So.
Yes, the movie plot. Always the movie plot. Let's talk about the movie plot.
But first.
Measure by measure
Drop by drop
And pound for pound
We're taking stock
Of all the treasure
Still unlocked
The love you found
Must never stop
Click.
Click.
Click.
The long and unbearably uncomfortable quiet provided, encouraged even, an escape.
A slideshow screened in his mind. Nice and slow.
Click.
Soothing.
Sort of.
Soothing after all the panic, mind sparking, and heart denting various internal organs with its incessant, break-neck beating.
Click.
Pictures of Julia. He couldn't remember exactly what she looked like, which saddened him at first. But he could still feel the essence of who she was and who they were together. Like going blind and missing the sight of words but still knowing the story through the sensation of fingertips slipping across raised ink.
He never chased her. Stupidly believing she just never loved him enough. Selfishly wanting to punish her for it. So be it. Let her stay, then. He waited for her as long as he could. It was raining. Cold and brutal. Bone-chilling rain made even more so as the hour dragged on without even the briefest appearance from the woman he'd died for.
He couldn't stay longer than an hour. It was too dangerous. They were always watching him. And at that point in his life he wanted to be dead in name only.
He thought he could come back for her. But he began to doubt how much she'd actually cared for him to begin with. It couldn't be helped. Always in the back of his mind he lamented his feeble attempts to keep from being alone in a room with her long before he'd kissed her. He was too weak-willed to keep from falling in love with his friend's lover.
One minute she was with Vicious and the next she was with him. And the seed of doubt was borne from this. Did she ever love him as much as she'd sworn to him? He did all this to save her. Had she ever wanted to be saved? If she could make the switch from Vicious to Spike so effortlessly, then she could easily leave Spike for the next attractive offer, couldn't she?
Spike had been a monster.
He 'd always known.
No dealings with Vicious had ever come and gone effortlessly.
He let her go. And what was the worst that could have happened had he gone after her? The outcome ended up being the same, didn't it? Except this ending was of his own will, his own fault. And being alive yet, he'd been sentenced now to carry the burden of his selfish actions with him for the rest of his life.
Click.
And now Faye.
If his resolve to stay in her life crumbled now, he'd be spitting on the memory of Julia as well as Faye. He'd prove to the three of them that he had learned nothing from either of them. That their presence in his life had left nary a dent on him when that wasn't true at all. Every word, every touch they'd ever ventured, had turned him into this person standing here now.
He'd never fully understand the person he had been now that Julia was gone from him.
And he was afraid of what he'd become without Faye.
Your hurt drizzles forth twice nightly
And I once held on to you so tightly
You were made of wood
And cried that no one understood
But I had splinters in my fingers.
There were so many things Faye should have said to him earlier. She hadn't wanted to. Felt no duty to. But she remembered a time when someone hadn't wanted to listen to her. She remembered how much it hurt. How much time had been lost because of it. And history didn't have to repeat itself. Not if she wanted to have her way. And it was about time she had her way.
She stood quietly behind the door, hiding behind Roscoe. She'd been determined to let him leave. Determined to be strong.
I'm only as strong as you make me.
Yes.
And now she stood and stared at him not knowing where to begin. It was like looking into the sun. The pain she'd caused him on his face and hurting her eyes with its near blatancy.
She moved for him and his arms, lax at his sides, came to life and captured her against him. She could feel him falling apart in her hands. She could feel him.
"Are you okay?" He said. He didn't seem to be asking this time. She sensed he wanted her to lie to him. She nodded and his chin came to rest against the top of her head. She didn't look up. She knew from the gurgling she could hear in his throat, from the way his shoulders curled around her and his adam's apple leapt against the side of her head, that he was crying. And she didn't want to humiliate him any further by watching him cry.
"I didn't do anything. I didn't do anything." He hiccuped.
"I know." Faye whispered. She stroked the hair at the nape of his neck and the movement made her remember herself.
"It was all a mistake. This is all a mistake." His body stopped its quaking, tempering itself to only a small agitating of his hands as he held her out at arm's length. "We'll get your things and --"
He tried to move past her into the apartment. Faye quickly stepped in front of him, blocking his way. Spike stared at her, stared into her, with the same eyes from the hospital. Faye stood her ground despite her desire to make him happy again, to dull his pain, suffocate it between them, her arms around him again...
Even if it meant sacrificing herself.
But it wasn't just her anymore.
I'm only as strong as you make me.
I'm waiting for you to say
The words to make me stay
As you're walking out the door
My heart steps on the floor
I never dreamed it'd be
I'm waiting for you to say
The words to let me stay
Standing here alone
I never should have shown
I never was the one
To leave it so undone
Sure feels like love again
I wanna feel again
Sure feels like love again
I wanna feel...
