Early update. I can't help it, I just love posting for you guys!
I do not own Buffy. any original characters, places, plots, or quotes belong to Joss Whedon and Co.
Spike was floating. Forget cloud nine, he was in bloody nirvana, and he couldn't keep a wide, silly grin off his face as he waltzed slowly towards the Restview cemetery. Sure, she'd agreed to go out with him because she was thinking of it as a way to get rid of him for good, but he could work with that. He worked better under pressure anyway. And this was his kind of game. High stakes, serious consequences, even greater rewards. If he won.
"When I win," he amended aloud as he pulled open the door of his crypt. And this was one bet he planned on winning, no matter what he had to do. Hell, he might even cheat if he had too. The Niblet would probably be amenable to giving him a few pointers…
So high was he on his good fortune, so bright the hopeful prospects before him, that it took him a moment to notice that something wasn't quite right in the darkness of the tomb. There was a scent in the air, light and familiar, recently left. Someone was still here. Eyes flaring gold in the dark, he took a look around, inhaling deeply to draw the stale air into his lungs. He could feel someone in the shadows, drifting lightly in the corner.
"Who's there," he rumbled lightly, his body falling into a fighting stance, ready to brawl if he had to. There was a fire burning in his fingertips and a good bit of rough and tumble might be just the trick.
"A happy memory, pretty Spike," a feminine voice cooed from behind his shoulder.
Spike's eyes went wide and he whipped around, faced with a vision of the woman he'd loved for over a century, his sire and his salvation. It was Drusilla.
"Look who's come to make everything right again."
It was her. Really, truly her, just like she'd always been. Half real, half unreal, in this world and another. She dragged a limp and tattered rose down her cheek and across her chest, and in the dark he could just make out the burned and bubbled skin there, scarred from fire. He could hear her talking, her voice lofty and light, but could barely make out the words, too consumed by the sight of her, his dark beauty, so long lost to him that he had almost been able to forget her. It was no wonder then that she would choose now to come crashing back in to his life, a comet searing through the stratosphere until it hit the earth and burst in an explosion of rock and flame.
"So, let me get this straight," he choked, unable to stand for another second the silence that had so suddenly fallen, "Darla got mojoed back from the beyond, you vamped her, and now you two are workin' on turning Angel back into his old bad self again?" He paused, his mind reeling at just how terrible of a plan it all was – and he knew terrible plans. Drusilla hummed in confirmation and he huffed a chuckle. "Sounds fun."
"It is," she smiled, stepping out from the corner towards him. "Like lollipops at the circus. Although…" she stroked a hand over her chest where the scarring cracked, "Didn't care for Angelus setting us on fire."
"Yeah," he murmured, his heart wrenching for his girl as he stroked a fingertip down the side of his own face. He remembered fire, remembered the pain of it. "So this has, what?" he asked, "Got you all nostalgic for the old days then?"
"I want us to be a family again, my William."
Her words hit Spike like a kick in the gut. Sure, there were nights when being part of the Whirlwind had been like life in his veins, and there were nights still when he longed for the close-knit world of nest and bonded sleep, blood-ties that only grew stronger as you fed side by side. But there were times when he had wanted nothing more than to get away, times when he would have gone to the ends of the world to escape the betrayal that came so easily in such a life. And the pain of those days had far outweighed the joy of the good ones. He just… hadn't recognized it till now, when he'd had a chance to be away, to live by his own rules and be his own person. It wasn't worth it.
"I don't."
The conviction in his voice must have shocked Drusilla, for she looked at him with the hurt and confusion of a child, and it almost broke him, sending him into spin of explanation.
"I've done the whole LA scene Dru," he justified. "Didn't agree with me. Besides," he took a few steps back from her, swinging his arms out to indicate his crypt, though there were other things swimming up to the fore of his reasoning, "I've got a pretty sweet little set up right here in Sunny D!"
He grinned. Didn't he just? A chance, a crumb, a shot, just one shot with a blonde goddess that could stake him through the heart with words and looks alone. But Dru could never know that.
"Not to mention," he bluffed, "All the tasty townies I can eat."
"Shhh!" Dru hissed, slashing her fingers at him, "You needn't make up stories."
He tilted his head. Shit, did she…
"I already know why you're not coming."
Of course she did.
"Poor boy. Little tin soldiers put funny knick knacks in your brain."
Oh yeah. That.
Dru's head twitched violently in a mockery of his pain. "Can't hunt. Can't hurt. Can't kill," she intoned, staccato and harshly honest. "You've got a chip."
"Right," he huffed. "So you've heard."
There was a time when he might've exploded with anger at the talk of what he'd become. And if he were entirely truthful, he still wasn't over it. How could he be? A shadow of himself, unable to fight, unable to bite, hell, couldn't even defend himself and give the whelp a little slap when he deserved it. But Spike was an honest bastard, even to a fault, and in his cold, un-beating heart he knew the truth. It was the chip that had given him this chance. Without it, he'd probably be blowing in the wind.
"I don't believe in science," Drusilla purred, interrupting his rather uncharitable thoughts about the Initiative soldiers. "All those bits and molecules no one's ever seen. I trust in eyes and heart alone. And do you know what mine is singing out?" She took two long, easy steps toward him, pressing her body to his and grabbing his hand to place on her chest, and to his surprise, for the first time, Spike felt absolutely nothing.
