Disclaimer and Notes: see Prologue
Spike’s brain
by Belladonna
~Chapter 5~
For the head is hollow and I have lost my mind
It was silent and dark where he was now. Especially dark, but to the darkness he usually was accustomed to. It was his life after all, the darkness of the night and stuff like that. Wasn’t that what he had told Buffy once?
Anyway, it still didn’t change the fact that it was still pretty dark. And silent. But the more he did think of that, the less did it change. And that was extremely frustrating. Also he already had mentioned it.
Still no change in sight. But then, there was always tomorrow.
***
When Buffy awoke that morning, she felt pleasantly refreshed. After gotten her bubble bath after all, there had been nothing to prevent her from relaxing and getting over the pains from doing inventory for Anya. But she bet that the others still would be hurting and giggled slightly. At least her Slayer strength was good for something useful other than dusting off vamps.
Humming to herself she went down to the kitchen to make some breakfast for her, Dawn and Willow. And she hadn’t to wait long until the others came down to her.
“Hey Buffy!” Her sister greeted her, smiling widely before grabbing a bowl and getting some cereal out of the kitchen closet. Her sister might have made breakfast for them, but Dawn sure as hell wouldn’t touch it. It was the same as with Buffy inviting her for a drive in the car. Dawn might be still young and inexperienced, but not that weary of life.
“Ugh!” That heavy groaning sound announced the other current inhabitant coming down from the upper level. To her own great dismay, Willow had once again noticed to not possess the fast recuperating abilities the Slayer had; meaning she still was sore and tired to the bone from inventory.
“Good morning, Willow!” The witch-on-parole by her ex-girlfriend was greeted with two nearly blinding grins coming from the two Summers’ girls. The only reason why they weren’t as tired as she was, would be due to the fact that Buffy was the Slayer, hence the faster healing, and that Dawn hadn’t been there for the inventory because of school work. And taking one glance at Willow, Dawn was for once in her life glad to have had school work to do.
“Do you have to be that cheerful in the morning?” Willow asked, letting herself fall down onto a chair and holding to the mug of coffee Buffy had set in front of her like onto a life-line.
“Yes!” The two said unison, putting on their best smiles to which Willow groaned.
“God, I hope that Anya won’t make us do that summer thing for her in the show.” Willow told them, sipping at her coffee. Then, putting on a grin herself she added “And I sure hope that Anya too is feeling that bad!”
***
“Good morning, honey!” Anya beamed happily, opening her eyes and stretching like a lazy cat. She felt great, truth to be told, she hadn’t felt that good for a long time. Xander mumbled something and turned around to get some more sleep. Which of course was impossible, now that Anya was awake. “I hope you’ve slept well, ‘cause we have a lot of work to do for today.”
“We have?” Xander asked, still half asleep. Anya nodded enthusiastically.
“Of course we do.” She began to explain. “We have to plan our wedding.”
“Which is something you’ve done for the past months now, Ahn. “Xander replied groggily. “Why don’t you finish that and let me sleep some more, sweetie?”
“But we’re getting married, so we are supposed to do that together.” Anya told him, furrowing her brows. “You do still want to marry me, right?”
“Of course I do!” At that, Xander was instantly awake. “Where on earth did you get a different idea from? I love you, Ahn!”
“Just checking. You know that a lot of soon-to-be husbands get cold feet before their wedding and leave their lovely soon-to-be wives in front of the altar.” Anya stated, looking expectantly at him. Xander’s eyes widened.
“I would never do that! Where did you get this nonsense now, more of these stupid bride magazines?” He asked her, clearly shocked. Anya just smiled sweetly at him.
“No, that would make my life experience. You know, from my former job?” She now looked him directly in the eyes, dead serious this time. “I’ve seen many men to get their punishment for doing just that. I don’t want to call in any favours should you decide to do that to me, leaving me standing there in an astonishing dress, that sure will outshine those of the maids of honour. And it took you really long to even tell your friends about us. I just am not sure that you really want to marry me at all. Besides, you never help me with the planning and all that and Bridal Magazine says…”
Xander reached over her and pulled her closer, finally silencing her with a kiss.
