Spike

A/N Sorry it's been a while, had annoying oneshots and breaks and planning to be getting on with but I guess this is finally here now. This may get a little graphic so I've upped the rating for safety. Warning for graphic neck biting, and language.

Sunnydale, the world without shrimp, November 12 2002 8:12 PM

He was sitting at the bar, minding his own business. A song playing loudly in the background of the Bronze. He shouldn't like the noise, but now it seems weirdly comforting, a way to supress the weight on his mind. Spike sat with his arms folded over his black jacket and shirt, all black, even soulful he still kept to his strict fashion sense. There was whiskey sitting front of his nose, the bottle half empty and alone. He wasn't drinking tonight, after pouring out the second glass he would more than likely spit back out later, he decided on just sitting and staring at it. That way it couldn't do any harm and he wouldn't have to stagger around drunk to find Xander's apartment.

Then she arrived, the woman, blonde and melancholy. He'd drunk half his glass by then, the liquid sliding down his throat in a burn he would regret later when he was drunk and lain over a dirty grave in broad sunlight. But the burn wasn't half as much as the sunlight would in the morning. She talked to him, in a rubbery voice he was convinced he hated. Told him about her boyfriend, the one who'd run off, cheated on her and left her heartbroken but most importantly alone for the night. He knew what she wanted, and he knew how much, her desperation leaked from her in waves.

Then the little voice began to whisper, to sing him that song, his mother's song. Her words from a gruff sounding Angel, his mopey self sitting right over Captain Peroxide's shoulder. Singing softly his mother's song in an attempt to confuse him. His hands instantly went to his ears as he tried to block out the hideous taunting from his largest enemy and retired friend. Somehow they'd never agreed on anything but then in comes the slayer and suddenly they're both swooning at her feet. He loved her, more than anything he loved her. But everything took away from it, how much she would choose Angel over him, or just no one at all. She could live off friendship, could their slayer. And she was theirs, the other's had been taken in place of victory and chance, or acceptance, for personal gain. No she was theirs because neither of them would choose to end her life, she was with them in unlife and undeath.

Then it moved, covering the other angle between him and the girl. She was a girl to him, so young compare to the lifeless shell he contained, so many years her senior but not a day of it on his face, he would remain twenty-seven forever because of her. Drusilla. The love of his life but not his true love. They'd belonged together in the shadows, rough heartbreak and abuse, never sweet. Always his pet. Sometimes she was chained like one. But not Buffy, not this one in front of him. And now she was here, in the room with them. Gazing upon him, his Morticia, dark hair and nails, pointed teeth, blue eyes. Like his, not that it mattered. They weren't deep pools of soul, or swirling waterfalls of love, they were eyes, she had two of them and they were looking at him. Pointing him out in room, making sure he didn't cheat.

"Now, now William, be gentle with me. I am a poor thing." She whispered relentlessly, dragging his feet as he walked out of the bar. The blonde girl walking in front of him, shag-ready and drunk. She followed, the brunette in white, her purity untrue and faux. In life she was the epitome of Christ, a trainee nun, the convent girl, she prayed to the lord for her sins and obeyed his command over her lust filled heart. Then he'd taken her, sired her. The image changed again, the dark brooding man returning as Spike imagined his past. The Whirlwind, they weren't a team. They were a gang, always fighting and never right, they'd split in half, then again. breaking into four quite separate pieces. All dead. Some undead, some buried, dusted.

"Be quiet pet." Spike had said into the night, as Drusilla followed him, changing back and forth to taunt him, that song running around and around in his head, a hamster on loop. The same track, words repeating as he lead the girl towards a building. It was abandoned and nonetheless useful, where he would be staying if the slayer wasn't so intent on keeping him tied up. Well figuratively now at least. She trailed the steps, holding her teeth above the girl's neck attempting a torture. Then it hit him, the wave, the new knowledge, newfound abilities. He could do it.

That song was playing, over and over again and he could do it. Better he wanted to do it. Take her with him to hell if he could, like hell would take him. Only he knew deep down it would, he had a soul, but he could do it. Inflict. So he took her. Pulled the girl close to him and devoured her neck. Teeth bleeding into her veins as he flattened his tongue against the skin. Tasting her. Her heartbeat gradually weakened. She pumped her last breaths of oxygen through the blood and dropped to the ground like a stone. Her body failing as his mouth opened. Blood dripping down his chin, staining his lips in it. He couldn't see the visions, only knew it was still taunting him, the song.

