TITLE: "Said she'd be back"
AUTHOR: Betty Woo (lwa@rocketmail.com)
RATING: PG, non-specific reference to violence & sex in some chapters
SPOILERS: episode 7.4
FEEDBACK: Much better than being beaten with my own rib bones.
DISCLAIMER: Mutant Enemy made this universe, I'm just taking a non-profit tour.
CHARACTERS: Spike & Anya (earlier than I'd planned, but if I don't place this scene before 7.5, I'm gonna get Jossed huge!)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN - Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Scar
"I'm a bad man."
Spike pounded his fist into the wall. She hadn't liked it when he hit himself, so fine. Hit the wall. Evil in the wall, it was okay to hit evil things. Evil things like him. But She didn't want him to hit him.
It hurt worse than the bloody chip, trying to make sense of her logic. She knew better than anyone how bad he was. She killed bad things all the time. But wouldn't kill him. Why wouldn't She kill him? Wasn't allowed to kill himself, that would be bad.
It had just been a taste. A little nip from the bad boy, the one who'd tried to hurt the girl. Had hurt the girl. Spike had seen her, lying there like one of Dru's broken dolls, held her hand and felt it cooling under his touch. That'd brought back memories, oh yes, memories and the voices that went along with them. None of it good. He'd wanted to run away, scream at the voices until they were drowned out by his roars, but she wouldn't have liked that. So he sat quietly with the girl, held her hand, and waited until She came back.
She said she'd be back. But She hadn't promised not to leave again. Why did he think She wouldn't leave again?
Hand hurts. That's right, he'd been pounding it into the wall. Flesh all broken, one knuckle showing through. Good. He'd been a bad boy, taking that nip.
She came back and he left, back into the library with the boy in the red robe lying on the floor and the lovely smell of blood all in the air. The boy had looked at him, asked for help, held out his hand and it was all covered in the blood. He'd already been bitten, ragged holes in his shoulder seeping out blood, going to waste. And he'd tried to hurt the girl. So what did it matter that he'd pulled back the boy's head and taken a taste? Little more than a taste, though. Would have been all if he'd had the time, but the footsteps were coming and the door was opening and he'd left the boy still alive.
Still alive. But it didn't matter. She wouldn't have liked it. And it didn't even matter, not as much as he didn't like having done it. The boy was bad but William was bad too, a bad man for doing those things, for needing those things. For liking it so much.
Keep hitting the wall. Hit it enough, maybe the evil would come out. Out of it, out of him. Didn't matter where it came from. Evil always came out in the end.
"Can't escape it. I'm a bad, bad man."
"Naughty, evil, wicked man." A voice like port wine, smooth and strong, intoxicating. His dark princess.
Turning, Spike saw her watching him, her long dark tresses curling around her shoulders, those deep brown eyes staring at something only she could see. He froze, waiting for the shift, not wanting to provoke its ire once again.
"What catastrophe brought you crashing down like this, my darling boy? The fish, they burn but they don't swim any more. Just flop around like the water's all gone."
He couldn't look at her, not at it looking like her.
"Why don't you say hello to me? I've heard what happened, but I'm not angry. Not any more. It's been so long, and I miss us. I miss my family."
Drusilla stepped in closer, reaching out to caress his face. "Do you know what I wish?"
* * *
Anya pushed the door of her apartment open with her shoulder, struggling not to drop the heavy bag of laundry in her arms. Not being able to teleport was continuing to suck. Worse still, carrying heavy bags of anything made her think of Xander, who she used to be able to rely on to handle such matters. Before he'd proven himself completely unreliable by failing to show up for their wedding, she reminded herself, again.
Dumping the laundry on the couch, she headed back to shut the door and noticed the slip of paper on the floor, just inside. Teleportation flight plans, paperwork with which she was becoming all too familiar. As she bent to pick it up, she felt the familiar tug of teleportation kicking in.
"Oh, sh..."
* * *
Spike did a double take as Anya blinked into the room beside Drusilla. Hallucinating multiple ex-lovers, especially when one was a vampire and the other a vengeance demon, was taking it all just a bit too far.
"...rimp." Anya paused, straightening her skirt and taking in the situation. "Hello Spike. Drusilla."
"My Spike's been a very bad boy. He went away and left me all alone."
Anya rolled her eyes. Obviously, D'Hoffryn had known this was coming and arranged for the little pre-approved teleportation trick. "If I don't unpack my laundry soon, it's going to get all wrinkled."
