TITLE: "Normal again" (8/8?) part II (Because of length, cut in five parts.)

AUTHOR: Richard Bachman

EMAIL: bachman_rchard@hotmail.com

SITE: nope

FEEDBACK: Give it to me luv, you know you want more of this.

DISTRIBUTION: Do whatever you like poodle. As long as Richard is mentioned I'm fine.

SUMMARY: based on the episode Normal Again. Instead of Buffy, Spike was poisoned by the demon and his consciousness was transported into an alternative reality where he found himself incarcerated in an asylum.

THANK YOU: For your patience, your support and your comments on the story. (Dear Shadowschild, the last part of this chapter with Buffy finally brawling her eyes out in regret is written for you. Thanks for your enlightening words.) And thank you, Olga, for beta reading as much of it as you could. I hope you get that computer virus sorted out because I do miss corresponding with you.

ACT 8: No more mind-games. No more mind.

SCENE 2

"Look Dawn, this isn't a discussion!" Buffy shouted. "You're staying away from him till he's no longer crazy. Or less crazy." She hesitated. "And I want you to go to bed now. It's four in the morning on a Wednesday, you have classes tomorrow!"

She stood there in her bedroom facing an angry Dawn, her arms folded across her chest, dark half moon rims under her eyes. God, she thought, it's really four o'clock in the morning already. She had a shift at the Double Meat starting at eight, Dawn had to get up at seven and get a decent breakfast before she went off to school, the laundry needed to be done, and the windows would certainly benefit from a good cleaning. Buffy let go of a deep, tired sigh and wished she could catch up with a couple hours of sleep before the entire night was over and the glamorous tasks of keeping the Summers household running would be pressuring on her shoulders once again when the morning came, but there was no such luck of course.

"Why are you always yelling at me like that!" Dawn lamented. "I'm a teenager! I'm not a kid anymore!" She swallowed hard before getting out the heavy artillery. "You can't boss me around like you're mom or anything! Mom was always there for me and she listened to me. You never listen and you're never here when I need you!"

Before Buffy could say anything to counter her little sister's emotional nuclear bombing, Dawn fled out of the room, crying as she went, slamming the door shut with so much anger that it made the porcelain ballerina that Buffy got for her eight birthday, tipple off the book shelf. Buffy caught the small ornament, Slayer speed kicking in on reflex, and she put it back on its place, her mind distracted.

Things had been hard for her ever since she came back from the dead. Her mother wasn't there anymore for her to turn to when things got out of hand and the troubles in her life had sometimes become too much for her to bear; not so much the vampires and the monsters had created most of her problems, but everyday stuff like paying the electricity bills, getting the leak in the roof fixed before winter and making sure to put out the garbage on Thursday mornings before she had to stock up the trash and smell it rot for the rest of the week. Buffy knew that it was puny, but she couldn't help but feel sorry for herself right now. Dawn had her incredibly unreasonable big sister to go to when she needed someone to yell at, but to whom could the big sister go with all of her truckloads of cropped up frustrations?

Buffy let out an irritated groan and sat down on her bed, her hands entangled in her locks as she brushed them away from her forehead. Why was everyone expecting her to be strong enough to face up against everything what this world had to throw at her? Sure, she was the Slayer, and if trouble came in the shape of an evil demon nasty, she knew how to do her slaying duties rather well, but when it came to dealing with things like keeping up a mindless job in order to pay the bills, bringing up a difficult teenage sister and dealing with the troubles of her friends like magic addictions and relationships in ruins, she was pretty sure that she wasn't made to be able to absorb and counteract all of this misery of grownup life. If this was what she had to look out to for the next couple of forty, fifty years, she would rather go down fighting against an army of nightmare creatures. Trying to get the second mortgage on the house paid off must be worse.

She had just burrowed her face in the comforting darkness of her hands when a persistent knock on her bedroom door startled her.

"Buffy?" Xander asked, hesitatingly.

"Come on in. It's not locked."

The door swung open and Xander walked in, his expression grim.

"Buff, Spike went missing. Tara found out he isn't in your mom's bedroom anymore."

"Oh." She shook her head as if she wasn't sure that she had heard this right. "But - How - I thought Tara -"

"She lifted the spell on his restrains. I guess afterwards, the chains were as effective as bundles of lose lint in keeping him strapped down. She was quite upset about it after she found out he was gone, but it was of course none of her fault. It would have surprised me if Spike didn't try to trick her to scheme his way out."

There was this feeling of a rusty anvil sinking into her stomach as the message came clear to her. He - He walked out? In that state of mind? By his own? What did he want to do, get himself dusted!? Buffy's tired mind spun vivid pictures of a whole range of possibilities how Spike could get himself killed while he was halfway off to LaLa land. She had been there the first few minutes after he woke up; he was trashing around with his arms and legs trembling like an epileptic patient, screaming his lungs out. A little demonstration of any of that, and all the friendly demons in the neighbourhood would know that the blond vampire who had been a very effective ally to the Slayer had lost it completely and he would become an easy target.

"We have to find him." She gazed up at her friend, a determined look in her eyes and a tinge of anxiety in her voice as she spoke. "He's too weak to defend himself right now. If he walks into some old demony pals of his holding a grudge, he'll be dust before you can even say the word - vendetta -."

