The Sun and the Moon

by KShade

It's an old story William's mum used to tell him, but it rings true for him too. "In days of old, before the earth, the sun and moon were lovers. Then, the earth intervened, split them, and took the sun away. He couldn't go on, knowing his every moment was one less for her, every night, he dove from the horizon that she might live. He never saw her, but he knew that she was okay...

This was co-written with the amazingly talented william_thebloody. He emailed me literally three hours ago and told me that we had to write this. It's dedicated to Drusilla_the seer, because William figured you needed a little cheering up right now, and you're always here for us. You always listen, and you help out so much, I'm so glad I know you, and if this helps at all, then We're glad.

Back when Spike was William, his mother had told him a story."In days of old, before the earth, the sun and moon were lovers," she told him...

In days of old, before she left, before he fell for the Slayer, that was true for William. He loved her like humans loved air, like demons loved pain. He wouldn't exist alone, without her. He would have self-destructed when everything went downhill. His mother was sick, he was doomed to a life of mediocrity, of never being seen, heard. He was breaking, but she put the broken pieces back together. He belonged to her as much as to the earth, as to himself. That was love. He didn't need a soul, if anything he loved stronger without it. His demon loved her too, she created him, and he owed it to her.

And by some miracle, she'd returned it. She's given him just as much as he's given her, more even. She sired him, saved him. She found him time and time again while he slept. She always saved him. He knew she loved him like he loved her, and he was surprised. She was practically a goddess. He was just a poet, but a poet was what she needed, someone to love her, treat her like the perfect woman she was. She needed someone who could love her without a soul, someone who she could trust to pull together the broken pieces when they shattered. He was just honoured that she'd let him.

"Then, the earth intervened, split them, and took the sun away..."

Then, she left, but it wasn't because she ever stopped loving him. It was because she wanted to save the world. She left him alone, despite that it hurt, so she could save the world. It hurt. The stars told her everything, even showed her when they felt particularly malicious. She watched as he kidnapped the witch, desperate for a spell that would bring her back. He eventually fell for the slayer, but not without there being many nights where he wrote of Drusilla, sometimes angry, other times just wondering why. Eventually he internalized it, made it his fault. That hurt her the most, not when he cried out, lashed out, told her she couldn't have loved him. He didn't mean that. Not really. But when he decided it was his fault, it was sincere. It was like everything she'd done to build up his self-esteem was falling into ruins, helped by the slayer's cruel words. He still shone on the earth, but he was going to burn, and she was breaking, fading, with no one to help her bear this pain. She knew when the time came, and he burned, she wouldn't be able to go on.

"But he couldn't go on, knowing his every moment was one less for her."

He was in ruins. He was falling apart at the seams, a toothless vampire who the slayer went to when she needed to blow off some steam. He still talked to her, looking up at the stars, telling them to tell her he forgave her, wanting her to be able to go on living. He wasn't anywhere good, but she deserved a better life. She deserved to keep going. So it hurt, forgiving her, telling her he still loved her, even though she left him. Even though, if she were here, they could be living the dream. They could have had everything, but they didn't, because there was something wrong with him. Maybe it took her a century to see it. Maybe it was also why the slayer didn't—couldn't love him. So Spike would still wish things had been different, wish that he could have been good enough, that she could have stayed. He stopped speaking to her though; he didn't want to keep holding her back.

"Every night, he dove from the horizon that she might live,"

She could hear those last, selfless words, and then an overwhelming moment of silence. The stars hadn't even seen this coming, and they too stayed in awe. Everything stopped for a moment. He was willing to follow the path to his own death so they all might live, willing to leave so she might live. She scoffed that he thought she was happier. William could think the oddest things. Why would she be happy without him? Alone? Why would he think that, except that she pushed him away, she had to, for the world? But what was the world worth to her anymore? What did any in it mean to her anymore? She was alone without the only man she'd ever loved. She had no one to pick up the pieces when they fell and shattered, when she needed smoke and burning to forget. The pixies kept taunting her with his ashes and that didn't help either.

"He never saw her, but he knew that she was okay, and that made it worth it for him," his mother explained when he asked why.

Now, he understood it. If being sure the moon was alive was like being sure at least that his sure was doing alright, that she knew he'd forgiven her. She'd never needed forgiveness. The century she'd given him was more than enough. He should have known that nothing lasts forever. That was the sappy poet again. He was far too much of a poet. Believing in forever, and true love, and fate and such things. He should have known that wasn't how the world worked. People could find little respites, like what he and Drusilla had, but could two people tolerate each other for all their years? He didn't think he'd have any problems with Drusilla, he loved all of her. He loved her to the point that it felt like it burned him. He could have spent eternity with her, but he forced those thoughts away. Thinking that he'd lost forever in a fate better than heaven, that would drive anyone mad. But if he could himself that everything has to end and that's just how things work, he won't have to feel the same pain. Nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky, the earth only because the slayer always seemed to be saving it, so maybe not even the earth. A part of him, the part that had been a sweet poet named William didn't want to believe it though. He'd never take such a cynical view of life, of love. No, they could have lasted, should have, and he knew it.