"I wish it wasn't like this."
"Hence, my presence." It was only the confused expression on Spike's face that prevented Anya from punctuating the sentence with another eye-roll.
"Do you know what I wish?" Drusilla approached the blonde vampire, offering an embrace that he shrank away from. "I wish I could have my family back, just like we were in China. Do you remember China, darling?"
Anya sighed. This was going to be ugly, she just knew it, but D'Hoffryn was keeping a close eye on her, and if she didn't follow the rules to the letter of their execution she was going to be in more trouble than just a little excess paperwork.
"Do... Hey, wait. Didn't you say that you left him?"
Drusilla turned, fixing the demon with a wide moon stare. "They all went away."
"Yes. But in Brazil, you told me that you made him leave."
"Because he was all covered in her."
Anya thought back to Spike's state when he returned to Sunnydale after leaving Dru. She hadn't been paying much attention, really, but she distinctly recalled a lot of drunkenness on his part. And a lot of talking about how Drusilla had left him for a Chaos demon. "But you cheated on him with someone else, and you left him."
"I had to find my pleasures somewhere."
"Technically, however, you did the leaving. Which means you don't get the wish."
Drusilla's lower lip quivered in a pout. "But I want a wish."
Anya hoped her voice wasn't betraying how nervous she was. The situation involved a scorned lover, true, which meant as a vengeance demon she was obliged to offer the power of the wish. However, several years of handling tax forms had developed her already-keen eye for loopholes, and she was pretty sure she'd be able to make this one stick when D'Hoffryn questioned her about it. "Oh, there is a wish. But for the lover who was scorned. Which, in this case, is Spike."
The two women stared expectantly at Spike, who returned their attention with a confused look. The voices had never been quite like this before, and he was starting to wonder if maybe they were really here. Which made him wonder, in turn, when exactly the high school basement had become Grand Central Station, because for a dank little hole it seemed to get an awful lot of visitors passing through.
"Spike?" Anya stepped closer, keeping carefully out of Drusilla's reach. "Is there something you wish was different?"
It was a trick, he thought. Had to be a trick. The voices were testing him, making him admit what he wanted. Not that they needed to. It was written all over him. Dru had seen it, that's why she left. Anya could see it too, what he wanted, what he'd done.
"Hurt the girl."
"Hurt who?"
He didn't want to say her name. It hurt to say it out loud. Still, if it made the voices go away. "Buffy."
Anya's fist tightened around her pendant. This could get ugly. "Spike, you know how this works. You have to say it as a wish."
"I wish." He paused. They knew already, didn't matter if he said it aloud. "I could give Buffy what she deserves."
"Done." Anya's pendant glowed briefly. It wasn't a proper vengeance wish, precisely, lacking the overt physical or mental anguish that normally went along with such things. But she figured it was good for a fair bit of anguish on Drusilla's part, so again, loophole. And it gave her a good excuse to teleport that annoying vampire girl back to Brazil.
Spike started at Drusilla's sudden disappearance, turning his eyes back to Anya. It dawned on him that perhaps this wasn't a hallucination after all. Still, everything seemed just as it was. Dark basement, shifty walls, mental confusion, bloody knuckles. "So, that's it? Everything better?"
"Not precisely." Anya frowned. Explaining the complexities of the wish was probably a bit much, given Spike's apparent confusion. "If you'd said, I wish everything was better for Buffy, then yes. But what you asked for is that you be able to give her what she deserves. Which may not be the same thing as better. Anyway, here you go."
Anya held out a small, battered book to Spike. The leather cover bore scuffs and stains from years of abuse, and the yellowed page edges were jagged in spots. Instead of taking it, he just stared at her again.
"The sooner you take this, the sooner I can leave."
His hands reached forward, palms up so as not to spill any of his blood on the tome. "What's this?"
"What Buffy deserves. I'd have gone ahead and made the changes, but you asked to give it to her yourself. So, bye." Anya tried to teleport back home, but it didn't seem to be working. Apparently. D'Hoffryn hadn't bothered to approve a return flight. With a sigh, she walked off in search of the stairwell. Her laundry would be horribly wrinkled by the time she got back.
Alone in the dark again, Spike studied the small book in his hands. After all the hells he'd been through trying to make the girl happy, and everything she deserved had been distilled down into a handful of pages.
