Dawn was angry.
Dawn was livid.
Dawn was really hurt.
Spike had left, leaving Buffy mostly, but by extension that meant her. She had relied on him to be Buffy’s backup against Glory. She’d relied on him to give her moments of sanity when she started to freak out too much about being this key thing. Not only that, he had left without saying goodbye. She knew that he hadn’t promised lasting devotion to her or anything, but she had thought that they were becoming friends. She had hoped he might think it was cool being buddies with an ancient dimensional key as much as she thought it was so totally cool being friends with a Master vampire.
That word stuck in her throat for some reason, made her feel a little uncomfortable. Friends. He had left because Buffy had rejected his romantic overtures. But what confused her most was that he had kept it secret for a long time now, so why did he choose to finally reveal his feelings to Buffy? True, Dawn had told Buffy how the cute vampire felt about her the day he left, made it so Buffy could no longer walk around oblivious to the Spike’s feelings, told Buffy that he loved…Dawn’s eyes widened in sudden guilt and shame.
Crap.
So it was her fault. She should have stayed quiet. Buffy probably said something to make him suspect that she knew or might even be interested, and let it all out. Except Buffy wasn’t interested, and would have probably been pretty nasty to him. Now he was gone, and they only had Buffy’s strength in the arsenal against Glory.
They were screwed, and it was all Dawn’s fault.
If Xander had thought he would feel anything other than euphoria to hear that Spike was gone for good, he would have laughed himself hoarse. He hated the vamp with a passion fuelled regularly by insults and pilfered cash, so he couldn’t see his life as being anything but bliss when the bleached pain in the ass decided to up and rain on somebody else’s parade. So initially, when Buffy announced at one of the nightly Scooby meetings that Spike had unhitched his tent and set out for greener pastures with Dru in tow, he felt like breaking out into the Snoopy dance.
In fact, he and Giles had bonded over the event, their sarcasm levels disappearing amidst their jollity so much that the girls all started to feel a little uncomfortable at the strangeness of their behaviour. All of them, including Giles, partied like it was the brink of the Millennium at the Bronze, even if the girls did all seem to be a bit on the quiet side. They danced and made merry and patrolled in packs.
And that was when the happiness started to fracture the smallest bit. And then crack wide open. Barely a week had passed since the big event for them all to see the results of what Spike’s absence was to mean to them, and more directly, to Buffy.
Vampires and demons seemed to just collapse out of the woodwork en masse and not a night went by that Xander or Giles didn’t drag themselves home with a slight concussion or a bloodied gash on various parts of their body. In fact, the only one who escaped the majority of injury was Anya, who very wisely objected to putting all their lives in danger and stayed with Dawn and Joyce to keep them company. Of course under the guise of keeping them safe. But they all knew the truth, and envied the ex-demon’s quick thinking.
It was becoming increasingly obviousparticularly by all the barbed comments flowing from the mouths of all those newly courageous demons that Spike had actually helped quite a lot and managed to keep the demon population down without letting on to the Scoobies of what he was doing.
In the middle of his incredulity, Xander was kind of impressed. Mainly that Spike had been taking care of all the vamps, but also grudgingly because he had never made them aware of his acts. Well, never made Buffy aware. Because after finding out the vamp had the hots for the Buffster, they had all taken turns expressing the wrongness of all that is Spike, the creepiness of his stalking, and his selfish acts of only helping when it was going to get him some consideration. Enough consideration to get into Buffy’s pants, that is. Xander hated that maybe he’d been wrong.
With the passing of yet another week, Xander became one of the first who would admit that they might have been a bit hasty in bashing Spike with the ‘evil vamp’ stick on a regular basis. And he really hated to admit it, but he kind of, well, just a little bit…missed him.
When the choices of good pool partners came to just about no one, could anyone really blame him? And there was no one left he could throw out his sarcastic/nasty comments to and not get belted a bit about the head. And the guy did manage to prevent his becoming a tasty treat to a vamp or two on the odd occasion, not to mention he’d been around for a couple of the apocalyptic moments. Those sorts of things held people together, even if you did hate them. Which made Xander start to wonder if he really did hate Spike at all, or if he just held on to a bit of a grudge.
But the point was, the demons on the Hellmouth were getting out of control and for some reason, it seemed wrong that Spike wasn’t there to help them out.
And then there was Glory.
The God from hell.
Literally.
The strain from that particular situation was beginning to create a noose around their necks; one that was tightening way too quickly. That, on top of the stress of nearly losing Joyce to a tumor and having Dawn be all glowy key thingy was starting to unravel the dream team.