Xander nodded. "He took his duster with him. I guess that means he still had some bits of his brain functioning and isn't completely gone into the alternative reality thing yet. We have the best chance in finding him when we go look in the cemetery and his crypt."

"Good suggestion." Buffy opted. She suddenly didn't feel that sleepy anymore, her heart was pounding and a wave of panic was compelling her to do something about the grim situation, make her react fast and effectively. "You guys didn't tell Dawn about this?"

"Definitely not. She doesn't know. After that quite and peaceful conversation that you two had, she went to her room and locked herself in."

"Well, at least she did what I asked her to do." Buffy sighed. She got up from her bed and started heading for the door. Xander followed her in hasty steps. "Don't tell her. I don't want her trying to sneak out of the house to go look for him. How far is Will with the potion?"

"She told me it was almost done. She already got to the eyeballs of rat grinding part of the recipe. After that it's just a couple of hours more of simmering."

"Good. So the antidote is almost ready, all we need now is the patient." She remarked in a dry matter-of-fact voice. And, she thought, as soon as we find him, I'm gonna personally make sure that mister Big Bad isn't leaving us before he has at least a king-sized serving of anti-crazy juice poured down his gullet. Whatever guilt she suffered for getting him injured on her behalf, it wasn't enough to diminish her feeling of utter anxiety after having observed him in his delusional state. A lot of things suited the attractive blond vampire rather well, but bed-humping crazy was definitely not one of them. Right now, the priority was to get Spike back to normal again, even if it meant she had to club him unconscious and drag him home by his bleached hair. Lighter matters like guilt could be dealt later on, when she was half dozing off above the cash register at work for example.



SCENE 3

I had a plan. Well at least, it sounded like one. Didn't know if it was gonna be any good, but one had to try.

The moon shone like a sickly pale piece of goat-cheese in the sky as I strolled through Sunny D's West cemetery. The Hellmouth had made any business that had anything to do with getting rid of dead relatives as lucrative as selling central heating to nudists in Alaska, and although the relatively small town had only a population of 10450 inhabitants (hell Gods, pixies, and demons like yours truly here not included), it had two large and four smaller graveyards, all of them expanding on rapid pace. If my loopy mind was not playing tricks on me, it was here on the West Cemetery where I had my dig. It was a large crypt owned by some uptight blue-veined aristocratic family, all smooth marble and fancy pillars, that I had fixed up rather nicely, nicking bits and pieces from the Slayer and her friends. Things they didn't really need of course. I wouldn't get my hands on any of Buffy's furniture now that she had to work herself numb to afford any, but I had to admit that Harris old radio, standing-lamp, refrigerator, coffee-table and comfy chair were all rather handy. So were Red's carpet, coffeemaker, dog-eared paperbacks (She might be clever, but her appetite for badly written ten dollar crime pockets were as huge as mine), fluffy cushions and colourful tapestries. Oh, and I borrowed stuff from the Magic Shop as well, boxes of candles to lit up the place to create a nice cosy atmosphere, hexenweed, orgebush and crinkleroot, to make my next meal of château du piggy a bit more interesting. Hell, I even drink my meals from the Watcher's fancy novelty mug with the clever "Kiss the Librarian" pun.

Hey, what did you expect then? Of course I'm a thief. I'm evil.

I sniggered, giddy as I was. Yep. Evil. That's me. The Big Evil Dead, coming out to get you while you're sleeping in your comfy bed. Looming behind the curtains when you're careless enough to leave the windows open, with a tongue thirsting for fresh blood, baring fangs with the view of the veins pulsing underneath your tight skin. And then of course the terrible scream of agony cutting through the silence when the soddin chip kicks in and turns the Big bad into the Big Sad.

My cheery mood disappeared like a steamy box of pepperoni pizza in the hands of the Scoobs.

Who was I kiddin?

I'm beyond pathetic.

I shook my head, and with the surging sickness, the confusing thoughts of vampiredom spilled from my mind like overripe peaches from a tree. Mustn't think of being Spike or anything related to Spike. Must focus on getting back to Buffy. The real Buffy. The one with the soft and caring nature instead of the bitchy sadist that was currently carving lash marks on this whipping boy's back. Lifting my head, I looked around and orientated my way on specific landmarks that made wandering around in a cemetery at night a bit easier. I had already passed the Hilton tomb and the Applebee's family grave, the one with the funny little gargoyles, and I just had to turn another left when I reached the six feet high statue of Gabriel before I was back at my crib. From there, I figured, I could access the sewers and keep myself in hiding from the Scoobs till Dr Buffy found a way to wake me up again, perhaps take a couple bottles of Bourbon with me to pass the time. I couldn't do anything to make the transition back into the real world happen pronto presto, but at least I could stay away from all the hallucinated wankers who tried to keep me here.

I was already close enough to see the raised sword of the archangel cast a shadow over the graves when a sudden cold stung my body that made me suck in my cheeks, inhale deep and let out quivering breathes. A pale mist rolled by, a vortex of frail patches of light and darkness, settling down into vague shapes. I shivered as an image emerged, the translucent fog revealing a ghostly world before my eyes.

