AUTHOR'S NOTES: First of all, thank you so much for taking the time to look at my work. I really appreciate it, and I hope it's worth your while. This is my first Buffy fic, so I beg your patience with me. For some reason, Spander seems to be my 'drug-of-choice' something to do with clumsy puppies and leather-clad vamps, I think. Anyway, this piece is dedicated to Raven, Miyeko, Amber, Ra, and Abyssinia4077, who never gave up until I had a taste of the 'dark side'. This one is for you, girls.

Any comments or feedback you should choose to leave shall earn forever my gratitude and adoration.

Enjoy,

Meredith

CANON NOTES: I have been notified of some slight discrepancies in the story. I have been told that Xander's mother's name is 'Jessica', mentioned at least once in the series. I, however, had missed this reference when I wrote the piece, and had used the name 'Ellen'. It's difficult for me to change it now, so I apologize to purists in advance. I have also been told that most canon points to William being an only child-- I think, however, it is possible for him to have a sibling who is simply a lot younger than he is. I appreciate your patience.

Lines in the Sand 1/1

by Meredith Bronwen Mallory

(Let me tell you how the story really goes...)

The eve of William Forscythe Brenden's one hundred and thirtieth birthday found Spike wandering the deserted boardwalks of a small, coastal New Jersey town, just after sunset. The beach was stark and strewn with weeds, small circles of light thrown by rickety street-lamps, lonely and abandoned at the end of tourist season. Briefly, he turned and looked back towards the small cottage he and Drusilla had broken into, but the air was salty and clear, and carried her broken sobs to his sensitive ears.

"Jesus, Dru," he muttered to himself, toying with his lighter, "some old busybody bint is gonna hear you, come look'n, you eat her, and next thing you know we gotta clear out." He snorted around his cigarette, just picturing Dru dressing herself up in some corpse's costume jewelry, twirling, unconcerned with the fact she and Spike were on their own. No clan, no family-- two vampires on the beach for Christ's sake. "Last thing I need is a lynch mob," he said, unkindly, listening to the words fall against the sandy wooden planks. He kept walking, pace regular and stiff, smoking despite the call to tip his head back and simply roar his rage. Drusilla cried; she cried for her stars, for her daddy, for dreams that refused to cease even when she opened her eyes-- Spike never cried at all. He didn't know how.

(You do, damn you-- you did, once, and like riding a horse, it is. Easy to remember.)

Spike resisted the urge to pull his duster close around himself-- it was warm, for late New England summer, and he needed no comfort.

He brought Dru to the beach because it was what she wanted. Let her pick a house, let her have most of the kill, drinking off the owners only once she had finished with them. An elderly couple-- he figured they had a week before anyone got suspicious and forced them to move on. Meanwhile, Dru made herself at home amongst the old woman's lacy things, sitting in the balcony's cushioned swing, bare feet dangling lazily. He'd just wanted her tonight, that was all; she wasn't the only one who heard whispers, saw shadows in the corners of her vision. He'd kissed her, pleased when everything seemed to fade, hiked her satin dress up and run his hands along her pale thighs. She breathed, though she didn't need to; a word, a name, a sigh, and it would have been beautiful if the name had been his. Her eyes had been golden with passion, fading to a tepid, human brown that was laced with fear and, even though he'd rocked and soothed her, whispering that he didn't mind, she had wept and sent him away.

('Come on, Dru, s'allright, you know.'

'Please, Dru, we'll just lie here, don't worry, love.'

'Shall I read you a story, Dru? Do you want one of your dolls?'

--Dru. Don't send me away, not tonight. I can't stand to be alone with him--)

The moon was low and irregular, white light on the modern, whitewashed condos. Briefly, Spike watched a young woman peddle past, considering the effort of procuring a meal. He didn't move, just listened to the spooling wheels fade, shoulders slumped. One hundred and thirty. He quirked a grin, fading and experimental on his face.

"Turnin' into bleed'n Peaches, here," he bemoaned, waving his cigarette for effect. At the edge of the boardwalk, he paused, looking at the shadow thrown on the sand. "You're dead," he told the vague outline, "not even a reflection left. Just a hole, a void. And no one cares, least of all me." September would bring the anniversary of his turning, and he would feel reenergized; it was only sheer bad luck that he had remembered William's birthday at all this year. Decades could pass without a thought for it on the actual day, leaving it as unremarkable as the unskilled poet himself. Dead, Spike thought, smiling a little. He stalked down the beach, in search of food.

He didn't have to go far to find it. Some ways away, a couple of teenagers were perched on a dune, their necks white and bared in the dim light. Spike approached silently, listening to the boy prattle on. He was older than the girl, shoulders filled out, hunched now as he teased her, pleaded, using all the sweet words to get what he wanted out of her tonight. Spike waited a moment, until the girl seemed waver, before he reached out and hauled the boy up by the biceps, watching his prey's pupils dilate in fear. The smell was think and rank around him, overwhelming the fading scents of any previous emotion, and the vampire spared not a thought for the whimpering girl as he bared the boy's neck.

