TITLE: "Normal again" (8/8?) part IIIb
(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.
ACT 8: I shouldn't be talking to myself. I can't stand that bloody git.
SCENE 9
Wonderful, beautiful, and incredible. That's what she was. The soddin cherry on my soddin pie, all sweetness and sugary goodness. Did I mention she was wonderful? Did I? Well, she was. Didn't want to spin three times around forgetting about that! She, with her goldy-locks and pouting lips. Her eyes, God, I could swim and drown in those eyes.
I loved her so much that it bloody hurts.
And she loved me.
She - she kissed me.
Buffy kissed me!
Not that she had never kissed me before. The fake Buffy that was. Back in Crazy Never Never land where she was a sadistic little Slayer and I the ever love-sick whipping boy, her pet vampire so to speak. But even then, before I finally realized after waking up that I had been trippin on foggy brain-farts, I knew very well that it wasn't real. Lust, craving to do wrong, the dark luscious appeal of seduction, followed by mind-boggling, sweaty flesh on flesh shagging. That's what it was. Not love. It had never been love. Until now.
I gazed up at her, all cheer happiness and moronic gratitude, strapped in my wheelchair, wheeled around because my legs refused to walk. Stupid, silly little legs, all rubbery, like they were made of molten strings of soddin tin instead of bone and flesh and skin. But I didn't mind. How could I? She was right beside me, supervising my ol' mate Mike while he was wheeling me through the corridors (You may think it was buggery-daft, but you have to be in control of these things. Really, wheelchair-pushing is not for the average inexperienced wanker. You need to have a licence to be allowed to get behind that chair, trust me).
"Where are we going?" I asked, and watching her face reminded me of that kiss she had given me just then. She smiled at me, her endless kindness warm and pleasant on my skin and I wished that she could bath me in that loving, caring, radiant smile forever and ever.
"We're bringing you back to your room. Don't worry. Everything is going to all right. I'll take care of you, promised."
Back to my - But there were - Oh no no no no! That was definitely not all right. Not good. Not good at all.
"Don't bring me there!" I yelled, a tad to loud, a bit too freaked. "Buffy, I don't wanne go back there. That room, it's swarming with the nasty head buggers. Don't want to be crazy again. Don't wanne let them get into my head." I pleaded with her, eyes begging. Begging helped. With her it always did. "Please, don't."
She looked at me, a gracious God, ever forgiving. Ever loving. Even if I had been worse than the devil himself. She did pity me. I'm bloody well insane but not a complete idiot here. But I knew that she loved me not because she though of me as a poor lost wee little lamb to be guided back into the flock of brain-dead, drooling sheep, she loved me because - Why did she actually love me? I couldn't think up any good reason for her to hand her heart over to this nasty piece of work. I didn't deserve her. She was light, compassion, everything that was bloody worth spending your days on this rotating heap of dirt for. I, on the other hand, was - (a tyrant, a killer, a liar, ruthless, pitiless, EVIL) was not worth her love.
I started to hyperventilate. Somewhere from down the very depressing hallway returned the first whispers of doubt, cold and bitter. It swept me away, carried my soddin carcass like a corpse drifting on foaming waves, and I froze.
"William, what's wrong?"
The whispers grew stronger, more violent in their descriptions of malice, but still it was no more but a faint, ghostly murmur of a long dead crowd. I shook my head and pressed my hands on ears, frightened whimpers escaping my throat while my personal demons droned monotonously in my head.
~ Murderer ~ Murderer ~ Dead inside ~ Evil disgusting thing ~ Soulless ~ She won't ~ She doesn't ~ She will never ~ She is ~ weakness ~ Your weakness ~ hunted ~ hunter ~ killer ~kill her ~ Kill her ~ That last request came to me in Dru's luring voice, sing-songing it into my brains. I closed my eyes, horrified.
"Buffy." I said, weakly. My words got stuck. I was so very afraid that she could hear them too, so terrified that she might get to know what was spooking through my head and just leave.
"Don't listen to them." She grabbed hold of my hand. "I'm here. I'm not leaving you."