“I do love you, and I do want to marry you, Ahn.” He told her, his eyes locked onto hers. “And I promise to help you with the planning right after I get some more sleep. I promise that I will never leave you.”
He kissed her some more, kisses, she now returned with equal love for him in them like it had been in his. Needless to say that Xander didn’t get any more sleep after that.
***
A new day had come, but it still was kinda dark where he was. And like the dark thing, he part of not having left his current location yet also hadn’t changed, for he still remained where he had been before. This really was slowly but steadily getting boring by now. Maybe if he waited some more, someone would be finding him, saving him. And he promised to be grateful to that someone, even if it should be the whelp. And could somebody please switch the bloody light back on?
***
“Warren, you are a genius!” Andrew exclaimed for what had to be the thousandth time that morning. Jonathan also had vocally expressed his admiration for their fellow Nerdian and continued to stare in awe at Warren’s once more truly astonishing handy-work. And what he had accomplished truly was astounding.
Warren smiled broadly, a grin that this time nearly went around his head plastered his face and he beamed with pride. If he’d radiated more of that happiness in sun-bright waves, it sure would’ve been the end of their new project. And even he had to admit that it was something only he had been able to come up with. Warren leaned back in his chair, bathing in undisguised fame about his plan - yes it was his plan didn’t he already tell that?- and defended his control over the remote viciously, while watching his new pet project. No one would touch his remote!
Said pet project was currently cleaning the table and carrying the dishes to the sink where he proceeded then to wash them. Did I mention that said pet project was also currently wearing a huge and terribly ugly kitchen apron with huge letters printed on it that said ‘Kiss the Nerd’; a special kitchen utensil brought in when Andrew had joined them and which also had never before been used – hence the huge pile of dishes in the sink and pizza cartons next to it. Without speaking a single word, their very own remote vampire was doing their dishes for them, after he had prepared the breakfast table for them that was.
Spike still wore his dark jeans with an equally dark shirt and to complete the ensemble he had his trademark black boots on his feet. To go with everything there had been added a flashy silver headgear on top of his bleached blond hair. But that part of his outfit was completely involuntarily on his side.
Warren had decided to test some more of his fancier gadgets on him, and this one would be proving rather useful in extending control over the vampire across greater distances. And the part where it came to executing control over Spike over a far distance was a very crucial one in his plan. He couldn’t let the Slayer know that it was them who controlled him after all.
Not when they wanted to use him in taking her out.
But for the moment, it was just as satisfying to watch him parading around in the apron for them.
***
After a longer while, Anya and Xander finally got out of bed this morning, or should I say rather midday? It didn’t matter of course, and since it was a day when Anya would open the Magic Box not before around two in the afternoon, she for once didn’t complain about possible loss of money in that department. Also since Xander wasn’t due to show up at the construction site for this day, none of them had to have a guilty conscience about spending the whole morning in bed.
Alas Anya had to open the Magic Box sometime and so they both went into the kitchen to get something to eat for them. They were supposed to meet the others at the shop this day to discuss recent events regarding this Season’s baddie they were facing. Somehow Xander started to wonder where that thought had come from, but watching Anya getting breakfast ready for them made him forget all other things on his mind. He was really lucky to have her.
***
Yup, still dark and silent and whatnot. But by now he had gotten accustomed to it. And of course he would find a way to finally leave that place. The Slayer wouldn’t come to save him, he finally realized and it also made him a little sad. He’d done everything for her, and of course some more that would quickly raise the rating so he decided to not mention it right now.
Instead he concentrated on finding a plan to get the hell out of where he was. And of course he had no idea how he had gotten there. The only thing he remembered, or rather the last thing that is, was the Nerds standing in front of his body and talking like he hadn’t been there.
