Title:
A Measure of Happiness
Author: Valerie
Disclaimer: All characters
owned by Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, Fox, etc. I own nothing.
Summary: More post-Giftage.
This is essentially a B/S romance (with sex, of course), but also will eventually
deal with grander themes of good and evil.
Rating: R for adult
concepts, language and semi-descriptive sex.
Spoilers: Through the end
of Season 5
Feedback: Yes please!
Distribution: Sure. Just
let me know.
Author's Note: The title of
this chapter is taken from the song by the same name by Metallica.
Spike's mind raced. The chip wasn't working. Or hadn't worked one time; was it a fluke? One way to find out, he thought. As he stared into Quentin Travers' horrified face, he sensed the uninjured Watcher preparing to attack him. Keeping his eyes on Travers, Spike's hand shot out, grasping the Watcher by the throat. He squeezed, and the Watcher gurgled. Still no pain, he thought. Wearing an expression of boredom, he flung the Watcher against the wall of the crypt. His head hit the stone with a sickening crack and he collapsed in a heap on the floor. Spike smiled.
Quentin was in shock, knowing that he had made a mistake that would probably cost their lives. "The chip in your brain ..."
"On an extended leave of absence," Spike commented, wondering at the same time what exactly had made the chip stop working. Then he remembered, and he laughed out loud. The power line. It had been a week ago now, but Spike was long out of the habit of checking to see if the chip was still working.
Quentin began quickly backpedaling. "Perhaps you and I can come to a compromise on this issue–"
Spike turned around to see the other Watcher, blood soaking the arm of his coat around where the bolt still protruded, reaching for his crossbow on the ground. Slowly, Spike walked over to him and kicked the crossbow into the corner. Ruthlessly, he then kicked the Watcher in the head and watched as he also slumped to the floor, unconscious. Then he looked up at Travers, shaking off his game face. "Sorry for the interruption. You were saying?"
Travers' face was covered with a thin sheen of sweat. "The Slayer won't be pleased if you kill us," he said desperately.
Spike chuckled, coming over to Travers and facing him down. "The Slayer's never been too fond of the Council."
"That's as may be, but it's a long way from that to cold-blooded murder. For her, anyway."
"What kind of compromise you wanna offer me, Quent?"
Travers scrambled mentally. "Money. I have access to ... thousands of pounds. I can put you on a ship to any place in the world, with enough money to happily live out an eternity."
"So we're back 'round to chasing me off now, are we?" Spike said, inhaling the thick smell of fear in the room and relishing it. "But you said it yourself, Quentin: I love her. Why would I leave her?"
"Because she'll kill you when she finds out you're back to your old tricks."
"Who says I'm back to my old tricks? You gentlemen came into my home and threatened my life," he said with mock seriousness. "I was just defending myself."
"And you haven't fed off any humans?"
"Not a one," said Spike innocently.
Quentin shook his head. "It won't last. The Watcher's Council has been studying vampires for almost two thousand years. Never once in all that time have we known a vampire to deny his nature, with the possible exception of your soul-burdened grandsire. Not one time in recorded history. If you think you are different, you are sadly mistaken. You are a vampire, and I fear that the moment that chip stopped working, a fork in the prophesy of you and the Slayer was chosen." He lowered his head sadly, suddenly looking older than his years. "And I was too late. The fate of the world was in my hands, and I was too late."
"Shut up," Spike said angrily. "You're wrong about me, and you're wrong about the prophesy. Besides, you underestimate Buffy if you think I can corrupt her so easily."
"Do I?" Quentin asked. "We've watched her very closely over the years; much more closely than she or Giles imagined. We watched as she developed the hardness necessary to defeat Angel, whom she loved deeply. From then on, she was a warrior first, a woman second. She locked a part of herself away so that she could be the Slayer she had to be. Since she was resurrected, though, things have been different. You know it. She has unlocked that part of herself that she had locked away. She is a woman first, a warrior second. She focuses on the pleasures of today rather than the duties of tomorrow. I believe that you will corrupt her very easily."