There were chains, again, but this time I was hanging from them, my naked form suspended from rusty steel cuffs that cut into my wrists. I was somewhere dark and cold, and the smell of damp hay and animal manure filled my nostrils. I was too dizzy to keep my head upright, so I just let it sag to one side, trying to let it rest on my chest. As I did, a gush of blood spilled out of a crusted wound on the other side of my neck. The tepid fluid, stolen from the living, but still bearing the unfading scent of my creator, glided down my battered body and fell into a half filled pail set out underneath me. The steady drip rippled the dark surface as it touched.

Angelus came to me, his eyes fixed in that trademark gloom that might be as eternal as his soddin existence, but there was that spark of malicious enjoyment in them that made me well aware of the less dangerous mood he was in. Still, I was chained like a dog and pretty much in agony, so there wasn't much to celebrate. He was dressed very properly; dark blue velvet trousers, and an immaculate white shirt, except for the tiny blood splatters that kinda spoiled the whole fancy theme. Silver cuff-rings held up his sleeves and his well-groomed hair was kept in a ponytail. You could have wrapped a merry bow around the bloody poofter and given him away to Buffy for Christmas, and Joyce wouldn't even have minded to let her daughter keep him. He looked like the perfect son in law, a real gent.

"William." He whispered with his fingers wrapped tightly around my chin. "Tell me that ye want it and I let ye out of here. Let ye see Dru again." He let go of me and stalked around, drawing small circles, a cat toying with his wounded prey. "Let ye hunt again. Feed again. Why, I would even be generous and allow ye to sleep in a proper bed instead of on the dirty floor in the stables. What do ye think, Will? Is this enough for ye?"

I let go of a ragged moan as a sudden flash of pain cut through my right side; a savage burning that left a trail of agony through my lower innards. My head sank down and I saw that there was a long, rusty metal pin sticking out of my body, impaling me from my back to the front, and I cringed as Angelus twisted the end around. Blood oozed out of the fresh gash, turning the drip into a gushing stream that filling up the pail at my feet pretty fast.

I didn't understand why I didn't scream. I wanted to. The pain was unbearable, maddening. But as I opened my mouth and strained my lungs, nothing came out except for some sort of bizarre primitive roar. The sound of a wounded animal, not of a tormented man. I tried to swallow and noticed that I didn't have a tongue to aid me doing so. Nothing was left of it but a fleshy stump, raw and thick, unable to bear words.

I dropped on my hands and knees, damp grass between my fingers that I grabbed onto in desperation. This wasn't real. I wasn't there. I was at the cemetery, trying to find my way back to reality. I was not in some dark and dank horse-stable back in a nancyboy dress-code era, getting tortured by that nightmare monster. It was a delusion. A delusion inside of another delusion. Yeah, that must be it! Dr Giles did once explain to me that my illness was multi-layered.

"Will, look at me lad."

"No, please leave me alone." I muttered. But I did what he demanded, quit gazing down at the lawn, raised my head and stared at him, blinking blood and sweat out of my eyes as I did.

His lips curled into a cruel smile. "Now is yer chance. Let me know that this is enough. I know ye can't really speak to me right now and that you're angry for what I've done to ye. But let me assure ye lad, everything is going to be fine. Trust me. Considering I let ye live that long to let it grow back that is."

I whimpered as he grabbed me by my hair and yanked my head to one side, exposing the horrible wound on my neck. He stuck two fingers in the gash, burrowing them into my torn flesh and I roared again as they dug deep into the damaged tissue, his fingers wriggling like two flesh-eating maggots.

I grabbed my neck and covered the wound with a shaking hand, expecting to find his fingers creepy-crawling inside of me but clutching nothing but my own undamaged skin. A red haze came over my vision, and the whole cemetery became obscured by a veil of blood. Shapes of tombstones that had been standing right in front of me in neat rows of four started to blur, while the nightmare visions of my torment increased alarmingly in intensity.

"Painful. Isn't it?" Angelus cheered. "Do ye want me to stop this, William? End all this pain and suffering that I bestow on ye? Tell me so, and I'll stop. Tell me what I need to hear."

I didn't have to ponder about it. There wasn't enough mind left in me to fill a doggy bag, let alone argue with him, so I gave in.

"Please stop this! It's enough! It hurts! It hurts! I'll do whatever you ask!"

But there wasn't a single understandable word coming from me as I lamented. Only a string of animalistic sounds that couldn't be deciphered even with the best of intentions, and Angelus wasn't exactly trying very hard to listen. His smile widened as he heard my painstaking efforts to plead for my life, his teeth showing.

"Do ye expect me to understand anything out of that mad barking of yers?" He hissed and somewhere beneath the muscles of my neck, his talons cut through my flesh and ripped me open from the inside out as easy as a set of kitchen knives going through soft butter. I gagged. Blood welled up from somewhere down my throat, a rupture of arteries that were supposed to supply blood to my brains but were now heaved up by me and dripped in lazy spills down my chin.

It dripped on the lean leaves of grass below be. Dazed, I raised a hand to catch a drop and toughed my nose to find a sticky string hanging on to it like a funny coloured booger. I snorted, clearing my nose. My mouth filled with the coppery taste of blood.

