Spuffention
Light grew into darkness as his consciousness faded away, his last ounces of strength were oozing out onto the concrete floor where puddles of blood had already formed, he didn't want to add to it further. Spike was lying flat ontop of a stone coffin which was cold and extremely uncomfortable. He kept thinking to himself that he didn't want to be lying there much longer but unfortunately for him that was the way that things had to be, there was no chance of him being able to move easily in his current condition. The vampire was thankful that he'd been able to drift to sleep in the knowledge that Buffy knew the truth about his feelings for her and her sister, Dawn, the soft kiss that had touched his lips only half an hour earlier had sealed that understanding and bond between them. Both sides of earthly existence both dead and undead had somehow managed to learn something from today, and they bore the images of what the costs were to gain this information. Spike's torture wounds and Buffy's ignorance intertwined to form a memory, that robots cannot possibly replace sympathy and this allows one to manipulate. Spike held onto this thought as he tried to lift his head up from his makeshift sleeping aparatus, if it could be called so. Again the pitiful attempt was unsuccessful resulting in him bashing his head hard upon the casket finalising the job that Glory wanted to do and causing a death like sleep.
Buffy arrived home at Revello Drive feeling embarressed, the costume was totally wrong. She looked at the mechanical representation of herself like a reflection, she could have sworn that the thing's boobs were bigger than hers. She wondered if Spike had ever asked the thing to play strip poker, Dawn's comments about it being something for Spike to play checkers with were to say the least, not as innacturate or childish as they once had been. Buffy had images of the robot pole dancing naked along the beams of Mr Platinum's crypt, while he stuffed kittens into it's breasts. They drowned in the F cups and squirmed and then they had sex. Men are such horny bastards, but at least if you want frigid fridays, you could always give Angel a call and pop down to LA. Angel Investigatuons never got much work on Friday for some reason. Surely Warren and the gang could have made a better model? "I bet Madame Tussard would have done better" she thought to herself. Then again she could never understand Spike's intentions, maybe the thing was just a make do after all?
The slayer suddenly forgot why she had returned home, she was about to remember when Giles entered the living room from the kitchen. "Buffy, what happened? Please don't tell me that there's dust" he inquired with intent on discovering the full story about Buffy's journey to Spike's crypt. Buffy turned around to answer "He didn't tell glory about Dawn, I guess I owe that Johnny Rotten lookalike big" A wave of guilt passed over her as she realised the enormity at what her enemy had
for her and the sacrifice that he had made. Giles looked at her expectantly, "Don't you think that you should tend to him, he looked rather immobilised when I brought him back to his" he paused, "Erm, mess earlier, he was in quite a mess himself"
Buffy could see that Giles was trying his best to hide his tears, "Giles, bring me some bandages and herbs and ointments, well anything you can find and tell Dawn to prepare the guest room" She rushed her words, Giles smiled in the affirmative and made his way out of the house towards the magic box to get his supplies, Buffy continued, "I'm going to see him" Buffy looked at herself, "But first I've got to get out of these clothes, oh and Giles bring me a stake just in case" Giles looked rather shocked but realised that precaution was better than potential death, even though there wasn't any chance of Spike doing anything with half his chest torn apart and partial blindness. His catalogue of injuries would make a great training tool for potential watchers. He was surprised that anyone, even an immortal would be able to put up with so much pain.
Buffy ran upstairs to her bedroom making sure that noone could see her through the windows, when she saw someone pass by, she closed the curtains in a hurry. Wondering what to wear the doors to the wardrobe were opened and a hundred different outfits were spread upon the bed, eventually she settled upon a cream jumper and brown trousers. Buffy put her coat on and grabbed a handful of warm blankets from the bottom drawer and headed to the living room to wait for Gile's return.
