Summary: Sometimes, Spike dreams. He doesn't dream lies, and he doesn't dream fantasies, either. He dreams the truth, and that's the only way he'll ever learn anything in the world.
AN: Inspired by a comment I made to my friend in the Calista store about this weird visual I had of Spike painting his fingernails while watching one of those tutorial videos on Instagram. Well, one thought led to another thought, and ultimately ended with me peeling Spike's brain apart... so here we are.
P.S. It's not supposed to make 100% sense.
Spike's in his crypt.
Although, technically speaking, he isn't actually. He can feel it all around him—the air, the scent, the temperature—none of it's real. It's all a dream, an imagery conjured up by his subconscious. And he allows it, because he fights his best battles with his eyes seeking out some new world. Something more. His dreams teach him to accept, learn, because they never end the way he wants them to. It's the story of life. No—it is life. More importantly, his life.
He takes a step forward, sensing the draft as it kicks up around his feet and swirls beneath his nostrils, dipping playfully past his ear. A few rust-covered leaves adorn the corner of his crypt, and his lips twitch at the sight of them. They're perfect, spine and curve and the crumpled, pouted lip.
"On the watch for the, uh, new Big Bad," Buffy says, simply, and, oh, it's so good to see her again, smell her, breathe in the scent of her. She feels so close to him, and yet, she's at the other side of the room. Possibly the universe.
"So tha's what you're calling your boyfriends now?" he smirks.
The room shifts, changes, melts around him, morphs into some different kind of monster. Buffy's still there; shawl wrapped 'round her shoulders to keep her warm. Although, it isn't a shawl, or a blanket, it's Angelus.
Blankets don't exactly wrap themselves around people.
They're on the Tower of London. He remembers this–almost remembers–Angelus pushed him off here, so many years ago. Behind him, a storm brews. It's concocted of wind and fragments of fire and lava and heat and it's pulling him in, closer, closer. He looks down.
The Tower's crumbling. There is no ground. There is nothing beneath him but fire and envy and, soon, soon, it's coming to get him. Around him, the wind wraps itself into tight tendrils of a vortex.
"You ought to jump," Buffy calls.
"'M missin' the parachute here," he calls back. He turns, he can feel a hand on his shoulder. He's watching the scene from above now.
"It's just like falling asleep," croons Angelus.
He looks to his left. There's his motorbike. Dawn's sitting on the backseat, tapping in something on her pink plastic flip-open cell phone. She glances up at him, then turns back to her phone.
"I'm waiting," she says, all impatient.
He turns, inexplicably frantic. There it is, a giant hound of some sort, charcoal fur and misty red eyes. The beast stares back at him, a cold glare. Beside him, the engine of the motorbike grumbles.
"Eat my dust," he shouts at the lurking beast behind him, stepping an inch closer to the motorbike, the sticky leather fold of his coat crashing into his trousers due to the sudden movement. The creature roars, and he turns to see the Slayer as she quirks an eyebrow at him, in inquiry, and he shrugs, a simple gesture. "Metaphorically speaking," he murmurs.
He leaps onto the motorbike, Dawn grabbing at the shoulders of his leather duster, and falls.
And lands.
Lands inside a room with four yellow padded walls.
"What?" he gasps out. Buffy's there, syringe in hand, nice nurse's outfit; he might have time to enjoy that if he wasn't currently chained to the wall, yellow sponge around his fists.
"I'm feeling kind of lazy," she says.
"Heh," he whispers, rasps, barely on the brink of consciousness, clutching at the thin threads of reality with all the strength he can muster. He can feel the tug of the beast beneath him, feel the furnace below singe his skin. Buffy's standing above him, all lipstick and cheap makeup and smiles.
"You're killing me, y'know that, Summers? I'm dying, around you... dying slowly. Falling... You're the only one who can catch me, but, then, that isn't possible, innit? You're the one who pushed me, after all. And I'll just keep 'n comin' back."
She nods towards the needle. "This won't hurt a bit."
Something pricks his arm. He glances up at her, eyes misty. Her smile oozes with melancholy.
"That's a lie, by the way."
He wakes up then, breath fogging in the air. Tastes the scent of polyurethane and nail polish remover, feels dust layered in the air. He smells death.
Breathing isn't necessary, not for him.
But at least it makes him feel alive.