He had never realised that the snark that Spike contributed to their little get-togethers might have actually helped keep them grounded. Other than Giles, he was also really the only other adult amongst them. And he really hated to acknowledge it, but the guy was smart. Almost Giles-smart he was willing to bet, and he really came through in a pinch.
So, yeah. He was ready to admit it. He missed Spike. And with Glory closing in, they needed Spike.
So, it was about time they thought about possibly trying to get him to come back.
Once Xander had decided to broach the subject with the Scoobies feeling relaxed that he had finally admitted all that to himself he recalled that incy-wincy little detail that Spike had gone back with Dru. Which probably meant he was all with the ‘no more chipness’ and the willy-nilly killing of humans.
Why oh why did he never see the reality of a situation before it was too late? His fear of pre-chip Spike suddenly exploded from his comfy resigned acceptiness and he panicked. That fear took over and he knew he couldn’t suggest bringing him back. What if they found him and the first thing Spike did was go straight to Xander to rip his head off or worse his throat out? He had been pretty mean and horrible, and the taunting, yeah, that might have been kind of a bad habit to get into. But surely Spike knew it was all in jest, just having a good time with the jokes and stuff? Now he felt torn; he knew they needed Spike, but if Spike was dangerous again, well….
The only option he could think of was starting to make him feel kinda queasy, but his earlier resignation was still with him and he marched over to his phone almost angrily. Clutching the receiver in sudden apprehension, he called Will to get a phone number off her, ignored her concerned inquiries and hung up. Breathing deeply, he picked it up again and dialled, praying that he was not doing the most stupid thing he ever had to date. Looking over his past, the small frown between his brows convinced him it wasn’t possible.
When the phone was finally picked up on the other end and an impatient “hello” barked out, Xander released that long held breath shakily and closed his eyes in hope.
“Angel? It’s Xander. I was hoping you could look into something for me…”
Buffy was angry.
Buffy was livid.
Buffy was really hurt.
Not one of her friends seemed to even see that Spike’s leaving had pained her. No one noticed that she never smiled now, though to be fair she supposed they might have put that down to the nearly losing of her mother and the whole keyness that was Dawn. Not to mention Glory breathing down their necks like a dog with vile halitosis. And she’d pretty much gotten over the leaving that was Riley.
The only one who seemed to have the smallest clue was Tara, and she was too shy and timid to even attempt to ask Buffy how she was feeling about driving another guy away, despite her annoyingly regular claims that feelings for Spike would just be eeew and icky.
Even if her head had almost imploded and turned to liquid mush when he gave her that small kiss, tender but way hot, before taking off with his ho of an ex-girlfriend. And the thought of them going for it after he claimed to be in love with Buffy made her just want to curl up under a mountain of bedcovers and howl to the moon in anguish. She’d told him that she hated him, then tortured herself with images of him macking on Dru and wanted to kill something violently. Oh yeah, her hate was real!
It was just so much bad timing. And bad teaching. Bad Giles! If she had just been taught that it was possible, to be on the look out for signs of change, not been so doggedly determined to believe only in bad, not that varying shades of grey rubbish, but the indiscriminate levels of good and bad. He could have been climbing the ladder of bad maybe, on a higher rung of badjust a little bit badapproaching good. If she’d known it was possible, she might not have thrown it back in his face. She might have been a little more willing to try and help him.
What was it he’d said to her just before he’d left? He had possessed the will and she’d broken it. Why did that failure make her feel stark and miserable? The only cause she could understand was that she must have believed him. Believed it possible. That he had really wanted to change, had been trying to change, but without a soul he found it difficult, which is why he needed the help. And she’d denied it. Man, she was such a bitch. A self-obsessed bitch, who just might have a little crush on the deserting bleached vampire babe.
The crush she could deal with; get over, in fact. She was well on the way to getting over it, it was gone, completely out of her mind. No crush. But the Glory thing…so wasn’t going away in a hurry. She didn’t want to admit it and tried really hard not to show it, but she was scared. She wasn’t strong enough to fight her one on one; she didn’t even think she would be strong enough a hundred on one.
But it wasn’t Spike’s physical strength she was afraid she was missing. It was his mental strength, and his devotion to the Summers women. She had a horrible suspicion that by denying him emotional access to her burden that she had banished an ally that would have put himself first before he would let them be hurt, and his emotional stake in their welfare might have made him more resourceful. It wasn’t like he wasn’t: he had managed to stay plenty of steps ahead in protecting himself and Dru from angry lynch mobs for over a century, so he must have some thoughts on how to get them to safety and keep them there. And if it came down to running, then she would feel a hell of a lot better knowing that Spike was there to watch their back. Not to mention, drive!