Giles arrived twenty minutes later with a box full of goodies for Spike, Buffy took the box of first aid supplies and said"Thanks Giles, you're not such a bookworm after all" and left the house and ran to the cemetary where the Crypt was. The door was damaged and covered in blood, Xander and Giles had struggled to get the vampire back to his home where they had dumped him onto the Sarchogus. The slayer observed the surroundings and stepped back in shock at the amount of red fluid on the floor and on the crimson object ontop of the stone in the centre of the room. She realised that red thing was Spike. "Oh my God how could I leave you like this​?" Buffy cried to him. He didn't seem to be in as bad a way when she had first seen him disguised as the Buffy-Bot to extract valuable information from him. It was then when she had discovered his true form, the monster wasn't a monster anymore, he was almost human. She looked at Spike's face, it was covered in heavy, black bruises and his head bore a large gash just above his eyebrow scar. She thought that he would have many more scars to show after he had evenually healed, and not even a doctor would be able to estimate how long that could take, perhaps a month even? Buffy made a list of wounds in her mind as she scanned from the top of his head to the bottom of his torso.
Open bleeding cut on the forehead, Heavy bruising and swelling to the left eye, no way can he see through that, the right isn't much better. Cuts to both cheeks and under each eyelid, a busted lip and the nose isn't faring well either. Minor brusing to the neck. A massive hole on one side of the chest, looks like someone's fingers have been poked through it, Major burns, three stokes either by a sword or knife, hot poker wounds. And that was just what she could see through Spike's torn T-shirt, she'd need to remove his clothes to look at his back and legs.
Buffy moved in closer towards Spike, she ran her fingers through his hair as she tried to rouse him. "Spike, Spike, wake up I need to get you out of here" , he didn't stir, he was totally out cold. She contiued to soothe his head by rubbing it then moved her hands away, it was comforting, but disgusting, full of goo and he smelt of putrid, congelealed blood and possible infectiion. A warm bath was what he needed, but Spike hadn't connected water to his Crypt yet so she'd need to take him home. He was too heavy for her to lift alone though so she would need help. Xander and Anya were nowhere to be seen and Giles she guessed was helping Dawn, so she rang Willows number on her cell phone and asked her to assist with getting Spike back to Revello Drive, The witch said she'd be there as soon as she could and hung up.
Buffy couldn't believe that anyone could have done this to Spike. He'd done a lot of evil in his time, but even that didn't merit this kind of treatment. Why couldn't she see the good that was inside of him? All she could do was to make him feel as comfortable as possible. How long had it been since Spike had eaten? It must have been quite a while since he was paler than usual and looked thin, Glory had drained him of any nourishment that he had inside of him, so she could tell that the first thing he'd need would be extensive feeding. The more blood inside the body, the faster it would heal. Buffy thought about offering Spike some of her own, but then she remembered that maybe this wasn't such a good idea since he was trying to wean himself off human blood and this might make him want to kill again.The chip in his head which sent shocks through his brain anytime he tried to attack humans ,wouldn't be able to stop him, espeially if since he has the strength to survive the beatings of a God.
She rolled up one of the blankets she had brought with her and placed it under Spike's head, she noticed a slight smile upon his face which must have meant something must be telling him that he was now in safe hands. She kissed his cheek and made her way down to the lower level of the Crypt to see what she could find lying around to take back with her to her home. She noticed a bed in the corner which looked of reasonable comfort. The slayer wondered why Angel's Grandsired wasn't stretched out upon it and not on the cold stone upstairs, then she realised that he was in no position to move. Buffy continued to walk through the room and saw a fridge and a microwave, "So he does have electricity" she mumured to herself as she opened the fridge door and pulled out the last bag of pigs blood. "I'm going to need more" she thought whilst closing the the door and making a tear in the bag so that she could pour it into a cup. When she had done this she placed the cup into the microwave for a minute and a half, she repeated this until the bag was empty and she had three cups full of liquid. Buffy knew that she didn't have any blood at home so she'd need to make another phone call, everyone else was occupied with something so she reached again for her cell phone and called Tara at college.