Oh hell. This was bloody insane.

I swabbed off the muck with the sleeve of my coat, hands trembling feverishly. I had to stay focussed. Keep myself grounded in this "reality" while my nightmares ragged and slammed against the confines of my sanity, trying to tear down the brittle barrier and get their hands on me. If I didn't succeed in even staying here, I was as good as dead. Angelus would kill me in that other, even lesser pleasant reality. He was already bleeding me dry for fun, wouldn't take much more for him to put a sharp wooden object through my heart while he was still on the whole torturing thing. Definitely, not eager to go there.

I tried to struggle back up, concentrating my vision on the cemetery surroundings, rather then the dark stable where I was almost tortured to death. It shadowed through into this reality like a thick red veil, as if two separated semi-translucent worlds were put on top of one another. I had difficulty using my hands and legs, for a part of me had already started to believe that they were restrained in metal cuffs and chains. I managed to get moderately back on my feet with only my right hand still supporting my trembling frame, when a scaly, red knuckled fist wearing big ugly rings, collided with my chin and sent me reeling over the soggy cemetery grounds.

Struggling up from the muddy earth, I flashed my eyes as I became aware that I was no longer alone in the graveyard. Five or six figures stood in front of me, dressed in black t-shirts with heavy metal prints and leather biker pants. Their faces were warped, inhuman, with bony structures growing out of anatomically incorrect places. Their skins a cooked lobster red.

With difficulty, I closed my mouth again and tightened my jaw, while being slightly aware of the sharp pain shooting up to my brains when I grated my teeth.

This was so very wrong in so many ways.

"Spike!" The unpleasantly familiar Inferno demon yelled. "Didn't expect you back anytime soon. The word got out that you finally got wasted."

"Steward." I muttered, than shook my head in absolute denial. "What - What are you doing here?"

"So you can still recognise me then!?" He moved toward me, his demon mates following a few steps behind, popping knuckles in cheer anticipation as they came closer. Something odd happened to Steward's face; there were large patches of black scar tissue spreading all over his skin, he was missing half an eyebrow and his right eye looked rather funny, too glossy and too dead to be real.

And then the notion hit me. "That bleeding I had, you've done that! You've whacked me in the face and - and have given me that nosebleed!" Hell, I thought I was going completely crackers here, but it was just something that was linked to this world that had done the damage and caused me to bleed. It wasn't Angelus. It wasn't him. I giggled, happily relieved. The bloody poofter didn't got me yet. I survived and was still standing, figurative speaking.

The Inferno demon gazed down at me with his one good eye, perhaps a bit confused about my unanticipated reaction, pupil narrowing to a narrow slit. "And what if I did? Do you think I still care about the demon rules of conduct when dealing with scum like you? After all that crap you've done to my face!? After you burnt out my fucking eye!? You treacherous bloodsucking weasel!"

I furrowed my brows in confusion. For all I could remember, I had been a very good boy for the last couple of months, considering the countless times I had ignored my cravings to do exactly what he accused me to have done to his bloody ugly mug. Still, the circumstances didn't look that good with Steward out on retaliation while I was trippin like a Flowerperson on communal tree-hugging and whale-saving classes. Better stay polite and try to explain to the wanker that he wasn't suppose to be here and that he should sod off, or else I'll let Buffy take in his turn for the remote. See if the bloody git could still zap that fast after I pick all the buttons out of the soddin telly.

"I - I haven't done anything - "

Before I could finish my incoherent jabbering, my vision shifted back to the other world, where Angelus approached me with a branding iron that he had taken off the fire just seconds before. The hot steel burst from orange- red into bright radiant white as he puffed on it, and the glow illuminated his features demonically. Weak and useless, withering in agony with no other thought occupying my mind but to escape the very pain that was ripping me apart, I watched how the brand was forced against the wound in my neck and, with a sick sizzling sound, burnt it close.

The Inferno demon's fist came down hard and fast with the momentum of the impact knocking me over. Both worlds blurred in front of my eyes, dancing around and all over each other as though I was looking through a crazy kaleidoscope. I gasped out of pain when a steel-capped boot hit me in the stomach, and suddenly, I was surrounded by a forest of leather clad legs and army boots, angry red lizard faces hovering above me, with Steward's ruined mug gawking down at me like some sort of craterous moon.

"Anything to say before I let the boys have your face exactly redone like mine, blood-leech!?" He smashed his foot over my right hand. I heard my finger-bones snap like dry twigs under his weight and I had to bite on my tongue to prevent myself from screaming.

Only I had no tongue to bite on any more, of course.

A sad whimpering sound, like that of a dying animal, gurgled up my throat, together with sticky bits of coagulated blood that obstructed my throat. I gagged and retched it out. Angelus' eyes were close to mine, studying me. The sickly sweet scent of burnt flesh lingered in the cold air, while the searing agony caused by the hot iron on my neck still spread through my body like decay on a corpse.

"Tell me what I want to hear, Will. Tell me and I'll help ye out. Let all that terrible pain go away."

