Fools For Love Chapter 1: i am what i am, a buffy: the vampire slayer fanfic

TITLE: i am what i am 1/1

SUMMARY: SPIKE reflects.

RATING: R (character death)

CATEGORY: Angst

SPOILERS: Fool For Love, Darla and general buffy season 2

DISCLAIMER: Joss Whedon owns all. Dido owns "Here With Me".

DEDICATION: To my bitches! The founders of the "We Envy Shannon" club! (yes I was nosy!)

FEEDBACK: PLEASE! It means SOOOO much! PLEASE PLEASE!

THANKS TO: James, Juliet, David and Julie. AND TO: Ryan, Ash, Evil Willow, Michelle, Alee, and my two bitches.

FOOLS FOR LOVE

-i am what i am-

I am a sap. I am a soddin' sap. I'm no better than Angel, but at least I have the guts to admit that I'm a ponce. He doesn't. He's too much of a manly's man. Course perhaps he really is the *real* vampire, and I'm just the same poncy bugger I was when I was chasin' around the girls writin' poetry. But whatever the reason, I know I'm a sap. So I can sit here drinkin' more beer, watchin' the humans dance about without a care in the world. I miss the days of violence and shaggin'. I miss the blood, the kill, the sound of necks snappin'. You get used to it and then it's gone, but at least I don't have me a soul. I have a heart.

She may've killed me and stopped my heart from beating, but she didn't make it stop. She just made it loyal. To her. Everything was for her. And that's the way it was supposed to be. She was my sire. She was my unlife. The air I didn't breathe. She was my entire existence. She celebrated with me. She showed me things. She made me whole for over a century. But she never loved me.

She loved him. Because he was *her* everything. He was her unlife. The air she didn't breathe. He was her entire existence. But he never loved her. He loved Darla and Darla loved him. And perhaps that's the real reason I hate him so much. He had his sire's love, and I never had a chance with mine. He twisted her, and he hurt her, and he made her what she was. And in her lucid moments, she was able to look beyond him and look at me. But those were few and far between, so it was up to him and Darla to be my mentors. And he took it upon himself to show me the things she couldn't understand, while she told me I didn't need to know.

He was her failure, and so when the time came for him to declare his favored childe, he chose me. And Dru was forgotten. He single-handedly stripped me of my *true* sire, and he loved every minute of it, because my heart was so loyal to her. I didn't know how to hide my feelings. I couldn't. She was my everything. She was the bloody definition of a god, and he knew it.

I can still see his face, when he went groveling at the Master's feet for forgiveness for being so blunt. It was the only time I ever saw him show weakness, or fear. He had learned. So we went for my eleventh birthday, and the Master had heard of me already. He walked over to me and asked who it was that created such a monster. Angelus walked over, turned me towards him, looked at me with evil in his eyes, kissed me possessively, and said "I did." And so it was. And Drusilla wasn't lucid enough to protest, and she worshipped him too much to argue.

Drusilla failed him. Penn failed him. The Master was clearly pleased with me, having taken on hoards of humans and demons alike, so he took credit. And she followed him blind. Which was why, when he came back to our side, that I had to undo his hold on her. Unfortunately most of my plans these days don't work out too well, and it backfired. I used to be able to handle myself. What happened? Did I lose it somewhere, like he did?

He used to punish me for creating havoc. See, the one thing I loved was a room full of panic and fear. I loved mass chaos. I could handle myself. All that anger, and unrequited love, and cruelty shown to me in life was given a hundred fold on all those I encountered after death. And I loved it. I let the anger guide me, until one day I realized that it was no longer controlling me, but that I was controlling it. And *that's* when I killed my first slayer. *That* day was when I decided to take control. She was starting to see me. He'd been gone two years, and although he breezed in, Drusilla knew the truth. She knew he'd leave again. It was inevitable. He had to, and she accepted that for a hundred years.

Perhaps had she not really been my sire, perhaps if we'd both not known the truth, we would have been partners. Mates. Equals. But we never were, because she chose me as a plaything, not for a mate, like Darla chose him. Reason number one hundred and forty-two why I hate him.

So when it comes right down to it, I'm sitting here with a chip in my head, worthless. I found her and gave her the pain she always begged of me. And I did it with sorrow because I never want to make her bleed. I never want her to hurt. She's my sire and I'd set fire to myself if that would make her truly happy, but she'll never be happy with me. So I sit and I drink, and I wish things were different, because I really can't do anything about anything anymore.