Waitaminute, what was the part of standing in front of his body again? He also remembered having a really good look at that body himself. And that was the impossible part of it, wasn’t it?
But he had been so sure to have seen himself. Of course, he couldn’t possibly know what he looked like now; only that it had a huge similarity to the one he remembered. So, if he had really seen himself, from an outsider’s perspective, how did he then get stuck here? And the most important part of it was, why?!
Damnit, he had to get out of there, it was making him nervous and really, really acting not like himself. Also he got a headache from thinking way too much. Not for the first time he wondered if his body was being stuck in the same situation.
***
With still wearing the rather hideous kitchen apron, Spike’s body raced through the Nerd-cave, the evil Nerd’s lair. In his hands he held a large broom and was busy cleaning the rest of Warren’s basement, while from his mouth to the tune of ‘wearing the apron low/high’ a humming sound emanated.
The Nerds were watching the scenery and were laughing so hard, their stomachs began to hurt, a lot. This was a great day for them and it sure should be getting better and better. And of course, Andrew and Jonathan did their best to glance admiringly towards Warren, hoping to get a chance in touching that remote and also being able to play with their newest toy. But Warren defended his reign over it fiercely.
***
“Could you please tell us once more why we are having this meeting again?” Anya asked impatiently, her mind already on the next potential customer that was strolling around in the shop. She was losing money should she not be able to coax that customer into buying something and she most certainly could not do that while standing around and talking about god knew what stupid things. Besides, she already was knee deep into her planning for the wedding, so it already was very hard for her to get these thoughts off her business mind.
“We are having a huge problem; that is why we are having this meeting.” Buffy explained patiently while fighting the urge to roll her eyes. Not twenty-four hours ago, she had been forced into an inventory she hadn’t even wanted because Anya had told her it was important. And now she was questioning a really important issue?
“Yes, I understood that, I only asked you to repeat it for those who didn’t know.” Anya stated; her eyes still glued on the customer.
“I guess there’s nobody here who didn’t know.” Buffy told her and suppressed the urge to just strangle that girl. “I shall begin then. And please someone kill me if I ever talk like Giles again.” That earned her snickers from everyone. “We all know that we do have a serious Nerd problem, one that cannot be solved by calling a Nerdbuster. These Nerdy ones are like the Energizer Bunny, they come back and come back and come back…”
“Bunnies!!!” Anya screamed hysterically, startling even the customer slightly and then clutched towards her fiancé. Nerds were one thing, potential money donors meaning paying customers also but bunnies?! “Where are they? Please kill them, Xander!!”
“There are no bunnies here, Ahn.” Xander did his best to calm the former vengeance demon down to her usual refreshingly tactless self. “You don’t need to be afraid, I will protect you.”
“Okay.” Anya said tentatively, looking around finally and getting the sight of the customer back again who was just walking over towards the more expensive displays. The sound of dollar signs clicking behind her eyes was almost audible at that. “But you know, bunnies are evil vile creatures. And that Energizer demon is the worst, devil incarnate mark my words!” With that she stomped over to greet the completely unsuspecting customer and to drag him over towards the even more expensive displays, practically forcing him to buy something, if only to get away from her again.
“Now that we have cleared this problem, we should be going back to the more urgent matter at hand.” Buffy told them, smiling slightly at Anya’s tries in doing business as usual. “What are we going to do with the Nerdy Three?”
Huge silence greeted her in answering that question, which was paired up with equally clueless facial expressions, identical on everybody else besides her and Anya of course who was still deep into selling stuff he actually didn’t need to that poor guy.
“Guess that screams for a research party!” Buffy declared happily but was immediately interrupted by Willow.
“Uh, I don’t mean to sound stupid or what, but wasn’t research usually for demons only?” She asked the Slayer and now it was Buffy’s turn to look clueless. Other than research, and that wasn’t something she usually participated in or liked for that, she absolutely had no idea what to do now.
