Feelings
By
TraceAce
A/N: Pretty odd little monologue-y storytelling-like thing. And it's Spike POV. Spoilers through the end of the season. Heh. S'okay if it sucks, just tell me. Review if ya want, I like comments.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything. ^^ Well, 'cept some stuff. But definitely not anything Buffy people related. Joss owns that, and the UPN people do too. And the actors. But not me. I'm just someone who has too much time on her hands.
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Feelings.
In the dictionary, they are described as an emotional state or reaction. Emotion? How a body reacts psychologically to get ready for any sort of action.
Two words that isn't synonymous to vampires. Two words that we couldn't possible have or know how to create, as if the world would be blown to pieces if proven otherwise. In the unwritten book of understanding, feelings come from a soul. The invisible thing that whispers inside you what are good and bad, giving you the choice to pick your path; it's the mark of a living, breathing human being. The lack of it is what defines what I am, and what I've been for many years.
The soul, taken at death, usually signals the end of walking upon the Earth and among the living, going to wherever you believed you would go – heaven, purgatory, hell, nothingness – the list goes on. But then there are the mistakes of human existence. The soul doesn't go to where it's supposed too – spirits and wraiths, depending on the cause of the lack of crossing over. Things called back from the dead by some force of magic, zombies. Of course, the most well known, vampires. The leftovers of a human, the solid ghastly remains of a person tainted into death, to feed forever on the blood drained from them. People drained of their lives and usually forced to become the same gristly beast as the thing that ripped the all-powerful soul from them, destroyed the light inside them and made them into only knowing darkness.
I had asked for the loss of my soul. The pain and anguish that had always coursed inside me since I was but a meek child – it was how I was so easily moved to go rid myself of such a retched, horrible existence. I only knew being a vampire gave me powers that I would never obtain as a human, and that it would end my suffering. It would make me what I always wanted to be; it would make me the opposite that I was. The few words Dru said made me believe it all, it gave me hope, and I took the chance with open arms.
I was naïve in my thinking. Always naïve, only because the fatal flaw of humans seemed not to be apart of the soul, but more of the conscious obviousness of a race of supposedly superior beings. I hadn't thought things through; it had happened so fast the pain allowed it to cloud me. When I woke up, I did as any would do in a situation such as mine. I loved the new power, wanted to use it. No worries, no cares, I merely forgot of my old disappointments and lived the life Dru did, and Angelus when he was Angelus, and enjoyed what I did. But, the same as my human counterpart, I was always prone with my heart on my sleeve.
And Angelus left me. And Dru left me. And I was left all alone. The rude awakening I had never wanted again. Even against all books and articles and the known knowledge of vampires, I felt betrayal, pain, and loneliness. I was all by myself inside, as I had always been, as I always would be. It was that moment in my life that I remembered being William, in short, always horribly painful spurts, and felt another feeling – humiliation. I knew that I had been conned into this life of darkness and death.
As for being remorseful, no I wasn't. I couldn't be. Even before the teeth hit my skin, I knew everything, every event, was needed in ones life, or unlife, as my case was. So I kept going, because the killing made the pain go away and the animalistic rage continue on. I was a vampire, and I was going to do what people had always known vampires for. I would kill the slayer as I had killed the other two – and enjoy it, because she was my best foe yet.
The Initiative. Vampire hunters that gave out mechanical souls to torture us instead of kill us. Make us starve to death or fry our brain in the process. I didn't get out before they put one in me. I had become a lab rat to the strangest form of scientific study – one that was top secret for all the right reasons. The chip put inside me put an end to the days of slaying slayers, and I was coined a useful object to her instead. Buffy – she had been my problem since I met her.
Different from all the rest, a real slayer – not the ones that the council taught, but one that was raised to really understand how to kill things that weren't supposed to be there. She wasn't conventional, had a whole gang that knew of her identity and helped her, and was literally the one Slayer that almost killed me – could have killed me. I had information she wanted to know, and she had blood I needed to live off of. It was an unlikely trade that I was never happy about, especially because she brought out the human side of me every time, the side that used to be reserved for the back of my head, hidden behind the need to be a vampire and just cause havoc.