So, two weeks down the track of Sunnydale minus Spike, and Buffy daily wavered between riding it out and phoning Angel to ask him to find Spike for her. Begging him to bring Spike home. She gasped at that and tears filled her eyes. She was so blind. This was his home. She had no business making his existence here so awkward and unpleasant.
She wasn’t ready for Angel to know so much, though, and she didn’t think it would be safe for Spike if Angel knew that he thought he was in love with her. Bad Buffy, not thought. Is. He is in love with her. And it was like a rainbow had cleared the sky and filled it with nothing but radiant hope. In multicolour. Epiphany. She felt all right with that. So he loved her. How could that be a bad thing? The world just wasn’t filled with enough love, and what individual had so much they could risk rejecting something so precious? Certainly not Buffy. That was for certain.
So, she headed over to the desk and picked up the phone, taking a deep breath for courage and dialled Angel’s number, only to exhale in bitter disappointment as she got an engaged signal. Over the next twenty minutes she pressed redial to the same result. In an angry huff she slammed the phone down, grabbed a few stakes and headed out for the Magic Box. Time to meet up with everyone for patrol, and hope that the vamps weren’t so plentiful tonight. And that no one got more hurt than usual.
Who would have thought that either Spike’s reputation or skill had kept the population down so much. Oh yeah. She needed him back bad.
Spike had re-entered the family fold with both trepidation and confusion. It had been over a century since he had last seen Darla, and the memories had not done her justice. He begrudgingly admitted to himself what Angelus had seen in her and could see the faint hints of why the great poof had fallen for Buffy. He obviously had a thing for blondes, and Darla quite frankly was a bit of all right. A stunner, even. But she was a right viscous bitch, and she did not favour him with familial affection for his belated return.
All this just reaffirmed for him that what he felt for Buffy was even more real, as he obviously had never been attracted to her for her hair colour but the light within herthe light that brought truth and love to all those lucky enough to bask in her goodness. He dropped his head, sad, no longer within reach of her.
He began his foray back into evil by accompanying the girls on the hunt, becoming swept up in the adrenaline rush of chasing down thumping heartbeats, even if the scent of their fear was more off-putting than arousing like it used to be. Once he caught them, though, he stopped, at first convincing himself it was because he didn’t want to blast himself with the chip. But after a few times of witnessing Dru break the neck of his victim and offering him the still warm body for engorgement, the activity he thought would consume his demon in rightness again only served to unnerve him and bath him in feelings that strangely felt like guilt.
Once he had unwittingly followed a blonde, and her cracked neck lay before him, smooth in her deathly offering, and all he could see was Buffy and her shame and disgust in him. Under the watchful eyes of Darla and Dru he closed his lids and drank, but his demon was shrinking back within him, horrified and lonely.
They returned to their newish home, an apartment Darla had forced from some lovesick git who had hung around like a pet. Spike collapsed into a corner of his room and tried to control his shaking body.
The next night, he stayed in.
They brought him a corpse. He had sunk his fangs into the neck slowly, and as the first gush of blood hit his tongue, he gagged. Thrusting the flesh away he curled up into a ball and refused to look at them.
For a couple of days they had laughed at him, but otherwise he was ignored. They were leaving behind them a bloody trail that he knew would bring Angel to the doorstep sooner or later, and for the first time he prayed for his Yoda to show up and plant a stake in his chest and end his misery. He couldn’t understand it, but his demon was screaming at him in rage to kill the women and get rid of the threat that they were. It was unprecedented, but he felt protective of the breathing masses beyond his door, and disgusted in himself for letting Dru and Darla lead him back to a lifestyle he had started to overcome.
The days turned into a week and then two, and his body started to weaken as he continued to refuse blood, until they no longer offered and no more death lingered within the walls of the apartment. But pain made a sweeping entry as they changed their focus and strung him up, let him hang in chains from the ceiling, and painted his beautiful body in shades of holy water and blood.
They cut him into strips, flogged him with whips, stabbed him with knives, and drained him of his consciousness as well as his fortifying leftover blood. He hung uselessly, barely a patch of white left to view of his skin, his arms pulled from their sockets through the continual jerking away from pain, and his cock a shrivelled and burned parody of its former self. They and stripped him, using their tongues and hands at first to arouse him to do their will, but as he remained limp, they decided he should burn.
As he continued to hang there from day to day, he could feel himself sink within his mind on too many occasions and so had resorted to talking to the Lindsey pup who had remained loyal and hopeful, but never fearful of his murderous houseguests. He was unaware of all the things he said to the git, mindless babble from a hungry, delirious and mutilated monster who had compiled his mistakes over and over until he couldn’t find his way back.