The words that used to calm and soothe him in life were gone, replaced by screeching notes that were highly defined and unsoulful. He reaped for her, his mother, the loss of her too much for his heart to bare, even in death he couldn't live without her, he needed her beside him. Caring for him, living out her days in solitude forever. But she was gone now, and it hurt him. But he'd forgotten the pain stored somewhere too deep to search for and he begged. His knees hit the concrete as realisation coursed through him. The girl was gone, he killed, sucked the life from her because he could, because he desired it so. He couldn't just leave her.

Picking up her flaccid body he carried her inside the house, down all the stairs to the basement, her feet hit each one as he descended but there was little in the way of means he had to stop it. Resting her on the dank ground, he grabbed a tool to start digging. The house was built on dirt and now it would be her grave. Her resting place for peace she would never receive. As he started digging he heard it. Starting as a whisper the sound carried through the air as it walked towards him. Picking this moment to graze his grief.

"Spikey," it said in a long drawn out sweet sound from Buffy's stolen voice. She haunted him often, he plagued himself with guilt over her. What he'd done, what he'd tried to do. Force himself upon her like an animal. He was an animal. A waste of unlife. She'd had bruises, the minute he'd stepped back to sanity he'd realised he'd bruised her. The slayer was hard to bruise, she had the weight of destiny on her shoulders and screw him if he was to hurt her. She had screwed him, for months without telling anyone, over and over because it'd brought her some type of pleasure, never emotionally, but there was something. They never made love, it wasn't making anything, if anything they should've called it destroying love. Pulling her apart because she couldn't understand why she wanted him, she knew deep down if she didn't want to admit to it. She felt hate towards him, a vengeful hate that combined with pleasure and somehow was like the quiet torture sex with Drusilla had been.

She had a bloodlust, not for actual blood, just the feeling of control he often had over his victims, when he had victims. But that'd been happening lately, there were more graves beside this little one. He was out of control, his stomach contorting at the idea he was capable of such a tragedy when his soul reaped for the losses he'd created. Then he heard it again, from her mouth. "William." She said, contorting her words to spite him. She was leaning over him, watching him pat the dirt into her open grave, the gone girl.

The ghost knew what he'd done, it was a ghost but it looked like Buffy and however many versions of Buffy were inside his head the real one would scar him the most. She was woman. The one that had his heart in pieces because he knew he could never have her like he wanted. He didn't deserve her though. Standing up from the grave and dropping the shovel he'd been using, the stain on his jacket now blotching into new red.

"Beat it ok. I can't feel this much guilt anymore slayer." Spike said, a slight anger on his tongue as he almost spat at her. Almost. He wouldn't, not now, but this was her ghost, or whatever vision he was seeing. But the point remained, she wasn't real. His eyes sharply gazed at her, poignant blue heightened by her deep green. He continued softer, standing up to face her. "Just go, I can't see you."

"You have to." It replied, folding her arms and smiling in awful happiness. Spike turned back from her again, beginning to tidy away the things he'd used into the appropriated shelving unit. It'd been a family home, well looked after furniture and tools. Now ruin. "You're nothing without me William." She said again, using his name to taunt his past, how shameful his mother would've been to see him like this, to watch him kill and enjoy it so.

"You're not real." Spike said to himself, shutting out everything to concentrate on leaving, his feet wearily marching the steps so he'd get home before sunrise. That fire wouldn't burn inside him tonight. As the alcohol did, the whiskey settled inside his stomach, lining him for the hangover he'd strive to ignore tomorrow when he'd have to face her. The real her. He walked through the doors of Xander's apartment with ease, he wasn't there, it'd been hours but he wasn't there. So late and yet he wasn't here. It was strange for him, normally he was wallowing over his Anya.

Spike fell into bed, the pain of his throbbing skull settled until he couldn't feel it anymore. He couldn't feel the hurt she caused him and sleep chartered into his veins. Cleaning them of the poison. The morning would bring the stench of fresh blood into his mind and he'd have to smoke out the feeling. His soul was futile, he stretched in his sleep, reaching out for Buffy. For her touch, comfort through his painful nightmares, the deaths were coming back to him, one by one. Each a powerful ache. Repent and regret his actions as she looked over him in disgust. She would never see him as sane again, just like Dru, he was stuck in her loop now. Crazy. And out of it. Spent like a weeping child because he had no one. No one who loved him. The poet's curse.