"NO! Shut up! You're wrong!" Spike roared, backhanding Travers across the face. The blow knocked him into the sarcophagus. He fell to the ground and was still.
"Wrong. You're wrong. Wrong," Spike whispered distractedly, pacing in a tight circle. The smell of blood filled the air. It was intoxicating. Spike's eyes fell on one of the Watchers lying on the floor of the crypt. He knelt down by the man. He was young; barely thirty, probably. Spike could hear his heartbeat, faint but steady. He could sense the blood moving through his veins. He felt his demon rising to the surface unbidden, which only heightened his awareness of the Watcher's life force. Before he could stop himself, he reached out, pulling the unconscious man into his arms. He stared at the man's neck for a long moment, then instinct took over and he sank his fangs in.
As he began to drink, an image of Buffy flashed before his eyes. He growled, closing his eyes in attempt to shut out the vision. Then he thought of Dawn. Dawn, who looked up to him; Dawn, who depended on him to protect her. Dawn, who trusted him more completely that anyone else, including her sister.
Suddenly Spike was on his hands and knees, vomiting blood. He sobbed, both as a man who was disgusted by what he had just done, and as a vampire who was sickened by what he could not finish. Looking around in horror, he fled the crypt.
When he finally stopped running, he found himself in one of Sunnydale's darker alleys. He backed against the wall, sliding down into a hunched position on the dirty ground. He was finally free, after two long, miserable years, he was free of the chip that had kept him from being what he was meant to be. Finally free, he thought, and the irony caused a bitter laugh to escape his throat. For the first year, he had thought about it every day, every hour. Every time he sat at the bar at the Bronze, watching the humans dance and drink and flirt around him, every time he had to drink blood from a microwaved mug, every time he looked at the Slayer's throat, he had railed against the injustice of it. He had burned with impotent rage. Every time he slept, he had dreamed of drinking blood as it jetted from a human throat, and had woken in a cold sweat.
But things slowly changed. His dreams about the Slayer changed, much to his chagrin at first. He still longed to be free of the chip, but at the same time he longed for Buffy. To touch her. To kiss her. And to drink her. He began changing his outward behavior to try to win her approval. Nothing worked, but he kept trying, and gradually his reasons for doing what he did changed. He mourned when Joyce died, not just because she was Buffy's mother, but because Joyce had been kind to him. He protected Dawn, not just because she was Buffy's sister, but because he loved her: the way her eyes got wide as saucers and she shivered when he told her stories of his bad old days, her innocence and her teenage rebellion and her capacity for love.
Dawn was the only thing that kept him alive after Buffy died. He had sworn to protect her, and she had needed him, so he had gone on with his undead existence for her. He had slain vampires and demons for her. Eventually, he even came to care about the others: Willow, Tara, Anya, Giles; even Xander. There was a part of Buffy in each of them. He became so busy with his responsibilities to Dawn and to the Scoobies that he sometimes went a day or more without thinking much about the restrictions of the chip.
When Buffy came back, it was like he had been given a second chance. A chance not only to act like a good man with her, but actually to be one. And she accepted him, as a friend, as a training partner, and then finally as a lover. When she looked at him, he no longer saw hatred and revulsion in her eyes. He knew it was much more than the monster in him deserved. As time passed, he went for longer and longer periods without thinking about drinking from a human throat. It was a nagging itch, not an all-consuming agony. When he sat at the Summers' kitchen table, helping Dawn with her history paper as he absently crumbled Weetabix into a mug of blood, he didn't even think about what he was missing. Even when he kissed Buffy's neck, the sensation of the blood pumping beneath the surface of her skin was an added thrill, not the torturous frustration that it once would have been.
He probably could have gone for many years like that, loving Buffy and her sister, fighting evil, playing pool with Xander, being almost human except for his diet and aversion to sunlight. But now everything had changed. Now he could go back to his old life. He could take his natural place in the food chain. He could even seek out Dru again. Except he didn't love Dru anymore. The chip doesn't control my feelings, he had told Buffy, and he had been right. In a way, he wished that it had controlled his feelings. Then he could make a clean break from the humans that tied him to Sunnydale.