"You're a killer," she murmured. "Born to slash… and bash… mmm, and bleed. Like beautiful poetry."
Spike's fingers flexed beneath her hand, his breathing suddenly rapid as though his heart were pounding in his chest. That was who he was. Who he had been for so long. Was he really different?
"No little tinker toy could ever stop you from flying," she whispered tantalizingly in his ear.
"Yeah," he breathed. "But… the pain. Luv, you don't understand. It's searing. Blinding."
"All in your head," she murmured. "I can see it. Little bit of… plastic. Spider-webbing out nasty blue shocks." Her fingers skittered over his hair. "And everyone lies. Electricity lies Spike! It tells you you're not a bad dog, but you are!"
Spike went abruptly still beneath her hand. Was he? He used to be. But… the chip had been the thing to stop it hadn't it? He'd just as much said so a few minutes ago. The chip, and the electricity, and the nasty blue shocks. If it were gone… Did he really have it in him to be different, so completely and utterly different… A blonde head appeared in his mind's eye, telling him the same; that he was just a bad dog on a leash… and then turning right around and giving him a chance to prove those same words wrong.
Spike lifted his head, a low growl rumbling out of his chest. No. It was Dru who was wrong. He wasn't the same man she'd dumped in Brazil two years ago, and he couldn't call that man back, no more than he could call back the shy poet William she had turned so very long ago. Spike believed in evolution, adaptation; he'd seen it with his own eyes over the years. He had changed, and if he even got half the opportunity, he was going to keep changing. He just wasn't interested in changing back. If she had come to him last year, or even last month, the story might be different, but not now.
"It was fun while it lasted pet," he said softly, brushing his thumb over Drusilla's cheek. "But I think you should be hitting the road." Stepping away, he strode strongly to the door and jerked it open, gesturing her out.
Dru's eyes flashed with hurt and pain, and she took two abrupt steps back from the waiting doorway. "Spike," she gasped, her voice cracking as tears welled into her eyes.
And it almost broke him. He still couldn't hurt her. Not like that. Spike dropped his head shamefully, then moved out of the crypt and into the moonlight, suddenly desperate for a breeze, to feel the wind whisper over his skin and deliver him from this ache. Dru followed him slowly, tentatively, as though she wasn't sure if it were safe. Turning to face her, the trembling fear in her crushed his spirits, and he did the only thing he could think of to fix her.
"I'm in love with the Slayer," he admitted. "Dying for her. Drowning in her."
And of all the things he thought she'd do, all the years he's spent with her, she still surprised him.
She laughed.
Girly, giggling, hysterical.
Spike sneered. "Could do without the laugh track, Dru," he muttered. He knew what he looked like; a Master vampire trailing after the Slayer, a muzzled-up wolf making moon-eyes at sheep.
"But it's so funny," she chuckled, her hand coming up to point at the heavens as she gazed at the stars. "I knew. I knew, before you did. Pixies in my head whispered it to me." Her eyes snapped back to his as she went still as stone. "There's a little spark in you," Dru said in her ethereal voice, the words like a warning that sent a chill up his spine. "It's new. And it burns. So bright! She put it in you. Doesn't it hurt you, my sweet spike? Doesn't she hurt you?"
"What are you on about?" Spike asked, a hint of desperation in his tone, the hair on the back of his neck still tingling. What spark? No flame, no soddin' soul, that was for damn sure. And how the hell did she know…
"Hope, my dark and deadly boy," Drusilla hissed. "Hope. Vile spark that burns like fire, filling you up so that you taste like ashes. Like her."
Spike could only stare, unable to refute her accusations. Because it was true wasn't it? Maybe it hadn't been then, when he had vehemently denied it, but he was full of cinders now, and he was loving every minute of it. No masochism, no tortured little games in the dark. Something much purer, cleaner and brighter than the likes of him had ever touched before. He was filled with the pleasant heat of sunshine that reminded him of summer, of… her. And suitably so, for it was she who inspired him, who half-way treated him like a man and not a monster, even if she didn't know it.
"We could fix that," Drusilla whispered, taking a step closer and jerking him from his thoughts of a more pleasant girl. "Could fix you. The sun can always be eclipsed. And what is that star when it's burnt out?" She looked at him then with a dark intensity that he hadn't seen in years. "Ashes. Useless bit of charcoal, no good for naught. The electricity stops you from pulling down the shades, but I could do it. Do it for my boy."
Spike's eyes flashed gold and he leapt forward, his hand closing tight over Drusilla's throat as he raised her up onto her toes and snarled viciously in her face. "Don't even think it Dru!" he snarled dangerously. "You don't go near the Slayer! Understand?" He shook her violently before tossing her away from him, watched numbly as she staggered back, finding her feet and hunching over as she coughed and choked, until she straightened and glared at him in horror. "There's only one way it would end," he warned. "She'd kill you… or I would."
Drusilla's hand shook as it went to her mouth, the tears rolling freely down her cheeks now. "My poor Spike," she whispered. "So lost. Even I can't help you now."
And then she was gone. Faded into the night.