My mind raced, I didn't got a soddin clue what he wanted from me. Or maybe it had elapsed me, and I had known it once. I cursed myself for being this slow, for being this daft. The end to all of my torment was only one or two words away and I had forgotten them. I would never get out of here alive. Angelus was going to turn me into ashes and use my remains to fertilize his precious rosebushes, and Dru would think that I had given up on her, that I had fled from the satanic Aurelius family like a complete sissy.

"See it as a bit of justice that has to be done." Steward was there again, squatting on his heels beside me, fiddling his silver rings with his disgusting scaly fingers. "Face it Spike, for all the bullshit you've pulled on your own kind, working together with the Slayer against us and all, you're lucky that we are only going to kill you once."

Somewhere from the corner of my vision, I saw a lead pipe come down on me. I buckled as it exploded on my spine. A second blow landed on the back of my neck and I tried to curl up into a tight ball to protect myself, pain blocking out any other emotion but deadening fear. One of Stewards lizard boys pulled out a Swish army knife and stabbed me in my arm, just as I tried to raise it above my head to shield myself from their kicks and blows. I started to scream and sob and finally gag in my own blood in pathetic agony, while fists and boots and whatever more the monstrous gang had to throw at me, beat down on my wretched body.

"Ye don't want any of this, lad. And it is not necessary. Just give in, for once. Tell me what I want to hear. Save yerself from all this suffering."

Angelus let go of me, and my abused body sagged down like a boneless bag of skin till it was withheld from plummeting to the ground by rattling chains. I was shaking, cold, and dying. The monster, he had drained me dry, not a drop of blood was left in me to keep me warm, to keep me going. I was no more but an empty vessel with the weakened demon inside, going crackers out of hunger for substance.

He had spilled all of my blood. Life bearing fluid. Given to me by my Sire. My beautiful Dru.

He had done this with a purpose.

He wanted to control me.

And then I finally realized what he asked of me.

The stab-wound in my arm throbbed and spread out a warm numbing sensation. I blinked as bright flashes of light appeared and immediately disappeared again, elusive and powerful like lightening. I could hear voices coming at me from far; sounding hollow, unclear, but also comforting familiar.

"Spike!"

Startled, listening to her yelling out my name, I noticed how the angry woods of legs parted. The assaults on my battered body ceased. I was only slightly aware of the panic that had struck the group of demonic fiends, when a couple of them were sent reeling over the ground, both set afire by blazing bolts.

"Slayer!" Hissed the Inferno demon, nostrils breathing out rings of black smoke.

"Buffy!" I shouted, or for as far my damaged lungs allowed me to. "Duck!"

He sucked in a deep breath of air, spread his mouth wide and a flame shot out the size you expect coming out of a flamethrower.

I couldn't see her, lying there pathetically in bits and pieces on the ground, dark shadows of demons obscuring me from what was happing behind them. I could only hope that she could handle the Inferno demons on her own. Steward and company were nothing fancy but six pyromaniacs against one Slayer still seemed a bit unfair.

"Buff, watch your back! He's trying again!"

The dark night's sky lit up like a soddin Christmas tree and I heard Harris roar a couple of Kamikaze yells before charging at the demons. It was followed by much grunting and groaning from the demon party. Guess the glorified bricklayer was having a good night.

"William."

I blinked as blood dripped in my eyes and started to also paint this reality red. There was her voice again. Buffy's voice.

"William, can you hear me? Please, wake up!"

No, not her voice .Not this Buffy. The real Buffy. The one with the PHD in psychology and the pleasant smile. The one who smelled like summer- strawberries. The Buffy who cared about me and was able to love me in all of my sad and pitiable glory.

Crawling on my elbows, I wriggled away from the demons who had turned their backs on me, straining every muscle in my body that wasn't bruised yet, however painful. I didn't see anything that could give me a soddin clue to where I should go. No guiding light, mystical portal or tear in the fabric of reality thing with a flickering sign reading "This way, you stupid git!" to help me out. But I could drag myself towards where her voice came from. Bring myself closer to her presence. Even if I didn't succeed in going back, I rather died within perhaps an arms length out of her reach with her warm and lovely voice ringing in my ears then to perish alone without even such consolation.

The dimensions shifted again, tombstones and diamond night sky disappearing into the background, while the freezing cold came back to me, and a sense of longing rose in my body so intense that the horrific injuries it sustained were just nothing compared to it. It was a craving, a hunger so deep and violent that it could drive a demon mad, or madder.

Angelus raised his left wrist to his mouth, and broke his skin with his fangs. With thirsting eyes, I saw how shiny droplets of crimson appeared at the surface. Wonderful, warm substance, the pleasant coppery smell of it lured my stomach into loud grumbling. My Grand Sire smiled at me, wicked and shrewd, then he ripped his flesh open, tearing a gaping wound the size of a sterling, out of which his blood ran freely. It trickled down his arm, spreading out like thin red branches over his pale skin.

I shivered pitiably. Eyes white rimmed and fixed on all that blood that spilled so wastefully on the floor. My own cold body yearning for it, begging for it, to have that wonderful taste fill my mouth and the warmth it carried inside of me, driving out the horrible cold.

"Ye're becoming one of mine, Will. Not a drop of yer Sire's blood is left in yer pitiable form. I've ended yer old existence and I shall give ye a new. A fresh start, so to speak, and all that ye have wronged me in the past shall be forgiven."

