Seeing Black and Blue
(It has been a long time since I've written, I know that. My final year exams for high school, though, are almost over. I was going to study this morning, and I will… but I couldn't study right away. Not when a thought blossomed in my head this morning while I was lying in bed, and I saw the image of Spike hurtling across the bathroom to hit the wall in 'Seeing Red'. Not when the image of Buffy screaming at him imprinted itself across my mind. Not when I irrevocably felt that the scene should never have happened, but even if it had, and it was fair enough that it had because of the power and hurt between those two at that point in the Season, the way it turned out should never have happened. It did happen, I know that. It happened to build great character in Season 7 and more… but this is the way it turned out in my mind.
I hope you guys enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it.)
He flew through the air and crashed against the bathroom wall. He staggered, crumpled, fell.
She screamed at him, with every inch of her worn-down spirit sobbing through her throat.
"Ask me again why I could never love you!"
Perhaps it had been just instinct, but one of Spike's hands had been thrown up to protect his face while the other had fumbled blindly for a hold as he contacted solidly with the hard tiles. It had saved his back from being broken. It hadn't saved his heart. Wavering, he reached out the hand that had protected his spine and covered the other as what he had just been about to do… what he had just done… crashed down on him like a tsunami.
"No," he choked softly.
Buffy didn't hear him. She pulled the robe around herself with her hands, covering every inch of her body as much as she was able to stretch the fabric. Her fingernails left dents in the skin beneath the robe. "Ask me again," she whispered, and his vampiric hearing served him well. "Ask me again why… why I could… never… never… never…"
The silence across them was brutal, harsh, unforgiving. She stared at him blankly, accusatory, as the Slayer and the girl within her merged and bled. She stared at him so hard she felt like her gaze should bore holes in him, go through the t-shirt and the skin and peel away the ribs until she could look at his undead, unbeating heart, and find her answer.
But there was no answer. Instead, there was another choke, and a wave for motion rippled through his body. She frowned, gathering up the tattered shreds of her vulnerability and casting them aside. Roughly, she crawled over to him and tore his hands away, wanting to… see. An answer. Of why the m… the vampire she had trusted to always be there for her, to never hurt her like this, to protect her own flesh and blood, had done this.
She tore his hands away and saw water.
He was crying. Soundlessly, wordlessly, with his eyes squeezed shut in anguish and tears trickling down over that perfect white skin and slanted cheekbones sharp enough, seemingly, to cut through anything. His mouth was open in a noiseless gasp, and her hands fell back from his. He didn't move again to protect his shame. Spike, William the Bloody, was crying.
"What…" Buffy's breath caught in her throat, low and hoarse. "What are you doing?"
Before he could answer, there was a desperate shout outside. "Buffy?!"
Her head jerked up, to meet Xander's terrified gaze just as the bathroom door burst open. "Buffy?! Oh, God… what happened? I heard the…"
As she knew it must, his gaze finally fell on the crumpled, folded form of Spike. The vampire hadn't moved. He must have heard Xander come in, Xander speak, but it was as if he were lost in his own world, drowned and cocooned in the tears running freely, soundlessly from his eyes.
Xander wasn't so placid. As Buffy watched, her gaze torn between the vampire before her and the man above him, she saw his irises tighten in realisation and fury, before he lashed out a hand to grab Spike's lapels. Spike didn't resist. Dragging him up roughly, Xander slammed him against the bathroom wall again, sheer fury giving him the strength to further deepen the dent already there. Spike stayed limp, like a puppet.
GodwhathaveIdoneChristwhathaveIdonewhatwasIthinkingwhathaveIdonewhatdidIdoIpromisedtoprotectthegirlsavethegirlneverhurththegirlGodwhathaveIdoneChristwhathaveIdone…
"Where's your stake?" Xander said tightly. "Or anything. Anything I can use to put an end to this bastard's…"
"No, Xander!" even Buffy was surprised to hear the words torn so vociferously from her chest. "No… don't."
He turned disbelieving eyes on her. "What do you mean, don't? He…" Xander raked his eyes over her. "He's a… rapist," he spat out the word. "He deserves to rot in hell forever."
Ohwouldn'tyouknowboyI'malreadyinhellhavebeenrottinginhellforeternityeversiinceIcametothisplace,fellinlovewithastarfellintohellnotavampirenotamannotsomethinginbetweenperhapsnothingnobody'snoone's...
"No," she couldn't believe what she was saying, but she felt distanced enough from her body that had almost been violated that she just stood back and watched. It was as if she was someplace else, hovering, distanced, in shock, while the other part of her took control. "No. He… he stopped."
And she realised that he had, as she said that. He had stopped, even before she threw him away from her. She was weak, she had been vulnerable today with everything, everything, everything all the awfulness happening, and he could have done it. He could have kept going, kept his hold, sent her into the darkest place that any human could go… but he had loosened his grip and he had stopped.
What that meant, she didn't want to think about.
