Okay, just a brief note: This made so much more sense in my head when I heard this song on the radio, then I wrote it down and it got all confuzzled. I just hope it makes a little sense.

Hotel California
By Vixen

"On a dark desert highway," With a shrug, the vampire glanced back at his classic DeSoto that had only minutes earlier crashed into the 'Welcome to Sunnydale' sign. With a grin Spike surveyed his new domain; it was night, the moon was full, and the town would never know what hit it. "Cool wind through my hair, warm smell of Colitas," On the street corner a pair of humans fumbled in their insobriety. "Rising up through the air." Precariously, Drusilla looked to the humans and then back at Spike. He would have let her feed but the sun would be up soon, and they needed to find shelter.

"Up ahead in the distance," Spike continued as he saw a factory that glowed with the ghostly light of a ritual. "I saw a shimmering light, my head grew heavy and my sight grew dim." Up to the factory he stomped and then burst in the door. "I had to stop for the night."

Arm in arm, Spike led his dark princess into the Anointed One's quarters. From that moment on the rules changed, they were home and the old regime was over. Drusilla wrapped her arms around her lover's torso, and he reciprocated the touch and smiled down at her. How long has she been his, he wondered, how long had it been?

He flashed back to a time when his heart still beat...

"There she stood in the doorway, I heard the mission bell." It had been in an alley in London. That's when it all had begun. Near him the angel of mercy came, the angel that would take him out of the world and show him new ones to discover. "I was thinking to myself this could be heaven, or this could be hell." Quickly the angel showed her true nature and vamped out, bit on his neck and drained him dry, "Then she lit up a candle, and she showed me the way."

After a moment, Angelus and Darla arrived in the alleyway, impatiently. Spike glanced up to meet his new family, "There were voices down the corridor, I thought I heard them say...."

The scene fades to 1998....

"Welcome to the Hotel California!" Angelus showed Drusilla and Spike into the new mansion. After he trimmed a beautiful fully blossomed Jasmine flower from the atrium, Angelus handed it to Drusilla.

From his wheelchair, Spike grimaced, clearly unimpressed. Full of sarcasm he added, "Such a lovely place."

Drusilla whirled around like she had never seen so many wonders in one place. Giddy with childish joys she smiled and repeated, "Such a lovely place."

Spitefully, Angelus leaned in close to her and stroked her pale cheek, "Such a lovely face." He smirked at Spike in his wheelchair and then rushed off with Drusilla to continued to present the mansion in all its glory, "Plenty of room at the Hotel California, any time of year..."

"Any time of year." Drusilla repeated, she now hung on Angelus' every word.

He smiled back at her, "You can find it here..."

"You can find it here."

They vanished down the hallway, leaving Spike all alone.

As the weeks went by Drusilla and Angelus became increasingly close, and Spike was left to wonder where it all went wrong. Watching from the shadows, unseen and unwanted, from the physical confinement of his broken legs, the vampire watched the two new lovers play their games.

Angrily, Spike glared as Angelus fastened a silver necklace around Drusilla's swanlike neck, "Her mind is Tiffany twisted, she's got the Mercedes Benz."

Drusilla turned around and enveloped Angelus into an eager embrace, obviously loving her new gift.

"She's got a lot of pretty pretty boys," Spike is unable to turn his gaze away from the two of them. "That she calls friends." Affectionately, Angelus pulled Drusilla into an impromptu dance amongst the flowers in the atrium, "How they dance in the courtyard..." Finally Spike got up the energy and walked out of his wheelchair for the first time.

He took a step forward and was suddenly in the Bronze, surrounded by a bunch of formally dressed waltzing teenagers. The sound of pumping blood was intoxicating. As she danced with Riley, the slayer moved past the vampire so closely that he could smell her, "Sweet summer sweat." For a moment she looked so much like Cecily.

Quickly, Harmony rushed up and pulled her Spikey into an embrace. He joined her on the dance floor but his eyes kept wandering over towards Buffy, "Some dance to remember."

From her position with Riley, Buffy looked at the lone vampire and their eyes locked for a moment. With a bored frown, she said pointblank with just a tinge of contempt, "Some dance to forget."

Bored with the tricks of his ditzy girlfriend, Spike pushed Harmony away and drifted over to the bar. "So I said to the Captain," He sat down, "Please bring me my wine. He said..."

"We haven't had that spirit here since 1969." The bartender looked bored as hell.

In a flash the years went by, Spike was still in Sunnydale, but now worked with the Scoobies. He continually tried to prove to them, and more importantly Buffy, that he could be good and that he had changed. One night he awoke startled, "And still those voices are calling from far away." He put his hands to his head, and tried to block out the memories of his first love, "Wake you up in the middle of the night, just to hear them say..."

"Welcome to the Hotel California," In what Spike had hoped was long forgotten memory he can see Angel and Drusilla in the mansion's bedroom.

"Such a lovely place," Angelus smiled as he plopped down on the bed.

"Such a lovely place," She echoed. Before she climbed onto the feather mattress with him, Drusilla dropped her black silk robe and exposed her flesh. She kissed Angelus intimately, "Such a lovely face."

Too late, Spike casually passed by the bedroom only to witness them making love to each other, "They're living it up at the Hotel California," He was shocked and quite pissed off, "What a nice surprise."

"What a nice surprise," Angelus just grinned from underneath the covers.

Back in the present, Spike tossed in bed trying to tune out the memory that played in his mind. It didn't matter what happened in the past, soon Buffy would be his and everything would be fine.

Faintly he could almost hear Angel, "Bring your alibis." Of course, that poof would never believe Spike had turned good, he almost didn't believe it himself.

Spike rolled over in bed and fell into a dream....

It was the future, Angelus was back with the team as was Darla and Dru and himself. The family was back together again. Spike surveyed the room, which was bigger than anything they had ever lived in before, he took a moment to take in his surrounding, "Mirrors on the ceiling, pink champagne on ice." His stare paused on Darla who sat on the window ledge. "And she said..."

"We are all just prisoners here," fed up with the unlife she was given her voice cracked emotionally, "Of our own device."

Spike cocked his head, wondering if he should go help her or maybe just push her out the window altogether. Before he could figure out what to do, Drusilla came sauntering into the room. Her sight still brought out emotions he wished had died forever.

In one of her moods tonight, Drusilla draped her arm around his neck and in spoke in her insane prophetic language, "And in the master's chambers, they gathered for the feast." She waved a seductive finger in front of his forehead, in her clairvoyant sight she saw his chip, "They stab it with their steely knives, but they just can't kill the beast."

Once more Spike woke up from his dreams. He threw the covers off his half-naked body and grabbed a nearby shirt. He opened the closet and retrieved a duffel bag. That was it, he was leaving this hellmouth of a town. Too many memories, too many questions. Was he good? Was he bad? He didn't understand anything anymore.

Feverishly he packed his clothes into the bag, "The last thing I remember, I was running for the door. I had to find the passage back to the place I was before."

Something Angel had once said to him crept up into his mind, "Relax, said the Nightman, we are programmed to deceive." Spike hurried to the door of his crypt, taking one last glance around making sure he didn't leave anything. "You can check out anytime you like," He turned the doorknob, opened the door, and came face to face with Buffy. She was bleeding, and looked beat up, obviously there had been another Chosen One emergency. She fell into his arms, sobbing, and all at once Spike's protectiveness came back.

"But you can never leave."


THE END... so, did it make sense?