He lifted his bleeding wrist to up to my lips. I let out a ragged sigh of anticipation, and then sank my fangs into the wound, closing my crusted lips eagerly around it.

"This blood is life. A gift from this Sire to his Childe. An everlasting bond. Ye're mine now, Childe. Mine for eternity."

I swallowed the warm liquid. Letting it roll over the raw painful stump and let it glide down, fill up the hungry emptiness. I pushed back all the poisonous memories of the last couple of months, of all the humiliation, all the torture that this wicked man had let me gone through. This Monster that had tricked me in becoming his Childe. I closed my eyes and fixed my thoughts on my survival, on feeding solely, but my heart revolted with every sip I took from this malevolent creature.

I no longer belonged to my beloved Dru. Her privilege had vanished with the last beads of her blood leaving my body. Angelus had claimed me now. He had become my one and only true Sire, and as long as his blood flowed through my veins, he would possess me for eternity.

I collapsed on the lawn, my face buried in the muddy grounds, my fingers digging in my eyes till the pain it caused was visible in patches of rainbow colours. I didn't want to see all of this! Angelus, Slayer, and Harris. They all belonged here! What I had seen and had discarded, as a descent of my mind into another level of crazy Psycho Land was no other then a fragment of my past. Spike's past. A terrifying memory that should have been forgotten long ago if life was that merciful. In this reality, Angelus was real. He had existed here, and still did, lurking in dark recollections, eager to come out as soon as I was left alone.

I could hear myself scream, loud and shrill, madness resounding in my voice, while I rubbed my face in the mud, trying to burrow myself into the ground, perhaps even begging it to swallow me whole.

"Will! Please snap out of this!"

"Spike! What the hell are you doing?"

I clenched the sleeves of my trench coat between my fingers and tugged the whole thing over my head, huddling in the safe darkness underneath. My mad screaming gradually turning into a crazy laughter, while tears rolled down my cheeks.

"Please, wake up! Wake up, Will!"

"Oh God, please! Buffy! Don't leave me here! Help me! Don't leave me alone in the dark with him! I don't want to be crazy anymore! I'll be good! I'll behave myself! I'll be a good boy! Don't let him get me! Don't let him, don't wanne be here, don't wanne don't wanne don't - "

"Spike?"

"Will?"

"Don't! Don't tough me!"

I moved away from the hand that had tried to grab me, pulling up my legs against my belly and wrapping my arms across my chest. The darkness in which I was hiding was comfortable, soothing, numbing. It was like the burrow of a hibernating rodent, the air stagnant and thick with sleepy, deadly carbon dioxide.

I heard her voice again. This time no longer from far away, but close enough to hear her emotions sounding right through the words.

"Fight this, Will. You have to come back. You're strong enough to do this."

No I wasn't. I wasn't strong enough to do anything. I was alone, and lost and in the dark. This hole was my tomb. I could hide here forever without her ever finding me.

"Buffy. Help me."

My voice was small and without hope, an empty plead for forgiveness that wasn't anticipated. I didn't deserve her help. The things I had done, horrible, destructive things, all in the name of vicious, useless hate. Dreams of murder and death, all for blood. Dreams of vengeance and rage and resentment. How could I've made up all these dreams, if there wasn't real evil somewhere deep inside of me?

I curled up tighter in the dark, dreams of that fabricated world haunting me. Angelus was haunting me. What had I done to Liam? I hurt him, almost killed him. How could I do such wicked things? He was my brother, flesh and blood. We shared everything. That chair - I wanted to break in his skull with that chair. I wanted to destroy him. All because I believed I could just do such things, that I could allow myself to kill because I had killed before, being a heartless, evil vampire and all.

Oh God.

Liam was right.

I was mad.

My final resolve broke down, crumbling like a brittle wall, letting in the horrible beasties. Whimpering, I buried myself deeper into the darkness, into my grave. It would be better for her if she didn't see me. I didn't deserve her. I would hurt her. I was afraid of what I could do to the people I cared for once my mind was completely gone and the monster took over the wheels.

The darkness was all around me, claustrophobically close on my skin, deadening to the senses. But there were noises coming out of the dark. Angry voices, angry shadows, calling out to me. Telling me how useless I was, how wicked and bad and how I deserved to be left here to rot alone. Crawling on bleeding hands had knees, begging them to stop, I moved into a corner and huddled against it, fear gripping my throat. This was it then. The end of the whole soddin puppet show. This was where I belonged. Where I should be for the rest of eternity. Away from everything and everyone, away from her. Monsters were supposed to be kept out of the light. Timmy had been bad, wandering around in the dark after sunset, now he fell down the bloody well and no one would ever bother to rescue him out of there. They were all very happy to be rid of him, even sealed the soddin lid. Poor, stupid little twat.

The voices became louder and more known to me, and each one of them had the bloody right to shout those ugly things that made me feel worthless, lower then dirt. I started to sob, and softly, I rocked my body as my mother would have if she had been there to provide me comfort. But there wasn't real comfort, there wasn't anything. It was just me, and them, and the darkness.

And then a hand, warm and soft, took hold of mine and pulled me out of there.