He couldn't help it. He started to laugh.
AUTHOR: Betty Woo (lwa@rocketmail.com)
RATING: PG, non-specific reference to violence & sex in some chapters
SPOILERS: episode 7.4
FEEDBACK: Much better than being beaten with my own rib bones.
DISCLAIMER: Mutant Enemy made this universe, I'm just taking a non-profit tour.
CHARACTERS: Spike & Anya (earlier than I'd planned, but if I don't place this scene before 7.5, I'm gonna get Jossed huge!)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN - Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Scar
"I'm a bad man."
Spike pounded his fist into the wall. She hadn't liked it when he hit himself, so fine. Hit the wall. Evil in the wall, it was okay to hit evil things. Evil things like him. But She didn't want him to hit him.
It hurt worse than the bloody chip, trying to make sense of her logic. She knew better than anyone how bad he was. She killed bad things all the time. But wouldn't kill him. Why wouldn't She kill him? Wasn't allowed to kill himself, that would be bad.
It had just been a taste. A little nip from the bad boy, the one who'd tried to hurt the girl. Had hurt the girl. Spike had seen her, lying there like one of Dru's broken dolls, held her hand and felt it cooling under his touch. That'd brought back memories, oh yes, memories and the voices that went along with them. None of it good. He'd wanted to run away, scream at the voices until they were drowned out by his roars, but she wouldn't have liked that. So he sat quietly with the girl, held her hand, and waited until She came back.
She said she'd be back. But She hadn't promised not to leave again. Why did he think She wouldn't leave again?
Hand hurts. That's right, he'd been pounding it into the wall. Flesh all broken, one knuckle showing through. Good. He'd been a bad boy, taking that nip.
She came back and he left, back into the library with the boy in the red robe lying on the floor and the lovely smell of blood all in the air. The boy had looked at him, asked for help, held out his hand and it was all covered in the blood. He'd already been bitten, ragged holes in his shoulder seeping out blood, going to waste. And he'd tried to hurt the girl. So what did it matter that he'd pulled back the boy's head and taken a taste? Little more than a taste, though. Would have been all if he'd had the time, but the footsteps were coming and the door was opening and he'd left the boy still alive.
Still alive. But it didn't matter. She wouldn't have liked it. And it didn't even matter, not as much as he didn't like having done it. The boy was bad but William was bad too, a bad man for doing those things, for needing those things. For liking it so much.
Keep hitting the wall. Hit it enough, maybe the evil would come out. Out of it, out of him. Didn't matter where it came from. Evil always came out in the end.
"Can't escape it. I'm a bad, bad man."
"Naughty, evil, wicked man." A voice like port wine, smooth and strong, intoxicating. His dark princess.
Turning, Spike saw her watching him, her long dark tresses curling around her shoulders, those deep brown eyes staring at something only she could see. He froze, waiting for the shift, not wanting to provoke its ire once again.
"What catastrophe brought you crashing down like this, my darling boy? The fish, they burn but they don't swim any more. Just flop around like the water's all gone."
He couldn't look at her, not at it looking like her.
"Why don't you say hello to me? I've heard what happened, but I'm not angry. Not any more. It's been so long, and I miss us. I miss my family."
Drusilla stepped in closer, reaching out to caress his face. "Do you know what I wish?"
* * *
Anya pushed the door of her apartment open with her shoulder, struggling not to drop the heavy bag of laundry in her arms. Not being able to teleport was continuing to suck. Worse still, carrying heavy bags of anything made her think of Xander, who she used to be able to rely on to handle such matters. Before he'd proven himself completely unreliable by failing to show up for their wedding, she reminded herself, again.
Dumping the laundry on the couch, she headed back to shut the door and noticed the slip of paper on the floor, just inside. Teleportation flight plans, paperwork with which she was becoming all too familiar. As she bent to pick it up, she felt the familiar tug of teleportation kicking in.
"Oh, sh..."
* * *
Spike did a double take as Anya blinked into the room beside Drusilla. Hallucinating multiple ex-lovers, especially when one was a vampire and the other a vengeance demon, was taking it all just a bit too far.
"...rimp." Anya paused, straightening her skirt and taking in the situation. "Hello Spike. Drusilla."
"My Spike's been a very bad boy. He went away and left me all alone."
Anya rolled her eyes. Obviously, D'Hoffryn had known this was coming and arranged for the little pre-approved teleportation trick. "If I don't unpack my laundry soon, it's going to get all wrinkled."