"You know how it should have ended, mum?" young William asked, "they should have met on the horizon."

She could take no more. The slayer was using him, treating him worse than a possession, because Drusilla treated her dollies well and those were possessions. Not that Miss Edith knew that she was considered a possession. No, Miss Edith was home, this was her home and Drusilla would always make sure Miss Edith had a home. Then, she saw William try to stop the slayer. The stars showed her everything, robot-boy breaking his favourite new toy and blaming the slayer. Then the slayer breaking her William, who just wanted her to stay, to keep saving the world. He didn't even fight her. was she daft?! Didn't she know what she was throwing away? Had it not been for the world, Drusilla would never have let him go. The slayer was just like Cecily. She was treating him like Cecily. Just like Drusilla had saved him then, she wanted to save him again, world be damned. She would find him on the horizon, when times were so dark. They always found their strength, found each other in darker times, and held each other close. They saved each other. Just like they were about to. She was going back.

"Met and left the earth?" asked his mum, looking amused, "doomed us all for their love?"

Even now, William would have said yes. The sun and moon don't owe the world a sodding thing. The world just ruins things and expects them to be convenient. Just like the slayer. And he's done being her sodding comfort. He sat under the stars, words not coming to him, just a non-verbal gaze, imploring to her to come back. He would fix whatever bothered her, change to suit her. He could do that for her. He was perfectly fine with that. He would be anyone she wanted him to be, and particularly himself, if only she'd wanted him, the odd little combination of William and demon that formed Spike. If he'd just known why, he could fix it, could tell the stars that he was as she wanted him and then she could come back to him. Instead, he tended to the greatly healed injuries from trying to stop the slayer, dealing with only bruises, the occasional scratch. The scratches were from later, Buffy did certainly have nails. She didn't care, and he knew it. The thing about Buffy was that she gave him…something. She hated him, but they weren't alone anymore. He wasn't alone, writing any more of that sodding poetry.

Met and left the earth. When Drusilla opened the door, appearing on the threshold, "May I come in, Love?" she asked, seeing Spike staring out the little crack in the wall he called his window. So long as he slept downstairs, it didn't bother him. He thought he was hallucinating, it was clear in those expressive crystal-blue eyes. So doom the earth, then. She was doomed, slipping without him there to keep her somewhat level, somewhat sane. She needed him there. Softly, she crossed the threshold, her feet barely making any sound against the cold crypt floor. She just wanted to give in, take their two years together, and then, if the world ended, well, they owed this would so cruel nothing. After everything this world has put her through, every time the world has tried to break them, and all that kept them alright was each other, she wasn't about to let him die. She'd been so silly, listening to the stars about putting the world before its would-be saviour, her lover. She'd put this world before her world.

"Met on the horizon," William explained. "It's always darkest when the brightest of things happen, where they kiss." He smiled at his mum, knowing she would like his happier ending.

Spike couldn't believe it. "Drusilla?" he asked. She'd found him, as he'd implored, but she'd left for so sodding long. It was right pathetic that she could come back and suddenly have him just falling into her arms. He had his pride, did he not? Even now, he didn't know what to say, but that didn't shock him. Part of him wanted to scream, and to demand what audacity had brought her back here, after she'd left him for dead and gone off and shagged that sodding chaos demon. Most of him just wanted to take her into his arms and be weak as he was when she found him the first time. He wanted to take her back, bring her close and kiss her until all the hurt was gone and he could learn who he needed to be to keep her here. He would pretend for her. He would do sodding anything for her. Even after she broke his heart, she'd come back and that meant something, didn't it?

Drusilla smiled, seeing the love flickering in his eyes. It used to be so much more than these little sparks, it used to be an inferno. It burned, consumed her deliciously. She could perhaps fan the flames before her burned with the champion's fire, for the slayer. "I-I came back, love," she winced as she watched his face transform, first alighting like Christmas lights, then burning, becoming ashes, just looking at him, she could taste them, but she'd been tasting them for the past four years. Now, she'd realized that the world and its fate meant nothing to her unless he was in it with her. If she didn't have her William, what did she have except memories, and a power that was part blessing, part curse? "The ashes never left," she said softly, wanting a different fire to claim him, that fire that used to be their love until she'd run. It was the slayer, she mocked Drusilla. She was still there now, the scratches she'd left all over Spike mocking Drusilla just as she had, laughing as the pixies twirled and laughed.

The demon roared, wanting to snap out 'yeah, only took four bloody years,' but he kept the cruel words to himself, hoping her seer- powers didn't tell her the words anyways. Instead, one breathless question slipped out. "Why?" Why would she come back now? Now that he wasn't even a proper vampire anymore, couldn't kill, couldn't do anything but fall for the one woman who would probably sooner die than admit to feeling anything for him. Actually, if what he knew about slayers was true, than that wasn't a stretch. Every slayer, in her heart, had a death wish. Some just self- destructed faster than others. Why would Drusilla come back at all, if he'd pushed her away? Why did she care enough to find him? Why did it mean something to him still? She wasn't his, she was just his sire. Historically, she was his love, and he'd given her everything, and now, he shouldn't care. Now, she was just another vampire. He was making up with the slayer, that's how he had to look at it. It wasn't how he felt though.