SCENE 4

She watched him struggle against his invisible demons, body curled up in a protective foetal position on a white sheet canvas, his arms and hands shielding his anxious face. His fear and agony pained her, moved her more then it should, considering that she was an experienced doctor, and had witnessed more human suffering than one could imagine. She winced when she saw him claw at his own face, scraping his blood rimmed nails along his cheeks till they wept crimson beads. Her hands lashed out, grabbing his and forcing them down, using all her strength to overpower her patient's mad vigour. Mike came to her with the wet sheets and the restrains, heavy leather belts to be fastened to the metal rings under the bed, but she shook her head.

"Not now. He's fighting it. Leave him alone."

The orderly gave her a questioning gaze, then put the restrains aside on the small nightstand next to the bed and helped her to force William's arms down while the young man wailed and screamed in broken words, the drugs they had injected into his bloodstream tearing down his delusional prison. He panted, chest rising and falling in a hyperventilating pace, his eyes white rimmed in horror, his mouth uttering frightened whinges. It was then that she heard him call out to her.

"Buffy. Help me."

Her heart felt heavy, pained. Somehow, his words had deepened the forbidden, secret feelings that she had for this patient. His plead sounded so piteous, perhaps even apologetic, as if he wasn't expecting her to offer him any help and he was sorry for bothering her.

She grabbed his hand and held on to it. It may be that he wasn't conscious enough to know that she was there, but at least she could try to offer him as much comfort and support as she possibly could. There was relief when she finally saw the madness fading out of him, his tensed body unwinding till his knees were no longer pressing against his ribcage. Slowly, his respiration became more tranquil, and the fear that had been showing on his face ebbed away as she stroke a damp lock of hear from his forehead. When she thought that there was no longer danger of him wounding himself, she told Mike to let go of his arms, and she watched how he tossed and turned like a child, awakening from a terrible nightmare.

And then the light that had been lost behind the insanity returned into his eyes, a spark of recognition came back to them as he was looking into this world rather then staring right through it to hide into his own.

He gazed at her through an opening from under the shelter of arms that he had draped over his head and neck, a frightened and confused animal that had been hunted down cruelly.

"It all right William." Buffy said, her voice light and gentle. "It's all right. You're back with us now. No one will hurt you here."

He muttered something under his breath, then pressed his back against the wall, backing away from her.

"Let me help."

He whimpered and curled away when she tried to touch him. It puzzled her since he had accepted her holding his hand, even clung on to it as though he was a desperate man drowning at sea. Why would he be afraid of her?

"Will." Buffy had to swallow something cold and uncomfortable that would have otherwise made her voice quiver. "Please, I won't hurt you."

His body shivered as if he was struck by cold. Anxiously, he shook his head.

"No, no, no, no, no, no." He muttered. "Not you. You won't. But the other- thing."

"What other thing, William?"

Buffy had to repress a sigh of relief when she heard her patient finally talking back to her, however elusive the conversation may be, it was something to keep him here, to ground him in reality.

"Dark things." He explained, furrowing his brows in dismay. "Things that will hurt you if you're bad." Blue eyes pierced around, suddenly terrified, then he asked in a broken, small voice. "Have I been bad?"

"No, you're not bad, William." Buffy answered, her growing sense of dread started to overshadow the joy of recovering him from his delusional world. "Don't be afraid. The dark things won't get you. Just let me-"

She reached out to him, her hand barely touching his shoulder. William screamed, panic spurring his impulses, moving his limps as though he was controlled by a spasmodic puppeteer. His legs lashed out and struck her in the side, just under her ribs.

Buffy let out a cry and buckled over in pain.

Mike grabbed the thrashing patient by his wrists, forcing them to be stretched above his head. The bright light of the room finally beat down on his bewildered face and William squinted his eyes, astounded that he was by so much light. It was harsh enough to make him terrified.

"Don't!" He cried out. "Don't belong here! Too much light! Burn. They'll make me burn."

Mike straddled him, sitting on his legs till William was no longer trying to strike out with them to fight off his invisible monsters. Finally, his cries died down, his mind shocked by the notion that the light didn't make him burst into flames. Then his eyes caught her standing there in the corner of the white room, nursing her side with a trembling hand, a terrified expression on her face, and softly, he started to sob.

"Told you!" He shouted through his tears, angry with her that she didn't understand. She never did. Never listened. "Dark things. They make it hurt. Make you hurt. Should stay away from dark things. Leave them alone."

He started hyperventilating again, eyes shifting from one empty space in midair at the end of his bed to the other, as if he was looking at a crowd of people that had gathered around him.

"No!!" He cried out, mightily pissed off by their apparent maliciousness against the girl. "She doesn't deserve it! She's not like me. And bloody hell! Stay out of my bloody business!!!"

The angry shout died down into another sob, the craziness inside making him crave to crawl back into that hole again where he could deal with the hostile voices in isolation. But instead he turned his head to his side and gazed at her, weeping with wide-open eyes.

"Buffy?" He asked in concern, almost like a chivalry knight finding the damsel in distress. He had already forgotten what he had done. "Buffy, are you alright?"