(Dead, you're dead-- tonight, I feed and dance on your grave.)

"Please!" the girl cried, her voice so miserable and soft that it was almost trampled underneath the boy's harsh breathing. For a moment, Spike lifted his head, wanting to make sure she was watching, that she saw her young man die. Closer now, he could see that she wasn't quite as young as he thought, merely small and ungainly in the autumn of her adolescence. Short and painfully skinny, ribs like the wires of a harp underneath her pale green bikini, she stood before him with tears in her eyes. Spike watched those tears roll, smiled more widely, knowing that his fangs would gleam in the moonlight, and that it was only Dru's tears he couldn't stand. He should take the girl back to Dru-- she was doll-like, black hair pulled into short pigtail braids that shook in time with her tiny bones. "Please," the girl said again, a little louder, "don't." He was about to laugh-- really he was, long and loud-- that she would even consider appealing to him, when she parted her pink lips again and whispered like leaves across the grave. "Take me instead."

Spike raised an eyebrow in interest, even as Angelus' voice, in the back of his mind, whispered how unwise it was to play with one's food out in the open. Her hands were balled into little fists, back straight as if to challenge him, and for what? This boy, who's struggled and fear speaking only of single-mindedness? He did laugh, now, watching the girl's murky green eyes crowd with tears. "Why should I?" He ran a hand down the boy's torso, the other clutched about his windpipe. "Nice strong specimen, 'ere. Tasty, I bet. Full course meal." The moon was bright enough that even a human could see the horror of his demon visage, and he tilted his head to run a single fang along the pulsing vein.

"Please," she said again, voice so desperate, fear like flowers left out too long, spoiling. "Whatever you want-- please."

"Anything?" he said, voice deep and considering. Playing it up-- a deal with the devil. "Anything at all?"

"Yes," she nodded eagerly, braids bouncing, "whatever you want."

"Very well." He leered at her, just to watch the shudder rack her frame, and thought she might come apart with it. "Though you can't be too bright, agreeing to something so broad."

She blinked past her terror and her tears. "You have all the power here, don't you? Please, let him go."

"Glad you recognize that, sweetheart," he grinned, tossing the boy aside. He heard the boy scramble to his feet and up over the dune, even as the girl cried out 'Robby--!' and reached out a desperate, ineffectual hand. Spike kept his eyes on her face, watching the emptiness come over her, her heart crack and break. "What?" he tossed after the boy's retreating form, "Not even a token struggle for your lady fair?" he sneered, "Some knight." The girl was crying in earnest, now, tears streaming down her cheeks, and she kept moving her hands as if to cover her face, before dropping them, listless and half-curled, to her side. "Did you really think he was going to stay, sweetheart?" Spike asked with false sympathy. "They never do, you know."

(I know. Look at her eyes, the hollow echo-- that must have been my face, after Cecily...

--Shut up, you git!--)

"Hurts, doesn't it?" he continued, circling her, relishing the scent of her despair, cloying, heady. "Like your world's come apart at the seams."

"Are you going to kill me now?" she asked quietly, tilting her face up to look at him. He remembered that; being so melodramatic, writing endless pentameter verse proclaiming his passion. 'I'd die without you'-- ha! And when she had turned from him, sneering, he'd been sure the world would never again hold... no.

(You are dead, now; it's ironic, and it's true. An unremembered, heartbroken fool.)

"Might be a mercy, love," Spike smiled, lighting another cigarette, "and the Devil knows I don't do mercy." He nodded, motioning for her to walk with him, and when she did not move he reached out a cold hand to pull her along.

The beach had chilled slightly, each wave crashing lonely, breaking, and they walked-- he purposeful in his boots, she shuffling, broken, in her too-large sandals. "I intended to, honestly," Spike said after a moment, "but I changed me mind. Now I think I will take that payment."

"Uh-huh," the girl looked up at him through her lashes, fearful, face tilted down. After a moment, she reached for the small, lacy sarong tied about her waist, and began to untie it. There was something horrifying in the resigned, casual way she did so-- as if it was her due-- that made Spike's stomach seem to turn.

"Not that," he shook his head, watching her uncoil with relief. "Something else-- I'd wager-- you being a little young for me and all." Lazily, he watched the smoke from his breath spread and dissipate. He was not entirely sure why he added, "S'my birthday, you know."

"You have birthdays?" she asked, sniffling loudly.

"'Cor, yeah. I was human, long time ago."

"Really?"

He sniffed derisively, "Don't you read?"

"Not that sort of thing." She bit her lip, "I like fairytales." He laughed again, because she made it so easy to be cruel.

(He remembers fairytales. Never of much interest to a gentleman scholar, but there was always Katie, his little sister, all golden curls and wide brown eyes and 'William, read me a story.' She would sit in his lap and follow the words with her little pink cherub's fingers.)

He sobered, closed his eyes to banish the image, and said, rather nastily, "Not worth much now, eh? Your happy endings."