Really, how did this girl know when to say the exact right thing? Is she a natural or what? I nodded, sensing the hostility in the chaotic voices swell like a soddin baboon's bum after spanking. Ignoring it, as best as I could. Any idea how hard that is, to ignore a thousand voices all yelling at you at the same time, trying to talk you into doing crazy things, piling up a guilt complex inside of you that exceeds the limits of the soddin sky? It was impossible, almost. If it wasn't for her, I wouldn't have even tried. Got better things to do than attempt to empty the endless oceans with a leaky bucket. Got people to meet, places to be. The sulphuric pits of molten lava in hell to visit. But she was here, right by my side, and everything suddenly became so much less stressful. Made me wanne stay away from those voices instead of granting their common wish and go find a couple of sharp razorblades or stick my head in a thick pillow.
"Don't bring me back to that room." I sobbed, bloody sissy that I was. "Please don't. They're all waiting for me there."
She was silent for a moment. Indecisiveness and anxiety pulling on her like heavy weights. You could almost see her balancing her options in her bare hands.
"Mike, perhaps we should bring him to the seclusion-room. I don't like the idea of restraining him."
Mike nodded and made a turn left, away from the ghostly company that was expecting me in my own bedroom. I sighed of relief as their whispers died down till it was no more than an annoying buzz that I could ignore when I kept thinking my own train of thoughts. Had to keep myself busy though. The trick was not to be quiet enough to hear them.
"Hey, I've never been here before." I opted, when they helped me out of the roller and into the tiny room. "Padded walls, padded floor, padded door." I murmured. Then, getting curious, lifted my eyes to the ceiling. No padding of course. They didn't think that I could jump that high. "Oh, I get it!" I said, a bit proud. A bit cocky. I didn't get to be cocky a lot these days. "This is for crazy people, right?"
"Um, yes - I mean, no. It's just a quiet little place where you can calm down." Her cheeks flushed, pretty pink blushes. She was embarrassed, feeling guilty to have to lock me in here. I could tell.
"Silly me. Silly crazy William. It's - a resting kind of place, of course. Not a nut palace." I murmured, shaking my head. I didn't want to upset her. Wasn't her fault that I was as mad as a revolving door. I sat down on the wobbly floor with my back against the wobbly wall. Pulled my knees up, wrapped my hands around my legs and gazed up, giving her a huge - Hey, look at me, mom! - grin. "I think I stay here for a while. To get - calm."
Buffy hesitated. "You're sure? If you want to go somewhere else, there are vacant bedrooms at the other side of the ward and -"
"I'm fine, really." Shaking and nodding my head, not sure if I did the right thing in the right order. "It's a good place. No voices. And it's all comfy and soft and oh, look! No gory bloodstains! That's always a winner on my bed -and - breakfast guide."
She rewarded me with a little smile. Still, she looked sad, was concerned about me. I think I didn't try hard enough not to upset her.
"Look, don't worry about me." I said, in my sanest voice that I could master. "I'll be all right. You said so yourself. Go and do whatever you have to do to make a living in here and - and shut the door. Let me deal with myself. I think I can handle the bloody git."
She gazed at me, the tenseness in her shoulders dropped a bit after the thinned out comfort that I had to offer. "If you need anything." She said, gently. "If you don't want to be in here anymore. just open the small window on the doorpanel and call us."
I nodded and smiled at her. That type of smile you gave to your loved-ones on Sunday-lunches to let them know that your life was all roses and peaches, while in the meantime, you really got dumped by your girlfriend, fired from your job and evicted from your apartment. Quite desperation, hidden beneath a toothy, faked grin.
She leaned toward me and gave me peck on my damp forehead, her lips surprisingly warm against my flushed skin.
"Try to lie down and sleep a little. I'll be back to see you tomorrow morning." She cupped my face with a comforting hand. I leaned into it, brushing my cheek over the gentleness of her touch.
I didn't want her to leave me. In here, all by myself with nothing to listen to but my own bug-shagging gibberish. It was dark outside and all the corridors of this comfy madhouse were not stretched long enough to separate my torment-demons from my short-circuited brains for very long. She was my bloody sun that chased away the nasty dark dwelling creatures in broad daylight. And now that she was leaving, I was stuck at twilight with the growing sense of dread that I didn't exactly know how to make a light to be able to go through the night without getting hunted down and killed.
