Title: Till it do Cry Out Itself

Rating: R for violence and all other kinds of bad stuff

Summary: AU season 6. Buffy comes back wrong. Very wrong. After nearly a year she's destroyed everything good she ever fought for and broken Spike's will. Then Anya returns and grants him a wish he didn't even know he had. But the Slayer wants him back. Will he move on or will he drown in her darkness?

Pairings: Spike/Buffy, Tara/Willow, Angelus/Faith, Dawn/Andrew

Disclaimer: I own nothing, in fact I owe money. Suing me would be pointless.

A/N: How can I preface this? I don't really know. It's dark. Really dark. Probably one of the darkest things I will ever write. Uh, but I think it has fantastic potential. It's au, obviously. It may not seem like it now, but it's spuffy. This also comes from my deep dislike of post-season 5 Buffy. Yeah, so…enjoy.

Um, Readers rock but reviewers rule.

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Once the Slayer had been a ray of sunshine in the darkness, now when compared to her the darkness was bloody noontime. Spike watched forlornly as the last humans left Sunnydale. A priest and his understudy. Ironic that they should have stayed so long. More ironic that they were running from a slayer.

Father O'Hannaly pushed the banged up voltzwagon as fast as it could go, desperate to get out of the hellmouth. The man had showed an amazing constitution to stay this long. Dawn, his lil'bit, tore out of Sunnydale three months ago, an enamored Andrew by her side. At the time he'd thought the boy a git, a ponce at best, but now, seeing as what staying had left him with, Spike thought that the boy certainly had more brains than he did. Least he'd gotten Dawnie out.

The others, Spike tried hard not to cry at their memory, they hadn't been so lucky. He turned and began to walk back toward his crypt. He'd like to go to Joyce's place, he almost felt safe there, but Buffy had made it clear that no one was to go near the white house on Rodello drive. No, that house was only inhabited by ghosts now. Even the Slayer didn't go near it, and Spike imagined that she feared its goodness might infect her.

Anya had been the first to go. She said that Buffy was different. She was the first one to actually voice what everyone else feared, that Buffy had come back wrong. Buffy had been so angry that it became dangerous for her to say. Anya wanted Xander to leave with her, but he wouldn't, so she left alone. No one had heard from her since.

Then it had been Tara and Giles. They'd been researching, trying to find a way to fix Buffy. They loved her. All they wanted to do was help. A demon killed them while they sat on the floor in Gile's living room. He wouldn't voice it but Spike knew the demon was Red's doing, and at Buffy's request. He could see it in their eyes when they found the pair, bathed in their own blood. He could see it in their lack of mourning.

Not long after that Angel returned. Spike had hated the poof, until he saw the pain of knowledge in the other vampire's eyes. He knew what Buffy was now, his little seer girl had told him. Buffy dusted Angel a few days later. Stabbed him in the back with a steak as he tried to talk to Spike.

Spike stopped and leaned against a tree as he remembered; she drove that vile piece of wood through his heart after Angel said he was taking him back to L.A. God, and what she'd done to Angel's friends. And she'd made Dawn watch. She thought it would scare Dawn into submission, but it hadn't quite had the effect she'd wanted. The minute Buffy looked away Dawn had grabbed the geek by the hand and ran.

After that it was just him, and Xander, and Red. Did he even count, being the soulless git that he was? The things she'd done to him by then…Spike shook his head as an involuntary sob burst from him, and he stumbled, falling to the ground. She'd already destroyed him by then. Took him apart piece by piece till he was nothing, not a man, not a vampire, less than a slave even. Just a thing. Then she started to do it to Xander. But the boy couldn't handle it. She wouldn't let him leave, wouldn't let either of them leave, and after Spike's last attempt, and the-the torture that followed Xander took his life into his own hands. He'd killed a little girl, drew it out quite a while too. If it hadn't been an act of desperation, if it had been another time, Spike might actually have been impressed. Xander made it last just long enough for the girl to make a wish, and then Anyaka was there and she took mercy on the boy and killed him.

Spike picked himself up from where he'd collapsed and continued toward his crypt. Buffy was waiting, and Red was probably watching. Bloody magic. Could that damned witch even be considered human anymore? Spike could feel the dark magic emanating off of her even when she wasn't using it. Her loyalty was to Buffy and Buffy only. It didn't matter that every power was trying to get into the hellmouth, didn't matter that Sunnydale was cut off from the rest of the world, didn't matter that the things the Slayer had done to both humans and demons made Glory look gentle. No, it didn't matter at all, Spike felt the bile rising in his throat, because Red was in love.

He wished he could tell her where loving the Slayer got you, but he didn't talk so often now. Not after the last time when Buffy had cut out his tongue, left it to hang like a good luck charm over her front door till the sun came up and dusted it. His tongue had grown back of course, but he'd never quite felt as talkative as before.

He walked through the cemetery, all of his old swagger gone, so thin that his duster hung off of him like an oversized sheet, but it had all been posturing anyway, and there was no one left to impress. All the demons had run, or belonged to Buffy and couldn't get away. Everyone knew what he was to her. Her pet, her toy, her thing.

She wasn't there when he opened the door to his crypt and relief and fear warred inside Spike. Part of him was immensely glad to be free of her presence for even a few minutes. The rest of him was terrified of meeting her when she returned. Spike walked slowly through the crypt and sat down in his chair. He was so tired. If he could just sleep forever maybe he could find a little 

peace. Spike let himself indulge in that fantasy for a few minutes-the idea of never being aware again. It seemed so peaceful, so wonderful. Maybe the Powers would be kind to him when he dusted and just let him cease to exist. He sighed. If wishes were horses and all that rubbish.