"Guess not," she murmured, and looked as if she might start crying again. Spike nodded to himself, holding out a fresh cigarette.

"I'm not allowed," she said suspiciously. A pause, and then, "give it to me anyway."

"That's the spirit!" Spike lit it for her, cupping his hand around the flame; she breathed it in, staring at the burning orange. "One hundred thirty, today."

"That's a long time," her tone was considering. "What are you?"

"Vampire," he smiled around his fangs, let her see the truth of his face. She staggered back a little, but he grabbed her, forced her to look at him. "Let's talk about that payment, love."

Cautiously, "Money?"

Money. He could take that from her-- he and Dru had cleaned out the old couple's safe, but it never hurt to have more. Somehow, it's not satisfying. He'd feed later, really feed, but for now this girl's fear was strengthening, reminding him of who he was. No bloody awful poet, but a demon with real crimson to stain his hands and never come clean. He could have snapped her little neck in a moment, but no. His demon whispered; let her always be afraid.

(You're afraid. No river of blood can quench that, the knowledge that you are still in so many ways human, still feel--

Goddamn it, shut up!)

"Nah," he said, rolling his shoulders. Setting her back down on her feet, he ran a single finger along her cheek. "What's your name?"

"Ellen." She blinked rapidly, eyes like uncut jade. She was not a pretty girl; too small, too mousy, too defeated to be conventionally beautiful. "Ellen LaVelle."

"We're goin'ta make a deal, Miss LaVelle," he grinned, charm written in the curve of his lips. "You own me somethin'-- on your honor, anything I want." At her surprised look, Spike chuckled, "Oh, I know all about honor. Raised in the reign of bloody Queen Victoria. May not employ it, but I know of it."

"I don't have anything to give you," Ellen said mournfully. "I don't seem to have anything you want. Money, or my body, or..."

An idea took root in his mind, made the words on his tongue so twisted and sweet. "Tell you what, love-- since you like fairytales so much, we'll make a deal like this." She looked up at him, lips parted, silently screaming fear. "Your first born."

"That's not--"

"Fair?" he laughed. "Life is not fair, Ellen. You can take that one to the bank."

"I can't..."

(Dru likes fairytales, too, though she never bends an elegant finger to follow along. Instead, she demands that he read, head lolling back on the couch while she laughs at certain passages, and finally dashes the book away, displeased with the ending.

"They lie, they lie," she'll sing-song, swaying, sitting in his lap, "Let me tell you how the story really goes...")

"Your promise or your life," Spike said quietly, dangerously. He drew her close, tipping her back in a parody of an embrace, hands harsh enough to bruise. "Your promise or your life." A little melodramatic, but he liked it-- had a nice ring.

"I shouldn't be afraid to die," she said, eyes fixed on his fangs, "but I am." Her body seemed to slacken in his arms, the last flicker of fight gone out. "You have my word."

He nodded, smirking, "Very good. Your first born child is mine." Laughter welled up in him again at her panicked nod; betrayal after betrayal, her life for Robby's, the baby's life for her own. "Still afraid to die?" he asked, licking the side of her neck, shivering with her muffled scream. "What's the matter? Don't believe in," he spat the word, "heaven?"

Ellen struggled, just a little, until she could look him straight in the eye. Perhaps there was a little viciousness left in her, after all. "Looking at your face," she asked, pupils merely dark pools where the demon refused to reflect, "how can I?"

Spike snarled, threw her down, rage bright and true within him. The anger was comforting, made him want to sink his teeth into her neck regardless of the bargain-- it meant, after all, nothing to him. A distraction. Instead, he stood over her where she lay sprawled on the beach, pointing a single, long pale finger down at her. "Remember, Ellen LaVelle," and the fear is more satisfying than her death. She will remember, long after he has gone; it will rot her from the inside out. "We have a deal."

He turned, stalking off, leaving her where she lay; the sound of his boots on the boardwalk firm. He was blind from memory with his demon and his rage-- he killed three men without breaking a sweat and returned to Dru bearing another as a gift. Flushed with blood, she made love with him again, eyes bright, keeping her lips closed firmly over whatever words would flow. William's birthday passed with the toll of twelve, and became featureless, blank days that Spike could sneer at.

He forgot about it, of course-- not only his birthday, most years, but the farce of a promise the girl took so seriously. A few days later, he and Dru left New Jersey-- he laughed to himself over a beer. As if he would have want of a child! And that is the last time he thinks about it. The years pass, bringing him to other countries, other towns, both alone and with Dru at his side. He kills-- brutally, for food; creatively, that she might be entertained. He returns to Sunnydale, the Hellmouth, to find Dru's Sire nursing his soul and his 'heart' while she wails with illness and pain. For a moment, Angel holds out an offering, as if it were the old days, as if it were Angelus behind that handsome face. Spike stares at the boy; slim, dark and young-- painfully so. His eyes are dark, full of secrets and a strange strength. Something clicks, a clockwork mechanism, a lock falling into place.

Then the vampire is roaring, ready to fight, and the human world fades.