Spike had never kissed Julia good-bye. From the moment they'd been reunited in the cemetery right up to the last moment of her life, he'd never touched her. Not really. Not the way he'd wanted to. And it was one of his greatest regrets.
But kissing her would have been kissing her good-bye no matter what they would have otherwise been thinking. And he knew that would have been hard. He was going to go after Vicious and the odds of him coming out of that in one single piece were too slim for him to place even the lowest bet. So he made a decision not to kiss Julia. He barely even held her back when she put her arms around him that day. And he wondered sometimes if the pain of his loss would have been that much greater, that much more difficult to live with, if he had kissed her.
In the near-darkest recesses of his thoughts Spike wondered if he'd kiss Faye good-bye if he had to.
"I know..." He began, rather desperately, almost panting, "I know I haven't been good to you. But if you come back I can do it. I was rotten. I know I was so fucking awful to you -"
Faye stopped him when her hand closed around his. Her fingers flexed and unflexed as she began to speak, her eyes never meeting his. "I don't want you to apologize. I don't want you to be sorry. I understand. I understand why you acted the way you did. And I'm the one who needs to be sorry." She drew her hand away and Spike didn't move fast enough to secure her back to him.
"You were afraid you'd lose her. You were afraid you'd forget." She continued. Her voice trembled lightly. She tried to hide it behind a smile but Spike could see how strained she was to do so. "I understand how you felt all those months. Because I feel it now, too."
Spike blinked. His stomach began to ache. His head processed her words but his heart couldn't work through them quite so smoothly.
"I remember him, Spike."
It all made sense. Every fucking last second of everything that had happened over the past couple of days finally made sense. And he felt sick for it.
Ezekiel.
Faye finally looked up at him. She choked back a sob as he pulled her against him again, his arms threatening to break her with the sudden strength in them.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry." She said over and over again. She heard sounds, harmonizing with her own, beneath his shirt. His arms tightening around her even further.
"No, no, no, no..." He was moaning into her hair. She was apologizing for something she hadn't yet done. Something she was going to do. He felt her hands come around him, felt the hesitation humming in every fingertip as though she were afraid she'd hold him too tightly and not be able to let go.
"I'm sorry." She sighed shakily.
Spike pushed her from him with an impetuous fierceness, a strident cry of "No!" escaping him. He turned to glare at her. "Don't do this, Faye. Don't do this. I can't forgive you for something you had the power to keep from happening."
"I can't come back with you, Spike. Don't you see? I remember him. I remember him..." She whispered, turning away.
"Faye. Don't do this. I can't come back from this. We can't come back from this. Stay here if you want. Stay here and get better and I'll wait." He suggested, grasping at straws.
He could tell her mind was made up and he was only hurting her now. He was only making this more difficult for her. Well, fuck her. She'd made him love her, hadn't she? This was what she'd wanted, wasn't it? Well, here he was now. Not wanting to be without her.
He was a monster she'd created.
She would have to destroy him.
"Spike...you don't understand. I remember him. I remember everything."
Spike said his next words slowly. Quietly. Comprehension creeping in at a snail's pace. He looked across at Faye who leaned back tiredly against the wall opposite him. "You love him. Even now. Is that what -"
"I'm sor--"
"Don't fucking tell me you're sorry." He said brokenly. Faye bit her lip with the strength to draw blood from it.
Spike swallowed hard, making an unconscious decision.
He approached her, capturing her face between his hands. He didn't look at her before pressing his lips to hers. She hung limply from his grip, her mouth wet, her lips opening like any of the other dozen kisses they'd shared in the past, but this time he derived no pleasure from it. If it was only for Ezekiel that she'd ever kissed him, he had left Spike now. And who did that make Spike?
He breathed a curse as he pulled away from her.
Always go with your first instinct. It's usually the right one.
He stepped back in the direction of the elevator too ashamed to look at Faye again. His fist smacked against the buttons and he turned completely away from her, leaning his forehead against the wall over the blinking lights. He examined his clenched fist as it fell apart and down to his side.
"Tell me you love me." He barely begged her.
It was like a race. Whoever made the next sound would get him as their prize, be it Faye still unmoving against the wall behind him, or the elevator to take him downstairs and away from this place.
Four minutes later, Spike stepped out from the lobby and into the street.
Lyrics from Echo & The Bunnymen's Never Stop, Buffalo Tom's Treehouse, and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club's Evol.
Movie plot? Next chapter, my friends. Next chapter. :)
I love you.
ssg.x.