And watching humans isn't *that* boring. Granted I'd rather snap their necks or chase them around with blood dripping down my chin or a hundred other nasty little things to them, but I can't. So I watch them dance to this bleedin' sappy song, but that's okay, because as I've said, I'm a sap.

//I didn't hear you leave, I wonder how am I still here?
And I don't want to move a thing; it might change my memory//

Who am I kidding, really? I miss the blood and chaos so much sometimes it hurts. So bad to the point that I bite myself just to feel the sensation of my fangs breaking skin. But it doesn't cut it. So I cut my lip just to feel the blood drip from my mouth and it still doesn't do it. Nothing can. Nothing will. And so why do I really wanna see another night anyway?

Because there are only two people in this world that have the right to take me out of it. My sire and the slayer. And neither will. So I'm punished. If only Slutty knew. And talking with her just makes it worse because as much as she wants to understand about vampires and slayers, and as much contact she's had with vampires (which is more than any slayer previous), she still can't understand.

//Oh I am what I am, I'll do what I want
But I can't hide, I won't go, I won't sleep
I can't breathe until you're resting here with me
I won't leave, I can't hide, I cannot be
Until you're resting here with me//

And the reason she can't understand is because she doesn't know what it's like to feel truly alone. Abandoned by everything. It's a void in the pit of your stomach. It's an all-consuming need to be, and knowing that you're not. She can't possibly understand that because she doesn't have an everything. She doesn't have one being that represents her life, her love, her hope, her death, her sex, her light, her dark, her breath, the water in her body, the wind in her hair, she doesn't have an everything. She has someones that take on those roles, but she cannot comprehend the meaning of the word 'sire'.

//I don't want to call my friends, they might wake me from this dream
And I can't leave this bed, risk forgetting all that's been//

The very concept is something lost on the council, the watchers, the slayers and all the humans and demons that don't have one. Sire is everything. Angelus understood. Darla did. Drusilla did. I did. And when your everything is ripped out of your world, you try to fill the void, but it never works because you can't find another. Sire is an irreplaceable everything. That she is. And even though most of the Order of Aurelias don't recognize her as my sire, *I* do. And he does. He understood that and did everything he could to rip out my everything.

I miss everything. I yearn for it. I burn for it inside until I can't take it. I bleed for it. I bleed for her. My insides twist and grind for her. My body aches and calls for her, a glance, a touch, a look. And she's not here with me. And I won't go. I won't sleep. I can't breathe until she's here with me. I won't leave. I can't hide. I cannot be without her here with me. And unless I'm talking to a vampire, no one can understand, and even the new vampires don't understand because sires don't stick around. Is it any wonder the fledges are so easy to take out? Slutty wouldn't stand a chance against a gang of Angelus'. He was tough and brutal and as much as I hate him, I *really* hate him cause I love him just as much.

Because in the end, he was what I had for a sire. *He* took her place, and perhaps it was always his because she was too wrapped up in him to notice me for anything other than a playtoy. He was my sire, he was my Yoda. He became my everything, for a short time, but he was. And as much as he didn't want to admit it, he knew it. *That's* why he claimed me as his. She made me immortal, but he made me a vampire. He made me what I am.

So he tore not one, but two sire's from me and I hate him for it. My body yearns for her, but will settle for him. I often wonder if he feels that ache because he killed his. And as I'm driving down the freeway, I still wonder. And I open the door to his new offices and he stands up. I can smell her here, his sire. I can smell her. It's distinctively her and that's just not possible, but by the look on his face, I know it is.

"If you're looking for a fight…" he starts, but can't even finish. He just sits.

"How?" I ask.

"A spell of some kind or another."

"And human."

"Human with a soul. She wanted me to…"

"Sire her?" I finish his sentences, still after all this time.

"Yeah, but I can't. But she asked and I said no, and she left. She's in danger. She's hurting. She needs help."

"But you can't give it to her." I know why she's empty inside. Because when she died, the Master became her everything, and he's not here anymore. She had the chance to get another, to fill the void and take away the pain because only your everything can *really* fix that. "I envy her." I remark and he just looks at me and nods in agreement.

CONTINUE ON