Now he was in the worst possible position. He had two choices. He could return to the ways of a vampire and betray everyone in the world that he cared about, everyone that he loved. Or he could try to turn his back on his nature forever, try to continue being whom he had become in the last two years. But was that even possible? Could he really deny his nature when there was nothing standing in his way but his own willpower? His mind came back to Quentin Travers' words: not one time in recorded history. Thinking that he could be the first soulless vampire to just decide to stop feeding on humans was folly.
Then Spike remembered the prophesy. Travers had had no reason to lie; he was planning on killing Spike tonight. The moment that chip stopped working, a fork in the prophesy of you and the Slayer was chosen, Travers said. Could he have been right? Was Spike destined to destroy Buffy, to turn her into some hollow shell of herself? In a way, he had said so himself: I'll cling to you until it either kills us both or until I drag you down into this dark place with me.
But this was Buffy. The thought that she was corruptible,
that she could be turned to the dark side like some stupid George Lucas
antihero, it was ridiculous. She would never deny her calling, even with
someone she loved. She'd proven that time and again. Spike shook his head
violently; it was impossible. Except... the Watcher had said that she had
unlocked a part of herself. It eerily
echoed Buffy's own words: for once I'm
not locking a part of myself away when I'm with you.
Spike trembled at the thought that he could turn that bright, shining girl into a monster. He wouldn't. He'd rather she had stayed dead. He'd rather die himself.
He looked at the sky. He had apparently crouched in that alley for hours; it was getting close to dawn. He made his way back to his crypt. When he got there, it was empty; only a blood stain on the stone floor indicated that anything had happened that night. The Watchers must have come to and fled. They wouldn't give up though; within forty-eight hours a retrieval squad, maybe two, would be crawling over Sunnydale armed with crossbows and hunting him.
Spike sat down on his ratty couch and picked up a sweater that had been left across one of the arms. Buffy had dropped it there two nights ago when they were on patrol and she had gotten too warm. Clutching the sweater, Spike began the seed of a plan. By sunset, he knew what he had to do. She is a woman first, a warrior second, Travers had said. Time to change that. His heart breaking, he slowly rose and left the crypt.
Spike staked out a spot behind another mausoleum, his door in view. She would look for him eventually, when he didn't show up that evening. Sure enough, after an hour she appeared, bounding through the door and calling his name. After a minute, she came out again, looking around crossly. When she continued on, out of the cemetery, he followed.
She walked to the Bronze, humming quietly to herself. He watched her, keeping his distance. At the door to the club, Buffy went through followed by a large group. Behind the group was a lone young girl, maybe a year older than Dawn, clutching a purse and trotting in high heels. Her friends were probably inside already. Before she could open the door, though, she was grabbed from behind and flung against the wall.
Spike held one hand over her mouth as he pressed against her. "Not a sound, OK, pet?"
Her eyes wide and pleading, the girl shook her head.
He smiled. "Good, 'cause we have a show to put on in a few minutes." Taking his hand off her mouth, he pulled the girl to him and swung around, keeping a close eye on the door. To anyone else, they looked like a couple making out. To Buffy, who knew the signs, they would be immediately obvious. As the girl trembled against him, Spike vamped out and buried his face in her neck, waiting.
After a minute that seemed to last several hours, Buffy came out of the door.
Spike sunk his fangs into the girl's neck and she screamed.
Buffy whirled, already reaching for the ever-present stake in her pocket. And froze.
Spike looked up at her, then threw the girl at his feet, where she lay motionless. He slowly licked the blood from his fangs. And smiled.
Buffy ran.
When she was out of sight, he shook off his game face and bent down to the girl at his feet. "Get up, girl," he said shaking her. She had passed out, which had been convenient. "Get up! I hardly drank anything, you stupid bint! Wake up!" She gradually came to, then screamed again at the sight of Spike. "Go on then," he said, "Run away." She scrambled to her feet and ran. "That's a good girl," he said softly, watching her flee into the night.
TBC!