"No, Xander," she said, and her voice was stronger, but still just as hoarse and full of unshed tears and pain. "Don't kill him. Let him go."
It was disbelief that loosened his fingers, but it was realisation that finally made Xander Harris realise that William the Bloody was crying. He let go in a jerk and stepped away as Spike leaned against the wall, his eyes still screwed shut, not sure whether the tears were from humiliation now as well as shame.
What am I doing?
"He's crying," Xander said dumbly.
"Don't," it was forced out, a low and harsh rasp. The first word he had spoken since… "I want to make you feel it, Buffy!" How he hated his own voice at the moment, but he kept going. "Don't," he growled, a hint of fang in his tone. "Don't talk about me as if I'm not here, you bloody wanker."
It was as if Xander couldn't hear him. His hands, which had slumped at his sides when he'd let go, reached out as if to touch those impossible tears, stopped in midair, and then his arms fell again. Buffy knew how he felt. What was happening?
"You're crying," she said softly.
This was just getting too bloody much. Spike snapped, uncoiling from the wall, opening his eyes, and seeing the scene of his descent in vivid relief. "Of course I'm crying! What did you expect, you bloody bitch?"
The spell was broken for a moment. Xander snapped back to himself. "Hey, bleach-boy," he spat, his tone hardened in hatred. "I don't think you can…"
Spike overrode him, fury melting through his heart and his bones. Fury and hatred at himself. "Fuck off and die, Harris," he snarled. "Would it kill you lot to realise after all these soddin' years that I have feelings? What does it take? What does it take after years of goin' against my blood and backin' off and being a good vamp… not a good vamp… until I've saved the world and fought alongside you, fought along side you, saved your bloated arses enough times to earn some thanks and then…"
Then what? He asked himself, hollowly. Then found that inside, I'm nothing?
He subsided. Staggered. Stopped. Realisation hit his heart as crushingly as any stake. "And then… find out I'm neither a vamp or a man," he said slowly, bitterly. He raised his eyes to Buffy's and struggled not to flinch at the hurt and horror still written in her gaze, the betrayal of trust. "What am I, Buffy?" he asked, pleadingly. "If I'm not a man, and I'm not a vamp, what am I?"
Oh Christ, he was being such a wanker now. Love's bitch to the end. Crying, crying, crying in front of Buffy and the… pillock. It was the sure way to win a lady's heart, he thought, laughing silently and insanely inside his head. The irony and the bitterness overwhelmed him. Because of course, he knew all about winning ladies' hearts… enough for them to trump him down in the dust, every time, leaving him… beneath…
She hadn't answered. How could she not tell how much he depended upon this, this answer? "I know you've said, you've always said I'm nothing but a soulless monster," he threw the words out to her like a lifeline, silently begging her to pull him out of whatever hell was opening beneath his feet. "But you treated me like a man once. And I… I can't hurt like a soulless monster any more. I tried. After I thought the chip wasn't working any more. I couldn't. I couldn't. It was a woman, and she was scared, and I tried to work myself up to it, but I still couldn't. Even if I didn't have this chip in my head, I couldn't any more, because I'd see them and wonder whether it was Dawn's friend or see a trace of Red's smile or a touch of Glinda's gentleness and I don't know I can't do it any more…"
Broken? Beaten? He wasn't, but he was desperate. "So what am I, Buffy?" he asked again, his head bowed this time because now that he'd let everything out he was afraid of her answer. Perhaps death by Harris would come soon now. "What… what am I?"
He heard their heartbeats, pulsing out of order and out of synch as he waited, like the drum roll to a death sentence because he knew those living heart beats were what set him apart from them. Made him not a man. He wondered whether, if he listened hard enough, he could hear their souls quavering against their chests, weak and yet strong, fragile and yet powerful beyond imagination, like he'd never imagined since what seemed centuries ago when he was a bespectacled ponce pondering souls and the meaning of life in his godawful poetry.
He heard hitching breaths.
Dimly, it dawned on him that someone… something was happening. He raised his head slowly, still afraid, and saw Buffy's face, shining like some angel lost from heaven to his shadowed eyes.
She was crying.
She wasn't soundless, Buffy. Her breath hitched and waxed and waned like the moon and the tides as wobbly tears spilled over those cheeks gaunt from memories of Heaven and fell to the ground. Dimly, some maniacal part of him wondered whether their tears were mixing on the floor. But the main part of him focused on the crying. What had he done? Had he hurt the girl again with his words?
Comprehension took a brief glance at the time and went back to sleep. It sure as hell wasn't near dawn yet. Spike panicked, and looked at Harris, Harris of all people. "She's crying," he said dumbly.
"Well of course, you thick-headed idiot," Xander muttered, but he couldn't say anything else. The hatred and rage that had filled his veins with thickness and poisoned his mind seemed to have evaporated, first into disbelief, and then into a strange… emptiness. Xander Harris was an outsider here, in this room, this room people used to clean themselves of the day's dirt and expiate themselves from life's curveballs. He knew it and he felt it, the emotions of the two blondes in front of him completely filling up the expanse of the small bathroom as if it couldn't be contained. Two beings born to hate and fight and hurt and…
Love?