"Buffy." I tried. To explain it to her. To beg her.
"Yes?"
"Nothing." I swallowed a lump, huge and heavy to digest, chewing on my lower lip. Not enough balls to ask her. How sad.
"See you tomorrow. Good night."
"Uhuh." I managed to babble, then she left and the door was closed behind her and I could hear the clicking of several locks. The lights didn't go out, but somehow, the place seemed darker after she was gone.
It was not my intention to act crazy or anything. I wanted to be sane, whole again. No creepy mind crawlers to drive me crackers, no more vindictive dead aristocrats leaving piles of maggots under my bed. But the point was that it was kinda difficult not to act crazed when you were in fact absolutely nutters. Your body wanted to, your mind hungered for it, and the surroundings in which yours truly here was located right now was all inspiring, of course. It was really the most decent thing to do, to fill this quiet little room with all the madness that was slamming and screaming inside. I let it all out, the fear, the anxiety, the self- loathing, a Catholic sized GUILT. All in brilliant colours, sickening green, depressing blue, dangerously bright red, all with their own set of creative agony that compelled me to literally bounce off the soddin walls (No, I didn't bounce high enough to knock my head on the ceiling, if you wanne to know). I couldn't see or hear or notice anything till the raging storm had settled down, and I found myself weeping, huddled against the smelly padding and trembling like a wet dog. Rocking back and forth, my mouth uttering nonsense.
That was when I saw him standing there at the other side of the cramped room, silently watching me. Soddin pity all written over his haughty face.
I took a ragged breath, wiped tears out of my eyes with tugged up sleeves. Composing myself as best as I could.
"What do you want?" I asked, agitated. No patience was in me to deal with the likes of him right now.
He lifted his silver framed glasses with the tip of his finger, ever so slightly. A nervous tick the bloody nonce had, together with his pencil ticking on empty sheets of paper and endless nail biting. A disgusting habit if you asked me.
"I came to see you." He said. Just like that. As if it was all the information I needed to know what was exactly going through the wuss' pudding brains to pay me a visit on this hardly favourable time.
"Yeah? You're here and you're done with seeing me. So sod off. Leave me alone."
"What happened?" He asked, brows all furrowed in concern.
"It's none of your business. Piss off!"
"What do you mean it's none of my business?" He said, surprisingly louder now. "I was you, Spike! Don't you think I deserve to know what's happening to us while you're floundering around, wasting decade after decade, using my mortal vessel as a cheap rental to go cruising through the swamps of absolute immorality? Doesn't the rightful owner get a say in any of this delusional adventure of yours?"
"Hey, I thought you were supposed to be a poofy Victorian wanker. What's with all the modern poetic talk?"
"I was." He opted. "But try spending a whole century in limbo with a whole bunch of shady types flowing through the gates while your stuck at the bar with your millionth serving of Brandy and I can assure you that you'll be able to pick up the changes in modern language pretty fast."
He walked toward me. Well, not walking in the precise definition of the word. He moved his feet but he was sinking into the padding constantly, waddling through with possibly his neat shiny brown leather shoes dangling somewhere close to the ceiling of the floor below us.
"Really." I said, being sarcastic. " I didn't know you drink. Didn't I make you up to be all vomity allergic to alcohol?"
"Yes well, you learn to drink quickly and a lot with the likes of you keeping me out of heaven. Any idea what kind of hell limbo is? It's like sitting in an overcrowded cocktail-bar, watching everybody who came in later than you getting a table at Our Lord's first. I mean, I do have good manners of course, but even a soul has only a limited amount of patience."
"You're bug-shagging crazy." I said. "You're not real you idiot! Didn't you hear me? I said I made you all up! Some weird alter-ego thing probably. Hell knows what that was any good for. You're not my long lost soul spending eternity in God's waiting room. You wish."
"What? " The stupid git was one of those annoying as hell characters who did understand you loud and clear the first time around, but had to seal every line you utter with a moronic question. "Spike! You're not serious are you? I mean, you don't really believe that all this is real, do you?"
"Look Gibbering One, I'm ill. I'm bloody insane. So stop bugging me. We can have this conversation another time, over a cup of imaginative earl Grey and sandwiches perhaps. Right now, I'm trying my very best to calm down in here, because that's what this room is made for, right? To calm down and NOT to listen to the bloody headbugs who are trying to make me crazy. You being here, is not exactly helping."