Buffy let out a tattered sigh. This was too much for her to bear. Both physically and emotionally, she was drained and horrified. William's cryptic tongue frightened her, as did the murderous rage inside of him that she had seen through the cracks of the icy surface of his paralysing fear. But most of all, it ached her heart to see him like this, so confused, so very lost in madness. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath, trying to control herself. Somewhere buried deep underneath all that torturous insanity, William was crying out to her, begging for help. She would not let him down.

"Yes, I'm alright. Nothing wrong with me." She said to put him at ease, although she knew that there would be a purple bruise the size and the shape of a foot on her skin tomorrow morning. "Calm down, William. Don't listen to those voices."

"Can't." He whispered, afraid that they would hear. "They are always there. Laughing. Talking. Ticking me off. They -" He struggled against Mike's firm grip on his wrists. "No, it's all my fault. Not hers. Or his. I should - I should have known better then to take the whole special package deal without reading the microscopic small prints first."

Buffy walked over to him, a grave mood choking the air out of her throat as she spoke.

"What are they trying to tell you, Will?"

"They -" He paused, listening to their arguments, then whimpered in distress. "Can't do that. Please, don't make me." He hid his face in the pillows, trying to ignore their unpleasant shouting. "Besides, it won't help." He tried. "He's here and it's here. They won't leave. Won't let me rest."

She knelt down beside him, gazing into his bewildered eyes, her anxious face reflecting inside his dark pupils.

"They tell me that I'm bad, Buffy." His voice broke down into a quiet sob. " Poisoned and dead inside. A dark evil thing. I make it hurt." He blinked with his eyes, awareness suddenly rushing back into him. "Oh God." He muttered, staring at her hand shielding her side. "I'm sorry."

"It's - It's okay. Don't blame yourself. You didn't mean to."

"No it's not. Not okay." He shook his head, ashamed. "I've been - I wasn't - that "thing" " He spat the word out in disgust and self-loathing. "I let it get you."

"Will, don't do this to yourself. I'm fine."

"No! Not fine! It's not the girl! Not the girl! Don't hurt the girl!" He struggled free from Mike's grip and lashed out, balding his right hand into a fist and starting hitting his own face with it. "Get out!! All of you!!" talking as if he was trying to chase those voices out of his head. "I don't - I need -" He arched a brow, then stated in an offended voice; "Honestly, your advice is totally out of place here."

"Mike," Buffy's voice trembled. "Put him into the cold sheet pack before he hurts himself."

"You're going to strap down again?" He asked sadly, but with a calm and lucidity in his voice that alarmed her. "You're absolutely right. You should." To her relief, he stopped hitting himself, and stretched his free hand out to her, offering to be held down. "Please, do it. I'm sure I will be grateful."

She helped the orderly to undress him and wrap the blank sheets around his bare body. He shivered piteously when the icy wet fabric touched his skin, but didn't fight to get them off. He just stared up at her, his lips trembling, his eyes begging. She worked fast, pulling the sheets tight and adding new layers while rolling him back and forth over the mattress. Her hands were trained to do this, so was her mind academically instructed to accept this treatment that she put him through as an efficient remedy to calm down his insanity, but inside, she had difficulty accepting this as not yet another terrible ordeal that she had made him to suffer so futilely.

When it was time to secure the leather restrains, she could not longer handle the situation and she had to let Mike finish it while she rushed outside, her stomach heaving. She leaned back, the cold of the hygienically tiled walls slipping through her white doctor's coat, making her tremble. Inside the room, she heard him make a small pleading noise, anxiety expressed in a whimper, no longer in words, when Mike tightened the restrains and fastened them, leaving him in an ice-cold cocoon, bound to the bed.

Her face was as white as the walls in this ghostly place when the orderly came out of the isolation room, gently shutting the door behind him.

"I'm sorry. I - I couldn't -" She stuttered, trying to apologize for her professional error.

"It's okay Dr Summers." Mike said. "He has calmed down now. We should leave him for a while."

"I should have listened to you. I shouldn't have let my emotions get in the way of my judgement."

"It's those emotions that you show that makes me believe that you're a good doctor in the first place." He gave her a reassuring smile. "It proves that you truly have heart for your patients. Sometimes, in a place like this, a heart is all that's lacking to get them well."

Buffy looked up at the tall orderly. "You shouldn't say that!" She uttered. "I've done nothing right. I'm a total screw-up! I mean, look at him! He's even worse now than he had been when I first started treating him."

"What are you talking about? You were the one who brought him back! You pretty much saved him from himself. There was nothing more that you could have done to help him out, Dr Summers. What happened in there was not your fault."

"It is my fault." She stated bitterly. "Because he's my responsibility. He had problems. He was in pain. But I didn't notice them. Dismissed his complains as nothing serious, nothing to worry about. My patient's mind was falling apart and all I had to offer him was a light-hearted "Everything is gonna be all right" speech and my endless strings of fine-fine-fines!" She looked down at her shoes, wiping a stubborn tear from her cheek.

"I ruined him. He's like this all because of me."

She bit on her lower lip. The tears of guilt could no longer be held back. Mike wrapped his arms around her, and she accepted his kindness gratefully. Huddling against the white overall of the orderly, she finally let them roll freely down her face.



TBC

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