Rating: R for occasional language
Disclaimer: They're not mine.
Distribution (are you nuts?): email ascian@tsoft.com
If anyone knows of somewhere other than ff.net that I can post
these, let me know.
Summary: Semi-series of short post-ep musings, from Spike's POV
Begins with Showtime, right after Buffy cuts him loose from the
Big Evil.
This is the first in a sequence of s7 post-ep stories. Although I
hesitate to call them that because there's not really any plot and
no gratuitous sex (more's the pity). They're reflections, I guess.
On what it might look like from Spike's point of view.
If you like it, let me know. If you don't, tell me why.
Musings of a Cigarette-Smoking Demon
by ascian
--------------------------------------------------------------
---
Showtime
--
As she cuts him free the whole world is somehow lacking in weight. It's
soft, like you could fall through it, and full of little prickles of
pain. Cotton candy and metal shavings. Don't drink the water. Her
shoulder under his hand is the only solid thing.
She looks at him with dark, liquid eyes, filled with a tension that he
cannot read. When did she become opaque? She's asking something, or
maybe promising, but probably even she can't tell you what she means.
She never did speak with words.
She turns under his hand, slipping his arm around her shoulders, slipping
her hand around his waist. She's warm, and although that shouldn't
matter, it does. Her heat surrounds him like a benediction. The other
one - she was never warm. He never noticed the difference until now.
Her house is different from the way he remembers it, boarded up and
under siege and full of strangers, painfully young girls with staring
eyes. It reminds him of a boarding school. Is he supposed to know these
people? Their eyes are full of awe and fear, but they're not really
looking at him. They are hers, he can tell. Just like he is. They
worship her. Just like he does.
Her grip on him is tighter, as though she can protect him from the
silent questions that surround them. Maybe she's protecting herself. He
can sense that he's an oddity here now, a marvel and a mystery. They
look like they want to poke him with sharp fingers, to see if he'll bite.
He lowers his eyes to the carpet. Blood and fear. It doesn't work that
way any more, but some things never change.
Someone asks a question. The voice roars in his ears, and he doesn't
hear the words but he imagines it's something like, "You're bringing him
*here*?" Her shoulders shift under his arm, and she snaps back a reply
that would freeze molten rock. She has never liked those kinds of
questions, not about him. Questions like, Why are you doing this? What am I to
you? Why now, after everything fell to shit, after trying and trying and
failing so hard, why do I have your belief and your soft words and your
arm around me *now*, when I finally understand how little I deserve it?
The strangers are not asking these questions, of course, but neither is
he. He has begun to learn that there are worse things than living in
doubt. When you know the answers, there's no such thing as hope.
He expects her to take him to the basement, back to the familiar safety
of chains and concrete and the subtle torture of her presence. But
instead, inexplicably, she is leading him up the stairs towards the
bedrooms, and this is when he begins to understand that things have
changed. What they have changed into, he has no idea. But as she lays
him gently on the bed - her mother's bed, the witches' bed, but not any
more apparently - a treacherous peace is seeping through him.
She is standing somewhere to the side now, not close but not far away
either. He can't see her, but he can feel her presence, making the air
around her restless, like a distant storm. He keeps expecting her to
grab him, haul him into a chair, tie him down, but she just stands
there, making the hair on his arm stand on end.
"Not safe," he mumbles, meaning that it's not safe to leave him unbound,
that she is not safe from him.
"I can handle it," she says, and he could swear that she is smiling. She
turns away, digging in the corner, and when she turns back she is
covering him with a blanket. For a moment he thinks she misunderstood,
but when he looks at her to protest, it's clear that she means that
she can handle *him*. Unexpectedly, this is comforting.
"Don't eat anyone," she adds, after a pause.
"Don't think I could. State I'm in." His eyes are closed. He is very
tired. He can hear her moving around, feel her retreat. "Don't leave,"
he says, without thinking, already less than half-conscious.
"I'm not going anywhere."
Later, he will be surprised by this, and somewhat confused.
