Title: A Demon's Deal – 2 of 5
Author: mahaliem
Summary: Spike comes back wrong, told from Buffy's POV
Disclaimer: The characters are the property of Mutant Enemy and Joss Whedon
The Reason
"It's not what I did to Spike. It's what you did."
I didn't understand and he could tell. He glared at me.
"It was you, Summers. Your fault. I loved you. Would've done anything for you. Did everything I could think of for you, to you. You let me touch you but you never let me in. The only time I ever got under your skin was when I was throwing you against the walls, doors, floor, whatever surface available. You drove me mad, Slayer. Sent me around the sodding bend."
He hurled himself once more at the barrier, his anger uncontained. Unconsciously, I moved back a few more feet, feeling the need to put more space between myself and this creature, who was so not my boyfriend in any sense now. The barrier held as he pounded on it, fists crashing to a halt in mid-air as they came in contact. Finally recognizing the futility, he stopped. Taking deep, unnecessary breaths to calm himself down, he closed his eyes. When he opened them again they sought me out, burning me.
His gaze shifted to upstairs and he backed up a step, his body losing some of its tension.
"Do you remember that night, the night I left?" he whispered.
I nodded my head. Yes I remembered that night. Sometimes, at the oddest moments, it would creep into my mind. I could be at work, mindlessly serving burgers and it would come to me, sending a tremor through me in reaction. Once it had happened at the grocery store and I'd doubled over, causing a clerk to rush to my side in consternation. The next week, I shopped at a different store.
"That's what did it," he said in response to my nod. "That's what caused me to snap, to lose it. It was the last bloody straw that broke my back. It niggled away inside my brain, churning around, eating at me. Couldn't believe what I had done to you. Couldn't live with myself."
Slowly, he brought one single white, graceful hand up to his chest, and, with the fingers spread he lowered it down his body until it brushed up against the now conspicuous bulge in his jeans. He leered at me.
"Now it's just another lovely memory".
"What did you do?" I asked hoarsely.
"Was going to give it all up for you, pet. Was going to say good-bye to evil forever. I knew about this place, you see. They whispered about it in the darkest corners of the most sordid and foulest spots on earth. A place they said you could earn a soul."
At my look of disbelief he let out a snort of laughter.
"Yeah, I was a bleeding ponce, wasn't I? To think that if I had a soul I might be good enough for the likes of you. But I went to the demon and told him I wanted it, wanted to give you what you deserved."
He watched me, waiting for my response, but I couldn't take this all in. He had tried to get a soul? For me? For a moment I could only think about the other vampire I knew with a soul, Angel. He alternately cherished and hated his soul; it had brought him closer to humanity, yet it still tortured him. It reminded him of all he had been, all the horrible things he had done. He had been cursed with it and a curse to him it was. Would he, if given a chance, choose to have a soul as Spike had? Provoked by my continuing silence, Spike continued.
"You have no conception of what I was willing to do, do you? It wasn't just the tests. It wasn't the possibility of having a conscience that would torment me and cause me to turn into a brooding wanker like Peaches. It was the going back to what I was that scared me most."
I hesitated, unsure of his meaning.
"You told me when you were alive...you were bad."
He laughed.
"That I was but not in the way you think. I was bad. I was bad at poetry, bad at being a man, bad at life. I was the nanciest of nancy boys. Think of the biggest loser, the stupidest git, the most disgustingly weak person possible and that was me. I was willing to go back to being a colossal waste of space, for you."
"But you failed the tests," I threw at him.
His smile faltered and for a moment I thought I saw my Spike hidden underneath. Then the bragging returned.
"Didn't fail. Passed with flying colors. Won every challenge the demon set me. Beat every foe. Suffered, but I bore it for you, Summers. All for you. There was only one problem. I forgot one thing.
Scarcely daring to breathe, I asked what he was waiting for me to ask, daring me to ask.
"What did you forget?"
"What I forgot was to never make a deal with a demon."
Quietly, he moved away from the door and bounded back down the steps. As I peered out at him from my sanctuary, he started to walk away, cutting across the grass. When he was almost to the sidewalk he turned and faced me again.
"You see, I told him I wanted a soul. Never specifically requested that I wanted my old soul. Told him I wanted to give you what you deserved."
With a bitter twist of his lips he smiled.
"Guess you've been a naughty girl."
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Over the next few days I watched the obituary columns, expecting the numbers to rise. But when it continued to hold at two pages long, I had to assume Spike still had the chip. I warned Dawn that Spike was back, that he was dangerous. I wasn't so sure it had made an impression on her, so I gave her a curfew. By the time the sun went down, she had to be home. I threatened her with everything I could think of if she ever invited Spike into our home, but in the end I bribed her with my new blue top with the little white flowers on it. As my sister flounced off holding her prize, I consoled myself with the fact that at least she would be safe wearing it. And maybe, when this was all over, I would steal it back.
Xander was a little surprised when I started showing up at his place, insisting that he patrol with me once again. I knew that Spike could hurt me, but with the chip still active he would be unable to hurt Xander. It was pathetic. I was counting on Xander to save me, the Slayer, if Spike came around.
I had to tell Xander something so I told him that Spike had returned. I confessed that I was scared of him. Ever the big brother, he leapt to the conclusion that it was because of the attempted rape, and I let him make that leap. I knew that if it came down to it, if Spike and I fought again and I lost; it wouldn't just be rape I would face this time.
So Xander and I started to patrol the cemeteries together. We would meet at dusk and wander around, staking vampires and killing the occasional demon that crossed our path. Our first night out was a bit awkward. We didn't know how to talk to each other anymore, but slowly, we remembered. Although I never forgot that Spike was out there, somehow I started to look forward to patrolling with Xander, and I could tell that he was beginning to enjoy it, too. His jokes were becoming funnier and less bitter, and these days his smile actually reached his eyes.
One night while we were out on patrol, we spotted Anya talking to a young woman. Dark red veins were prominent all over her face, which is not such a good look for her. We figured that she was in the process of enacting a vengeance wish. When she saw who was approaching her, she froze. Xander didn't say a word. He just looked at her while she returned his gaze. I don't know if she even noticed me next to him before she hurried away leaving her client standing puzzled and alone on the sidewalk.
That night I kissed Xander for the first time. A real kiss, not a "you're my friend and I love you" type of kiss. He was surprised and for a moment returned it. It didn't work for either of us. We broke apart and looked at one another and, without saying a word, we knew that whatever chance we had ever had to be together had already passed us by. The next night, by mutual decision, we pretended that the kiss had never happened.
Night after night, the number of vampires and demons we saw began to dwindle. By the end of the week we were patrolling for hours without seeing a single one. Xander suggested we try the one cemetery we had managed to avoid for seven days but I shook my head, rejecting the idea and proposing instead that we try Willy's bar. Maybe we could pound an explanation out of him.
We didn't find Willy. But we did find Spike.