Title: Innocence
Prompt:Wild Card
Medium: Fic
Rating: PG 13
Warnings:
Summary:Sometimes, ignorance really is bliss.
Spike watched with wide eyes as Buffy walked away from him and returned to her friends, leaving him incased in the shadows. His mind was an ugly blur of thoughts, and the knowledge he was given was earth shattering. He almost couldn't figure out how the world was still spinning.
But he also knew that the world didn't stop for anyone – not even the one woman who had risked everything for it. The world didn't halt on its axis, the sun didn't explode, and a meteor didn't strike. Everything was the same.
Except Spike knew now, though he suspected part of him always knew.
Buffy had been in heaven. Buffy had been yanked out of heaven by the people who claimed to be her friends, and as ecstatic as he was to see her again, he knew that it was wrong. She should still be there, watching over them. She shouldn't be here, forced to walk among the people who had raped her of her will.
Maybe he was being dramatic, but that was just part of who he was.
Now that he knew, he wondered how he could have believed even for a second the rot that poured forth from the Scoobies mouths. Maybe because he had grown to trust them over the summer? Well, fat lot of good that was. He couldn't even think of them without his lip curling up in disgust.
So really what was this summer worth? He had thought he had finally gotten a foothold in their circle, but now that their Slayer was back he was shut out. Had he just been a replacement?
He knew that was a stupid question. Of course he was just a replacement. How many times had they treated him like the leader? It was because he was the closest thing to a slayer they had anymore.
He sighed brokenly and let his head fall against the wall, his eyes drifting close. He wondered why he didn't notice how strange they had been acting for the last week or so. Probably because he was too busy looking after Dawn – something the scoobies had pushed onto him.
They really had started to treat him like the Slayer. He patrolled, he looked after Dawn, hell, he even helped her get school supplies! He now saw that the Scoobies weren't accepting him. They were using him.
Tears built up behind his eyes, but he refused to let them fall. Was that really any different from normal? Sure, for once in his life he had managed to convince himself that he had friends, that he was accepted, but now with all this evidence right in his face, could he really ignore it any longer? He was alone, like he always was. He was just a mean to an end. He was their pet vampire who was standing in while their main player was out of commission.
With an angry roar, he picked up a crate and threw it across the street, where it collided with the back of the Magic Box and shattered. The violence didn't help him like it used to, instead it just made him angrier. With a broken sob, he fell to his knees and buried his face in his hands.
What was he going to do now?