“We still can do a research party.” Tara suggested helpfully, smiling. “But we make it only a clue seeking party, as in what to do about the Troika.”
“Good idea!!” Buffy beamed, hugely relieved at that. “We could go to the Bronze, like we used to for studying. I know that there is this really cool band playing tonight and…”
“Maybe we’ll ask Spike if he wants to join the party.” Tara said, looking knowingly towards Buffy. For once the Slayer looked uncomfortable among her friends.
“Why?” She asked hesitating. “Do you really think he might know something?”
“It is a possibility after all.” Willow joined in. She had not yet noticed Buffy squirming around on her chair, clearly uncomfortable with herself. “I mean he has connections to the underworld.”
“You mean the demon underworld, right?” Buffy asked, raising both her eyebrows. “I wouldn’t count on him knowing something and I don’t know if he knows anything, I mean he never knows anything useful and…”
“Buffy, you’re babbling.” Willow told her, eying her curiously. “You never babble, I am the one babbling and I do that when I’m nervous or on caffeine and…and…I’m doing it too already, am I not?”
Four heads nodded towards her, Anya was still busy nearly throwing her stuff onto the customer who steadfastly had refused to buy anything so far.
“Uh, I just meant that calling Spike wouldn’t gain us anything.” Buffy quickly explained, Xander already was looking at her in a really not-so-funny way. ‘He must not find out’ replayed inside her mind over and over again.
“What about Spike?” A voice came from the door. Dawn Summers, Buffy’s younger sister or a flashy ball of light put in human form depending on whom one asked, had just entered the Magic Box, whistling happily.
“He might know something about the Trio of Nerds.” Tara explained to the teen. “We are trying to figure out what to do about them and he might have some information that we don’t and we were wondering whether he’d join us for research.”
“Good luck finding him then.” Dawn said, putting her bag onto the table and pulling herself a chair over. She sat down and played with some straps on the bag before she added “I had none.”
“What do you mean, you had no luck?” Buffy looked alarmed and wondered slightly why she didn’t think of punishing Dawn for going to the crypt without telling her. “What about Spike?”
“Who cares what about Spike, why were you looking for him, Dawnie?” Xander asked her. It did absolutely not please him that she was spending an awful lot of time with that particular vampire. After all, she used to have a huge crush on him and secretly he had enjoyed it. Besides, he and Spike weren’t on best speaking terms, if only someone could tell the vampire that too, Xander wouldn’t have to deal with him so much.
“Look, I went over to his crypt, by the way that place really needs a good dusting, because he was supposed to help me with history.” Dawn explained, starting to look concerned herself. Xander began to rub his hands happily and twitching with anticipation at the term ‘dusting’. “And no, I don’t mean that he should be dusted, it’s just his place that is all dusty but that must be from being a crypt. So, he promised to give me a more accurate insight into it than the books can, like how he had lived through it and all that. Anyway, I was there and he wasn’t. No Spike. The crypt was empty. Buffy what did you do now to make him go away?”
“What!?” Now it was Buffy’s turn to look really, really concerned and startled. “I didn’t do anything!”
“Come one, you must have done something.” The teen nearly whined. “He would never leave me, never!”
“Maybe someone has finally staked the un-dead-man-walking?” Xander suggested, sounding really hopefully while still rubbing his hands together and that remark earned him a rather hard slap on the arm from Dawn.
“He would not leave me!” She repeated and she even managed to growl at Xander. Spike would’ve been proud of her. No, she shouldn’t say that, like talking like he already was dead. Well, technically he was dead, but who cared about that little insignificant part?
“I’ll go by the crypt and tell him about the meeting.” Buffy tried to play peace maker. “And maybe he’ll come to the Bronze for it or has some other useful information.” If not, I can always continue what he started yesterday, Buffy thought to herself. But they must not find out, they must not find out…
Somewhere in her head a tiny little voice began to rise mockingly by telling her that she in fact had wanted to tell them about Spike and her. Buffy willed that voice to shut up.