He talked of Buffy. Must have done, because as his body faltered and his insides became blacker, she was all he could think about. Her hair and eyes, her look of wonder when he confessed to her his feelings. The gentleness of her interaction with her friends and family. He wanted to be with her so badly, just to rest his head in her lap and beg her for forgiveness. Beg her to help him. Beg her to let him kiss her feet.
After three weeks, he was a broken vamp. He was obviously terribly weak and starving, living with his gameface continuously pushed forward, but he didn’t even growl in hunger when Lindsey would try to get him to break out of himself once the girls had gone out. It never occurred to him to provide other blood. Truly, he didn’t care that much about nursing them, unless it was Darla. And Dru didn’t seem that concerned, so he limited his care to just getting Spike to talk each night, if only to hear his stories, fascinating as they were.
One night Lindsey returned home to find Darla and Dru gone, Spike hanging like the dead from his ceiling, and a feral Angel standing in front of the spectacle with such a look of hate on his face that Lindsey felt fear in the presence of these vampires for the first time in weeks. As the two conscious men stood still, by some kind of silent unity, they both took in the blonde who had been tortured to an inch of his unlife.
Angel felt nauseous; grief for his family rising unsure as he took in the damage that his girls had inflicted. After his talk with Xander it had taken him a week to track Darla down and pick up some details of their exploits. That Spike had only been involved at the beginning of their renewed killing rampage had confused him, particularly the stories circulating that the male Master wouldn’t feed, from live victims nor soon after, the dead.
Deep in his own confused longing to return to that life, despite his shiny soul, Angel hadn’t much cared except for the desire to wipe out every member of his family. It wasn’t the damage they were doing to the population that made him wish to wipe them out, it was rather his feelings of failure. Harris’s call did nothing but renew those as he was made to understand that Buffy was in great danger, but it was Spike they wanted back at the Hellmouth.
Then within one night, an occasion to be remembered for his certain decision to reclaim the brute of his past as his future, the horrible sense of nostalgia and yearning he felt to renew ties to his whole family and resurrect their flagging reputation as pure menace and danger.
One night he surrendered to the arms of his leading lady, writhed in pure bliss to be returned to Darla in the way that he had craved for over a century. Not even Buffy had held him like she had, and then the unthinkable had happened.
The unconsidered.
He hadn’t lost his soul, but in a moment of pure torment he had regained his mission. Knowing he could never have his family back without turning his head on their destruction, he had determined to dust them and his renewed search for Spike yielded results.
He felt conflicted and disbelieving of these tales of self-deprivation for the vampire until he had finally located Spike and seen for himself how the female members of their family had treated him, and knew. Only their anger would have made them do something so punishing, so deplorable to a newly embraced returned member.
The gaunt haunted face, the skeletal body of one who had always been pretty, well muscled, was almost destroyed in its starvation. Angel cringed, then allowed tears to fall for the suffering of his Childe, for he knew this depravity was not an isolated experience for him. Here the sight of William reaffirmed his epiphany, he could never risk Angelus coming out. And according to the perils of the Sunnydale crew, he had to help mend emotionally and physically his errant Childe and return him to the place they termed his home.
That Xander Harris was the one calling, and almost begging for him to find and bring Spike home if he still had the chip, was astounding in itself. Not to mention insulting and hurtful. He doubted the boy had ever felt the need to recall Angel back to their group. But a secret call to Giles settled his worries that the boy had been hypnotised into stupidity; Spike, he admitted grudgingly, was one of them and they needed him back. He helped Buffy enormously.
His scoffing had echoed down a dead line as Giles hung up on him. That had him stumped, but believing they were all on drugs. He hadn’t dared hear Buffy agree to needing the peroxided annoyance. So, he’d just started the search, bringing him back to now.
Though it galled him, he allowed Lindsey to help him detach Spike from the chains, then they collected his coat and torn clothing, wrapped him in a blanket and carried him out to Angel’s car. Lindsey climbed into the passenger seat, and whether Angel wanted to hear it or not, he relayed three weeks worth of the demoralising and macabre activities of his Sire and Childer, with the annihilation of William the Bloody being the main focus. By the time he was finished, Angel was incredulous, and disturbed. His own creation had trumped him, turned his back on his evil ways and attempted to change, all without the benefit of a soul. And made himself sick because of his lack of direction and support.
First things first, he had to get him healthy and then get to the bottom of this mess, and he had the unsettling feeling, the bottom was going to be a place too close to go.
A/N...not quite sure what to say...getting the feeling this story is not as engaging as Taste of Juliet? Oh well, reviews are still choc chip cookies for the soul....feed me please.