She intrigued me, even as her hatred for me grew. No matter how much of my human self lay inside me, I wasn't William in speech or swagger, I was Spike and I lived up to my rough and angry attitude. Every time I attempted, I tried to be nice to her, she completely jumped down my throat about it. And, as always, I was the punching bag, even if I didn't realize then. I was something to be blamed, because I was the one who let my soul get taken. I was the bad guy that was being forced to be good. She didn't need to respect me, because to her I was an animal who needed to be caged, and deserved all the horrible things that had happened to me.
But there was something about her…no matter how badly she treated me. I felt need; I wanted to, had to, get in the good graces like the poof did – and I tried and tried and got no where until I stood up for the kid sister and gained an ounce of respect from her, which was strangely satisfying for that moment. And I felt happy. And I felt sorrow when she died.
And I kept feeling, kept noting how sullen I felt and how much I still wanted to stay loyal to someone dead. For someone without feelings, it certainly hurt like a bitch. Hurt like I was ripped in two. And I was comforted by the race I had left, or at least the one that was the odd one out too. I should have left then, should have know it was time before they domesticated me anymore. Because I felt something brewing, I knew her friends more then they thought possible. And when I saw her alive, impossibly again I cried because I was happy and hurt at the same time – but they weren't those feelings, because I couldn't have them, right?
But now she understood something. She understood what it was like to die. And she came to me, and I felt important. I felt real importance. Not just the high of being known for killing slayers, but because I finally had someone with a soul and a right to cry and scream and kick and feel anger come to me for advice. It was almost if I was human again, which I acted like I didn't want, as always, but inside knew I did. The year before had let out a little more William then I ever wanted to have again, which of course defied the logic that was known of vampires again. After all, you weren't supposed to have any human side in you after you get bitten. But it was also against the logic that vampire slayer and vampire would have the need to have sex – and well, that was blown out of the water after a couple of meetings between us.
I knew it was empty, I knew it didn't mean anything to her. But somewhere in my, I heard the little voice of my past encourage me to get my heart, unbeating or not, broken again. And it did, and it was the final straw. All my life I had been broken-hearted, from the days of William into the 21st century as Spike. A loser, that's all I had ever been. And I understood that. I realized I was still a monster – to everyone, including to myself. The animalistic attack I had made on her out of furious anger…I had forgotten I could be like that. I had forgotten for a long while I was still a killer. I still had fangs, and I was still not alive.
And, in an attempt to ease the apparently non-existent pain of that thought, I left to be how I used to be. Even before the fangs went into my neck. Before, when I was just William, and I wasn't a monster. I was a human being. I had the right to feel. I had a right to feel pain and sorrow and hurt. The soul destroyed all excuses anyone could ever have about the things I knew were inside couldn't be true. While it was really to finally show Buffy and shove her off her high horse, I also needed it for my sanity's sake, because the 'you can't feel' excuse was getting old and I knew it would just continue.
And it hurts. It hurts, because now the feelings are even more real – intensified by some degree. All the killing and bloodshed of my past life – remorse, that's all I know. It's painful, god, it hurts…and it's all on the inside. I knew it wouldn't stop hurting, not for a while, because the Poof still is haunted by it to this day. And I can't lose it. Not like Angel. Mine wasn't a curse.
I had asked for it. I asked for my soul like I asked to lose it. The irony of the situation would make me laugh if I didn't feel like just sobbing. Sobbing for everything I had done…and over the realization that Buffy had been right all along. I never felt. I never understood. Because if I had, I would have felt the one thing I lacked almost completely – real guilt, not because I had made a mistake towards someone I loved, but guilt to the people I didn't know, that I drank from. I destroyed lives. I destroyed families. I was selfish, horrible, cruel…
…And I remembered exactly why I had run from my soul. Because what was churning inside me I knew I deserved. I deserved to feel pain. Because that's all I had caused.
And it would take a long while for me to face her again.
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Fin