Tara answered the call and wondered who it could be, "Hello" she said. "Tara, don't ask question's but I need you to go to the butcher's shop and get me twenty quarts of blood and hurry" was the reply at the other end of the phone. "But Buffy" She answered, recognising the voice, "That's a lot of money and I'll get a few stares, what's this for?" Buffy was angry, "Don't care what people think, that's your buisness, I need you to do this, desperatley, I'll pay you back, In fact I'll need, more blood, come to my house, and be quick, Make up some story to get out of class, go" Tara was confused, "Well, I have a free period now, my lecture finished a while ago, Buffy you sound frightened and pretty muddled, are you okay? What's wrong?" The response to this was, " I said no question's just go, please, go" Buffy put the phone down on Tara as the witch decided that she'd better do as the slayer said or else she'd be looking at the PMT version of Buffy when they next met.
When the phone call was in progress, Buffy was struggling up a ladder to the upper level of Spike's crypt with a cup of blood and a phone in one hand, she was moaning at Tara whilst trying to avoid spilling red goop onto her jumper. She eventually got up towards the injured guy and settled the cup down onto the coffin lid as she ended the conversation and switched off the phone. She then descended the ladder and brought the other two cups of blood back up with her placing them down beside the third. Buffy looked at Spike and saw that he was coming round. She was glad, this meant she didn't have to throw a bucket of water on him although at least it would have cleaned the blood up a bit.
Spike's head was spinning round and he couldn't tell where he was. All he could hear was a familiar voice asking him to drink something as a cup was placed in between his lips. The movement of the china against them was painful and it was difficult to open his mouth because it was so swollen, but somehow he managed to feel soothing, warm delicious liquid move down his throat. Some of it dribbled down his chin and he spluttered the rest out as suddenly the liquid touched a sensitive part if his inner body and it burned like hell. He felt comforting arms cradle him back to his senses as he writhed in pain and a cool, wet cloth washing away the stuff he'd spit out upon himself. He felt like a baby, but a part of him enjoyed it. He couldn't move very easily anyway, so he didn't have a choice. Spike managed to get some more of the liquid down himself then saw three empty cups through the eye that didn't look like Puff Daddy, black and swollen and before he could realise who was caring for him he gave them a grateful look and drifted back into unconsicousness.
Buffy was glad that Spike had drunk all the blood, even if half of it was brought back up again, she had to accept that this was another top that was ruined as Spike had spewed all over it. She wasn't sure if he'd known the full extent at what he'd done, it, would take ages to clean up what he knew as a house now he'd added to the mess on the floor. For now though, she concentrated on getting Spike's face cleaned up before she moved him and she needed something to do, whist waiting for Willow who could be a while yet.
She opened up the first aid kit and grabbed another clean cloth and some antispetic wipes from the box. She poured some lukewarm bottled water that she' d used to wet the other cloth she'd used to clean Spike when he was drinking blood over the new cloth . She placed it over Spike's most injured eye and bathed it until most of the blood had gone, she then did this for the rest of his facial wounds, he already looked slightly better than before. Buffy put the cloth away and used the antispetic wipes to finish cleaning the facial cuts and then rubbed an alcoholic solution over them. "Right now there's just the bandaging to do" Buffy thought to herself with pleasure in the fact that she was doing something to help the vampire that had helped her sister. She put gauze and surgical tape over the large cuts on his forehead and plasters underneath his eyelids to prevent further bleeding and then put antispetic cream over his mouth. She wrapped a bandage around his head and got a cotton wool patch ready. His eye was the main thing that needed taking care of. Spike seemed to be in agony from it and looked as if it was about to burst. She rummaged in the box of supplies for something to help keep the swelling down and she saw that Giles had really thought about what to put in it, she had everything that she could possibly need neatly placed inside the container ready to use. Giles was always dependable in an emergency. She saw that there was a hot compress in there and so she lifted it out and placed it over the injured eye. Spike's agonised face was beginning to soften as soon as she wrapped it in place with further bandages like an eye patch.