“We’ll be meeting at the Bronze later then.”
And with that the preliminary meeting ended, needless to say that they had achieved nothing at all so far.
***
There had to be a way out of this dark place, he thought to himself, or that was it he had been mentally repeating for the past hours. But of course he didn’t know about the hours, since in darkness all hours were the same. The Slayer would find him and save him, he just had to wait.
But didn’t he already mention that waiting sucked?
Especially in that dark place?
Well, it did. He had to get out of there, it started to drive him crazy. Or maybe he already was crazy, with seeing himself and all that? And thinking about the rest of him and these whereabouts had caused him one hell of a migraine already.
Could he even get a migraine where he was?
He had to do something!
***
Buffy had stopped by the crypt on her way towards the Bronze. And she had found no sight of Spike, none at all. That itself wasn’t the thing that made her wonder but rather the fact that everything still was the same like it had been the night before. He had probably gone out to play cards with his friends or was already at the Bronze waiting for her to show up.
That had it to be, Buffy thought. He maybe was there, cheating the last few dollars out of a poor unsuspecting college kid at pool or steal it again from Xander.
Buffy had to smile at that, she still wondered how the vampire managed to get everything working inside his crypt, the television and the fridge for the blood without paying any bills or having an income at all. Maybe one day he would tell her his business secret and she’d profit from that. It was better than working in the Fast Food Hell she had gotten a job now.
Buffy scanned the room with her Slayer senses to check out if these Nerds had played around with their invisibility gun again and this time turned the vampire into nothing, but she didn’t get the vibes she usually got when he was around her. Dawn had been right, he just wasn’t there, but where could he have gone? Besides if he truly was invisible, she sure would have found out by now. As she happened to know Spike, he would have made full and good use of that situation. Lifting the door up from the crypt floor, she closed that way the room again and went towards the Bronze.
They really had to do something about these Nerds, they started messing up with her life again and if there was something to really, really piss her off, that little point definitively was on number one top of that list.
***
The door of the crypt closed the same time the television monitor flickered to life again. But there was no program on it so far and it wouldn’t be. Instead a very familiar face showed up.
“Where the bloody hell am I?! And where’d my body go?!”
***
It had been a great day for Warren. With the two others hovering around him like groupies he thoroughly enjoyed himself. But now it was time to set his plan in motion. Watching the vampire parading around in the kitchen outfit that made every other housewife jealous, but it wasn’t exactly what he had imagined. So he stopped the show sometime after noon and urged the others to get the party rolling. Warren gathered his things and packed Spike into the Nerdmobile, together with the others to go out and play. Phase One of his plan would start tonight.
While watching the others carry their equipment into the van, Warren mentally went once more over his plan in its entirety. Basically it was too simple and that was it that made it that good. The Slayer wouldn’t suspect anything and from what he had discovered over the last weeks observing her, everything would turn out just fine. He had the perfect weapon to fight her, take her down and make her pay for everything she’d done to him.
And with complete control over the vampire, nothing could go wrong.
At last, he would have his revenge on the Slayer.
***
The Bronze was already pretty crowded and Buffy nearly hadn’t managed to spot her friends at all in the dark room. It was something of a special dance theme night or anything like that, all the guests wore those glowing plastic rings on their heads, around their necks, wrists or ankles and the dance-floor was illuminated with neon pink, yellow, orange and green lights. When their wearers moved around, the light effect was really cool and with the right music to accompany their movements it nearly was perfect.
“Hey Buffy!” Xander gestured towards her and following his lead, Buffy made her way through the dancing crowd to a table at the edge of the dance-floor. “Over here!”
“Did you have any luck in finding Spike?” Tara asked her as soon as Buffy had joined them. “Will he come?”
