back exit.  She took them across the street to hide in the shadows while waiting for Angelus.

It wasn’t long before the larger man exited the fire-engulfed building like a bat out of hell. He was smoking, and Spike wouldn’t be surprised if his coattails were on fire.  Dru broke away to swoon in Angelus’ arms.  Normally, Spike would be upset at having to be subjected to a display of their kissy-face, but his attention was riveted by the tableau across the street.

The Slayer and Watcher were on their knees on the pavement, the burning building casting them in orange, hellish light.  He could see their tears and despair etched on their faces.  The roar of the flames was too loud for him to hear their words, but it was unnecessary.  Grief doesn’t need words.  It’s written into every line of the body.

“That’s what human suffering looks like,” he whispered to himself.  “That’s what loss is.”