Willow entered the cemetary carrying a bottle of potion with her in a shoulder bag, she stumbled into the crypt where she saw Buffy trying to lift Spike. Buffy looked at her in annoyance. "Where have you been? I've been waiting ages". Willow was disspointed with herself "I tried to get here sooner but I was stopped by some drifter asking for change and then his piccolo playing friend asked me to dance with him for money" Buffy knew who Willow was talking about, the flute playing man, he was a piccolo man by day and a gigolo man by night, "Couldn't you just toss him a quarter and be done with it?" A voice said in the background.
Spike awoke somewhat dreamily and heard voices but saw nothing, he was practically blind. "Who's there, that you Red?" He asked. "Hey" Buffy said, "Stay quiet or you'll be hurting again?"Spike knew that voice but still couldn't register who it was, his mind was malfunctioning. "Whovever you are, thanks" he whispered with difficulty using the last of his energy whilst Buffy placed his head back onto the rolled up blanket, "Stay still" She becokned. Willow moved in closer where she admired the job that Buffy had done on his face, "He's in pretty bad shape" She exclaimed, "What are we going to do with him?", Buffy replied, "Let's get him to mine as quickly as possible or else he'll stink the place out" Willow couldn't help laughing at the bandage over Spike's face, "He looks like Pudsey bear." She said, "They had a fund raiser at the Bronze for Children in Need, you know that British Charity, it's a good cause, they help kids and stuff" Buffy laughed but then her experession turned to one of seriousness, "That's not funny Will, I need you to help now, Spike".
"But Buffy, you laughed and"
"This is serious, how are we going to get him out of here without hurting him"
"Well first we need to see if he has any broken bones, let's prod him"
Willow and Buffy proceeded to touch Spike's body to see where it hurt, he yelled in pain when Buffy moved her hands around his ribcage and when Willow touched his left leg, "He must have broken his leg and ribs when he fell down the elevator shaft" Described Willow. "We'll need to bind them before we lift them to avoid futher damage." Buffy told the redhead next to her that she also wanted to examine the vamp's feet, so the two women removed his boots and socks which allowed them to see how sore and bruised the bottoms of his feet were. Buffy rolled up the left leg of Spike's black jeans and wrapped a bandage around the left ankle, she'd wash the blood off later as she now needed to work quickly. Willow was watching this when she reminded Buffy that his ribs must also be in a bad way since he yelled so much when they were prodding him like a cow. "Right in that case we need to get his shirt off" She realised that getting it off without hurting him would be no easy task, "Willow look in the box and see if you can find me a blade," Willow did as she was commanded and found a scalpal and handed it to Buffy, she also found a pair of small scissors. Willow used them to help Buffy cut Spike's T-shirt away from him, Buffy knew how much Spike liked his clothes, but this one was only fit for the trash anyway since it was so shredded already, so she was sure that her ruining his clothes further was the least of his worries. When they'd removed the front part, Buffy lifted an unconsicous Spike up into a sitting position whilst Willow cut the material from his back. It was only now that the full realisation of Spike's injuries came into Buffy's mind.
There were more burns and four long knife slashes across Spike's back and Willow dropped the scissors she was holding in shock as she cringed at the massive bruises across his ribs. She began to cry, "Buffy, how could this happen, why did he have to go through all this pain, it's not fair", She collapsed onto Spike and hugged his limp body as her tears washed upon his chest. Buffy was feeling the same and the amount of horror boiling up inside her was immense, She would destroy Glory for what she had done to her friends. "Pull yourself together Willow and let's get this stuffing out of him before he heals into a rag rug" She enforced her statement upon Willow to get her back into action, Pieces of material were still stuck in Spike's back and so they'd need to pluck him like a chicken. "This is really gonna hurt, thank the heavens that Spike's out of it or he'd be squirming for sure and would probably bash our lights out" Buffy said to Willow.