Drusilla looked at him through slightly teary eyes, trying not to cry from the burning that she was constantly subjected to watching, she closed her eyes, looking away and taking a deep breath as he asked her why. How honest could she be? If he belonged to the slayer, maybe he'd rather burn for her, but who was she to take his choices away? "You taste like ashes," she said softly, "I can even see them now, in the air. You are going to let her sunshine deep inside you and it will burn from the inside," she explained, still not able to look. Seeing him burn hurt even more being so close to him, knowing she gave up any right to be able to save him when she left, when she betrayed him for the world.

Spike knew she would say something like that, something that would confuse him. He tasted like ashes made enough sense to him, it was a warning that he would die. Why, he wasn't sure, perhaps he'd just end up standing in the slayer's way, and she would put an end to him. She came pretty bloody close when she was trying to turn herself in. She could have done it. She didn't see him as any more than an annoyance. If she could get her satisfaction elsewhere, she would have killed him, but she relied on him. He really was love's bitch, but that didn't mean he had to be her bitch. As for the sunlight burning him from the inside, he reckoned it was an abstract metaphor for something, love, some such emotion. It was burning him on the inside, knowing everyone he loved either left or would never, could never love him. "So that's why you're here? Save me from my impending doom?" he asked, forcedly nonchalant. Perhaps every vampire eventually had a death wish too.

Drusilla flinched a little when she looked up, but forced herself to hold his gaze as it deteriorated, became dust again. She had to make him understand that she needed him to stay with her. Maybe if he would stay with her, she could keep him from burning. She would appreciate this short bit of time with him, a bit over a year. She would make him feel loved. When was the last time anyone else had been able to say the words? She could make this last year the best year of his life, and then they could die together, everyone dying instead of just him. Why should William die for the world? What did he owe the world? Wasn't it the slayer's job to save it? "Come back with me, love," she told him, her hands clasping his, reassuring herself when the cold flesh didn't go up in flames, "please?" she begged.

Spike looked at her for a long moment, seeing pain in her eyes. There was a time when, if anyone else caused her that kind of pain, he would have killed them. Now, it was his fault, and her fault, and a web of faults that intertwined, making it impossible to discern who had caused more. Part of him just wanted to beg her for forgiveness. To beg her to let him come back. This was hell, being so close to her, praying that he could do something to help her. There was pain there in her eyes like he was feeling and he hated it. He hated that she left him and now he was a fraction of the man he used to be, and she wasn't happy either. This meant nothing.

His mum smiled and told him softly, "one day, you're going to make someone very happy, William, just like the sun and the moon," and she hoped that they wouldn't have the same tragic ending as her story. William stared out the window and asked the moon to send him someone when the time came. It was a simple wish that became a plea as he got older. He'd lost hope in it at all, and resigned himself to a life alone with his words…

That is, until it came true.

He couldn't do this. Why should they both suffer? Why did they have to feel this way, feel this pain for nothing. He pulled her in, kissing her passionately, letting it all out, the way he'd wanted to hate her but couldn't, the loneliness, the blame, the pain, the disbelief. He let it all fly away, as she kissed him back, and the kiss became gentler. He'd let it all out, and he suspected she had too. He knew if the slayer saw this, they were done, but he didn't care. For a short moment, forever meant something, this all meant something, he was home. She'd found him at the horizon, as she always did, and she was pulling him away from the earth. It had been a new moon, and earth's shadow had hidden her away, but now, it was like the shadow was gone, and he could see her.

Drusilla first tasted ashes, felt a trace of goodbye in the kiss, but she let herself kiss him back, let herself expel all the pain. The years of wishing she could save him and not being able to. A year of silence and the dam broke. She could feel tears, his or hers, she wasn't certain any more, and then nothing, and then… she supposed it was solace. It wasn't a feeling she knew well. She held him close, kissing him sweetly as it all went away, as the tears that coated their lips became all that stood between them and bitter ash was replaced with the salty taste of tears, the sweetness of the kiss, like the icing Miss Edith had so loved. Miss Edith would have loved Spike. He broke the kiss abruptly, and she looked at him for a long moment. "Love?" she asked him softly, wanting to ask him a second time to leave with her.

He stopped her words there, smiling, "yes," he said softly. He would leave with her. He didn't want to leave her. Not after this, not after that feeling. The fire Drusilla had been used to was back in his eyes, the spark catching now that all the tears, all the sorrow was out. She kissed him one last time before she took his hand and they left. And the sun and the moon met at the darkest of nights, at the horizon, and they left the earth, let a new sun rise, a new moon shine. And so they found each other after the longest four years of their lives.