"I wish it wasn't like this."
"Hence, my presence." It was only the confused expression on Spike's face that prevented Anya from punctuating the sentence with another eye-roll.
"Do you know what I wish?" Drusilla approached the blonde vampire, offering an embrace that he shrank away from. "I wish I could have my family back, just like we were in China. Do you remember China, darling?"
Anya sighed. This was going to be ugly, she just knew it, but D'Hoffryn was keeping a close eye on her, and if she didn't follow the rules to the letter of their execution she was going to be in more trouble than just a little excess paperwork.
"Do... Hey, wait. Didn't you say that you left him?"
Drusilla turned, fixing the demon with a wide moon stare. "They all went away."
"Yes. But in Brazil, you told me that you made him leave."
"Because he was all covered in her."
Anya thought back to Spike's state when he returned to Sunnydale after leaving Dru. She hadn't been paying much attention, really, but she distinctly recalled a lot of drunkenness on his part. And a lot of talking about how Drusilla had left him for a Chaos demon. "But you cheated on him with someone else, and you left him."
"I had to find my pleasures somewhere."
"Technically, however, you did the leaving. Which means you don't get the wish."
Drusilla's lower lip quivered in a pout. "But I want a wish."
Anya hoped her voice wasn't betraying how nervous she was. The situation involved a scorned lover, true, which meant as a vengeance demon she was obliged to offer the power of the wish. However, several years of handling tax forms had developed her already-keen eye for loopholes, and she was pretty sure she'd be able to make this one stick when D'Hoffryn questioned her about it. "Oh, there is a wish. But for the lover who was scorned. Which, in this case, is Spike."
The two women stared expectantly at Spike, who returned their attention with a confused look. The voices had never been quite like this before, and he was starting to wonder if maybe they were really here. Which made him wonder, in turn, when exactly the high school basement had become Grand Central Station, because for a dank little hole it seemed to get an awful lot of visitors passing through.
"Spike?" Anya stepped closer, keeping carefully out of Drusilla's reach. "Is there something you wish was different?"
It was a trick, he thought. Had to be a trick. The voices were testing him, making him admit what he wanted. Not that they needed to. It was written all over him. Dru had seen it, that's why she left. Anya could see it too, what he wanted, what he'd done.
"Hurt the girl."
"Hurt who?"
He didn't want to say her name. It hurt to say it out loud. Still, if it made the voices go away. "Buffy."
Anya's fist tightened around her pendant. This could get ugly. "Spike, you know how this works. You have to say it as a wish."
"I wish." He paused. They knew already, didn't matter if he said it aloud. "I could give Buffy what she deserves."
"Done." Anya's pendant glowed briefly. It wasn't a proper vengeance wish, precisely, lacking the overt physical or mental anguish that normally went along with such things. But she figured it was good for a fair bit of anguish on Drusilla's part, so again, loophole. And it gave her a good excuse to teleport that annoying vampire girl back to Brazil.
Spike started at Drusilla's sudden disappearance, turning his eyes back to Anya. It dawned on him that perhaps this wasn't a hallucination after all. Still, everything seemed just as it was. Dark basement, shifty walls, mental confusion, bloody knuckles. "So, that's it? Everything better?"
"Not precisely." Anya frowned. Explaining the complexities of the wish was probably a bit much, given Spike's apparent confusion. "If you'd said, I wish everything was better for Buffy, then yes. But what you asked for is that you be able to give her what she deserves. Which may not be the same thing as better. Anyway, here you go."
Anya held out a small, battered book to Spike. The leather cover bore scuffs and stains from years of abuse, and the yellowed page edges were jagged in spots. Instead of taking it, he just stared at her again.
"The sooner you take this, the sooner I can leave."
His hands reached forward, palms up so as not to spill any of his blood on the tome. "What's this?"
"What Buffy deserves. I'd have gone ahead and made the changes, but you asked to give it to her yourself. So, bye." Anya tried to teleport back home, but it didn't seem to be working. Apparently. D'Hoffryn hadn't bothered to approve a return flight. With a sigh, she walked off in search of the stairwell. Her laundry would be horribly wrinkled by the time she got back.
Alone in the dark again, Spike studied the small book in his hands. After all the hells he'd been through trying to make the girl happy, and everything she deserved had been distilled down into a handful of pages.
He couldn't help it. He started to laugh.