“No. No luck finding Spike at all. He wasn’t in his crypt or anywhere near it.” Buffy answered her sullenly, trying to do her best to banish concern and disappointment out of her voice. It still replayed inside her mind: they must not know, they must not know…
“Well, then we’ll have to do it without him.” Xander told them, and he tried his best to get the sound of clear joy out of his voice. If Spike wasn’t there, he wouldn’t be stealing his money again and he didn’t have to watch him ogle at Buffy all the time. That was so disgusting, Xander thought.
“But he wouldn’t leave without telling you.” Willow joined the concerned-about-Spike club. “I mean, he wouldn’t just go, would he?”
“I don’t know.” Buffy said honestly. “He told me he’d never leave me. Maybe he’s just around somewhere cheating at kitten poker.”
“Kitten poker?” Xander had this clueless look on his face but was ignored.
“So what do we have yet?”
“Uh, nothing much other than the Nerds constantly trying to defeat us with flimsy ideas and us now knowing who they are.” Willow supplied and Buffy nodded eagerly.
“Yeah, right. So we do know who they are and what they have done, but not what they’ll do next. The question is, what are we going to do with that info?” Buffy asked the others but received not quite an answer to that. In fact none of the others were still listening to her at all. Instead they all stared transfixed towards the dance-floor.
The lights had gone almost out in the club and now the glowing plastic thingies were even better visible and the effect absolutely great. All eyes were now glued onto the floor where people danced to the music, but everyone had stopped by now. That meant all but one, for one sole dancer was still out there, moving gracefully to the music. In his hands he held two of the glow-sticks and that and the ones around his ankles were the only things visible of him at all. He was moving with perfect synchronicity to the sounds, his hands moving around so that the green glowing things seemed to blur into circling lines. To that his feet also were rapidly at movement, doing the moonwalk and some other dancing moves like those boy bands did these days. But it looked awesome, simply astonishing and even Buffy had to admit that this was like magic. To put it in words one had to have seen it, but it was astounding, fabulous and whatnot. Also it had the girls drooling.
“Wow, this is so great.” Buffy said admiringly and the others nodded.
“Yes, that guy has got the groove!” Willow said. Being a lesbian did not mean that she couldn’t acknowledge or rather admire a guy’s talent. And with it being very dark, it could also be a girl dancing out there, doing some break-dance moves right now.
“Why can’t you dance like that?” Anya asked her fiancé. “Maybe you should ask that guy for lessons so that you will finally learn to dance.”
“Ahn, I don’t want to dance like that.” Xander said, rolling his eyes. Secretly he had to admit that he was pretty jealous at this guy’s talent.
“This looks really difficult to me.” Tara wondered. “But it goes so easy to him. He’s must be a pro.”
“Definitely.” Buffy still was in full ogle-mood, despite the fact that other than these glowing sticks nothing could be seen from that guy with the great moves. She was really playing with the thought of joining him there, dancing with him before someone else did. Why couldn’t Spike dance like this; that would be soo sexy to be watching him dancing with some sticks in his crypt, of course without a shirt on and… Bad Buffy, she scolded herself. Bad, bad thoughts, Buffy!
“I wonder who that guy is, he must be really sexy one.” Anya exclaimed dreamily, the other girls, lesbian or not also had this dreamy look in their eyes. Even Xander was now openly showing his jealousy of not being able to dance like this.
They guy on the floor continued dancing like there was nobody else around him, moving to the music and gyrating his body while twirling the sticks in his hands. Buffy and the rest of the Scoobies had moved closer to get a better look at the show.
Suddenly the music died and the lights went on again, the spotlight on the dancer in the middle of all the people that had gathered around him to watch. And it also gave all of them a really good first look at him, at least a first look now in the lighted room. Five mouths hung agape, stunned glances accompanying their jaws on the floor where they had crashed once they’d recognized the dancer.
“SPIKE?!”
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