They are in a foreign country now.
Disclaimer: They're not mine.
Distribution (are you nuts?): email ascian@tsoft.com
If anyone knows of somewhere other than ff.net that I can post
these, let me know.
Summary: Semi-series of short post-ep musings, from Spike's POV
Begins with Showtime, right after Buffy cuts him loose from the
Big Evil.
This is the first in a sequence of s7 post-ep stories. Although I
hesitate to call them that because there's not really any plot and
no gratuitous sex (more's the pity). They're reflections, I guess.
On what it might look like from Spike's point of view.
If you like it, let me know. If you don't, tell me why.
Musings of a Cigarette-Smoking Demon
by ascian
--------------------------------------------------------------
---
Showtime
--
As she cuts him free the whole world is somehow lacking in weight. It's
soft, like you could fall through it, and full of little prickles of
pain. Cotton candy and metal shavings. Don't drink the water. Her
shoulder under his hand is the only solid thing.
She looks at him with dark, liquid eyes, filled with a tension that he
cannot read. When did she become opaque? She's asking something, or
maybe promising, but probably even she can't tell you what she means.
She never did speak with words.
She turns under his hand, slipping his arm around her shoulders, slipping
her hand around his waist. She's warm, and although that shouldn't
matter, it does. Her heat surrounds him like a benediction. The other
one - she was never warm. He never noticed the difference until now.
Her house is different from the way he remembers it, boarded up and
under siege and full of strangers, painfully young girls with staring
eyes. It reminds him of a boarding school. Is he supposed to know these
people? Their eyes are full of awe and fear, but they're not really
looking at him. They are hers, he can tell. Just like he is. They
worship her. Just like he does.
Her grip on him is tighter, as though she can protect him from the
silent questions that surround them. Maybe she's protecting herself. He
can sense that he's an oddity here now, a marvel and a mystery. They
look like they want to poke him with sharp fingers, to see if he'll bite.
He lowers his eyes to the carpet. Blood and fear. It doesn't work that
way any more, but some things never change.
Someone asks a question. The voice roars in his ears, and he doesn't
hear the words but he imagines it's something like, "You're bringing him
*here*?" Her shoulders shift under his arm, and she snaps back a reply
that would freeze molten rock. She has never liked those kinds of
questions, not about him. Questions like, Why are you doing this? What am I to
you? Why now, after everything fell to shit, after trying and trying and
failing so hard, why do I have your belief and your soft words and your
arm around me *now*, when I finally understand how little I deserve it?
The strangers are not asking these questions, of course, but neither is
he. He has begun to learn that there are worse things than living in
doubt. When you know the answers, there's no such thing as hope.
He expects her to take him to the basement, back to the familiar safety
of chains and concrete and the subtle torture of her presence. But
instead, inexplicably, she is leading him up the stairs towards the
bedrooms, and this is when he begins to understand that things have
changed. What they have changed into, he has no idea. But as she lays
him gently on the bed - her mother's bed, the witches' bed, but not any
more apparently - a treacherous peace is seeping through him.
She is standing somewhere to the side now, not close but not far away
either. He can't see her, but he can feel her presence, making the air
around her restless, like a distant storm. He keeps expecting her to
grab him, haul him into a chair, tie him down, but she just stands
there, making the hair on his arm stand on end.
"Not safe," he mumbles, meaning that it's not safe to leave him unbound,
that she is not safe from him.
"I can handle it," she says, and he could swear that she is smiling. She
turns away, digging in the corner, and when she turns back she is
covering him with a blanket. For a moment he thinks she misunderstood,
but when he looks at her to protest, it's clear that she means that
she can handle *him*. Unexpectedly, this is comforting.
"Don't eat anyone," she adds, after a pause.
"Don't think I could. State I'm in." His eyes are closed. He is very
tired. He can hear her moving around, feel her retreat. "Don't leave,"
he says, without thinking, already less than half-conscious.
"I'm not going anywhere."
Later, he will be surprised by this, and somewhat confused.
They are in a foreign country now.