"Don't speak about me as if I'm not there," Buffy gave a small, constrained hiccup that could have been either a half-laugh or another sob. "I'm here, you stupid excuse for a vampire."
Was that his answer? Spike stared at her, crestfallen, heart-torn. But still, she was crying. Real, real tears.
"Is that what I am, then?" he asked softly, brokenly.
"No," she hiccuped again, and this time there was a laugh behind it, he could hear. It was sad and tired and he didn't quite understand what it was, but there was the slightest hint, the slightest sound of something he couldn't comprehend either. "No, it's not. God, how could you ask me a question like that? You're Spike, you idiot. You're Spike. Not a man, not a monster… you're Spike. William. Spike."
Not a monster. It struck him as he tried to make sense of that ridiculously convoluted, Buffy-style answer. It filled him with such a surge of hope that a demon let alone a soulless one, should never be allowed to feel. "Not… a monster?"
"No," Buffy said, and he saw comprehension and realisation dawn in her eyes even as it stayed resolutely on the other hemisphere in his. "You fight, and you hurt, and you protect my sister and my friends and me with your life." He looked at her wonderingly, but she wasn't done yet. Her voice sharpened. "You've killed and you've mutilated and you've destroyed for the pleasure of it. You're still a killer."
He swallowed, and looked down. She walked over to him then, and touched him gently under the chin to raise his eyes to meet hers. "You're still a killer, but you kill by my side now, just as I do. Demons. Together. And… and you do, you do love."
She looked into his awe-filled eyes, and gave a discomforted laugh. "And you stopped. You did stop. And when you stopped, you know what happened?"
Spike shook his head, not wanting to break the spell.
"You made me feel," she said softly, tenderly, and his eyes widened. "Congratulations, Spike," she laughed again, ironically and wistfully and sadly and joyfully, all at once. "You've made me feel again. I thought I could already… but I think I was wrong."
Spike moistened his lips, unconsciously. "What do you feel, Buffy?"
To hear her name on his lips, that had only five minutes ago been yelled out in anger and fury as he tried to… was impossible and incredible and miraculous and painful. She shook her head and marvelled and wondered at the flame she felt within her now. The fire that she had back. The fire that had been quenched by Willow bringing her back, by the hell she'd had to live in after knowing Heaven, after the difficulties with Dawn and Giles leaving, Oh God, Giles leaving, and Willow and Tara separating and Xander and Anya and Willow going bad and oh… she felt fire once more, where she thought it would never burn again.
"I love you, Spike," she said, softly, innocently, childlike. And then again. "I love you, Spike," disbelievingly, unsure, doubting. And then again. "I love you, Spike," wonderingly, strong, the Buffy and the Slayer all in one as she realised it and made it a part of herself and stopped lying and denying it. And the small fire, the tiny blaze that had sparked leapt up in a joyous crescendo of flame inside her and she felt life.
Xander took a step back, never taking his eyes off the scene happening in front of him. And then he took another step back, distancing himself. He watched in amazement and incredulity. He scanned his friend's face, and then Spike's, and he couldn't believe the emotions running across it. Spike, the vampire, the unliving, was alive with a million emotions subsiding and rolling on his chiselled features, and in this bathroom, where white light refracted off the tiles, Xander Harris could see clearly for the first time what had always been blocked by the shadows of his prejudice that the vampire in front of him… loved.
Xander Harris knew he was the one who saw, the one who watches, the one who sees. As everyone else ran about him, powerful witches and mystical keys and vampires and extraordinary Slayers and a Watcher with the vastest expanse of knowledge at his fingertips saved the world time and time again. And he knew that while he should be seeing red, should be seeing blood, crimson red as the Slayer and the Vampire falteringly stepped towards one another until they merged, arms clasped around the other with skin against skin and tears mixing on their faces and golden light shining from their hair and awe and realisation shining from their eyes… he wasn't. He just wasn't.
Xander Harris could not possibly know the proper history that lay behind those two. He knew that. He knew of a few things they had done, in the night, away from prying eyes and perceived judgements on Buffy's side… okay, fine, real judgements that he knew he would have meted out with righteous fury. But he could not possibly have known the abuse and the darkness and the shadows that had happened on the other side of the coin, that the two golden beings in front of him had both hurt and assaulted the other within an inch of their being. He could not possibly have known, and yet while he wasn't seeing red, he was seeing black and blue. Deep, swollen bruises of internal bleeding that swam across their skin, showing the trials and the hatred and anger and hurt that had burned in their relationship, if you could call it that, before. He could almost imagine Spike's closed black eye, and Buffy's angry blue emptiness. He was seeing black and blue, and while he saw it, he saw wounds healing, leaving scars of course, but wounds healing to form toughened skin.
The two in front of him were warriors. They knew hurt and pain. And he knew that in that instant, in the scene he had just witnessed in front of them, that it was time for them to feel love.