I knew torture. Torture and I are like vampires and blood. It was a threat 'anging over my 'ead every day of my life. It could 'appen at any point, any various time, any various villain who wanted her dead and knew that I'd give my life to save her.
I knew what the pain was like… what it could be like, when you're at the hands of a skilled torturer. Just when you think the pain's over… it starts all over again… like a nightmare… one that you can't wake up from. An' finally you just cling to one thought, one shred of hope, because it's the last thing that's keeping you sane.
She's coming for me.
That was mine. The sentence I kept whispering under my breath, chanting in my 'ead like a bloody prayer, when that thing shoves my 'ead under the water, when my lungs scream for air until I feel like they're going to explode—but I wouldn't die. No, I knew I wouldn't die, because that wasn't in the game. They wouldn't let me die. They wouldn't give me the satisfaction.
That's why they only play with me with things they know won't kill me, you know. No stakes. No sunlight. Just water filling my lungs or a clawed hand gouging my face or appearing to me in… in her form, making me see things, not letting me be able to trust my own bloody 'ead.
But still, none of that was the point. Seeing as I was their prisoner, they were going to have a little fun. But it was just passing the time. It was for her. All of this was for her, it will always be for her. It was the reason I woke up screaming every day in the darkness of wotever crypt or basement or closet I'd spent the night in, remembering, seeing—s-seeing their faces, of who I'd killed, wot I'd done. This was for her benefit.
Oh, God, I loved her. I needed to see her face, I needed it so bad to hear her tell me again that she… believed… in me.
But I couldn't stop blasted seeing it! And when I did, she was whispering to me. Telling me that she wasn't coming, that she never loved me, that she'd never see me as anything more than a bloody beast!
No, no, no, no! Stop! It's not real, it's not real, it's- not- I KNOW YOU'RE NOT REAL!
Oh God… Buffy… where are you? I—I can't trust what I see, I can't trust what I know, I can't trust that I'm I'm really here with blood dripping down my arms from where the chains bite, or if I'm still in that basement, if I'm just curled on that floor talking to the walls, or if I'm even Spike at all! Or if I'm still under its control, still sinking my jaws around someone's neck and the blood running down my chin and—stop, stop, stop, make it stop! HELP ME!
No… shut up. Not real. None of it's real. She's coming for me. It'll be soon. When she comes, I'll be off scot free… hell, everything will be sunshine and roses when she gets here, but not for them. Not for you. This cave, your freaky power over me? It'll just be a dream. So far back in the past that I won't even remember where the scars came from.
You just wait.
It'll be any day now.
She's coming…