"Spike, I'm not one of your personal demons. Listen to me. You're ill all right, but not in the way you think you are. We have to get ourselves out of here."
"Oh, really. Brilliant plan. Didn't think of it myself. Of course I have to get out of here! But only when I'm sane, dimwit!"
I watched him roll his blue lookers to the padding-free ceiling and suck in his cheeks. Irritated of course, I know I would be if I were him.
"I'm only sent here to help. Stop being so obnoxiously offensive."
"Stop calling me Spike. It's William."
"No you're not. Not really. I am William. I'm not sure who you are." He tilted his head and stared at me, this poofy version of me in tweed jacket and flannel trousers. An air of bookish nerdism floating around his head like a soddin nimbus. "Actually, I'm not even sure why I need to be here in the first place. Undoubtedly, it wasn't your fault that you were injured by that horrible demon thing, what it's called? That dreadful Glarkul-what-me nik?"
"It's glarghk guhl kashma'nik. And you're partly right. You're definitely not me. You're a hell of a lot stupider."
The wuss strolled around the tiny room, ignoring my snarky response, obsessively rambling about himself. The egocentric git.
"Right, they send me here in order to fix things. Set the record straight. Offer me a chance to get off my barstool and into the highly desired place. But, bloody hell! What in heaven's name am I supposed to do with you? You're - a demon! I've never heard of any demons redeeming themselves successfully, let alone one of them slip past the gate's security and make it into heaven."
"I'm not a demon." I tried to explain to the very obnoxious illusion, not being very patient with him. "I'm a bloke. A crazy bloke, but still human, definitely not demon."
"You are a demon. Trust me. After I died, and the cosmic powers kicked me out of my dead and limp body before I could even finish my strings of embarrassing ohings, you came crashing in with the eagerness of an Hungarian immigrant. Don't you remember the first moments after being turned? How strange it felt to be a part of matter? To have a real body at your disposal? Before that, you were nothing but a wobbling field of chaotic energy drifting through the ether, clinging on to that insane vampire girl, nagging on and on in her poor head to help you find a vessel."
"I don't remember being surprised, except for suddenly being dead and buried, that is." I stated bitterly. Then, realizing that I was reasoning into the wrong direction again, added rather lamely. "Not that any of that was real of course."
"You thought it was you who died because you had my body, Spike. There are things that tend to seep into the mortal flesh, experiences, emotions, hiding in the cracks and creases, not removed when the soul is evacuated. I lived in that package of yours for 26 years, my friend. Even your rusty old Lincoln is getting shaped after your dare I say flamboyant personality after ten-odd years, don't you think that I would at least leave an impression of me in there? Something to affect a powerful but absolutely naïve demon barely taking its first steps into the material world?"
"You want me to believe all this?" I asked, trying to sound bold, but meanwhile, there was this feeling of unrest in my bones that started to work its way up into my spine, riding the express highway to my mind. "Bloody hell! I've heard enough gobbledigook in the last couple of hours to bake a soddin fruitcake out of it, but this is absolutely richer than dairy fat!"
"It's true. I'm not lying to you. You're not the real William August Byron who died in 1880. You're a demon, shaped by my memories and feelings, driven by your own instincts to do the absolutely wickedly wrong things, and thereby condemning my immortal soul to hell -"
"Hang on there a minute!" I thought I had discovered the flaw in his fantastic tale, something to shut the wanker up so he would stop making me nervous. "If you're right that you're by no means me, why will you be responsible for anything I do or won't do?"
"Because it was my fault. You see, I let Drusilla bite me. She tempted me into it, true, and I was having a particularly bad night, with Cecily breaking my heart and those rich snobs laughing at my work. He should have picked any other day to test my determination in doing the right thing perhaps. However, the point was, I still could have walked away. Stopped her. She would have probably drained me dry after refusing her, but I wouldn't be responsible for creating a dangerous vampire to taunt mankind for the upcoming 120 years. In a certain way, all the innocents you've murdered, all the evil you have done, was partly my doing too." He sank his head, his eyes averted to the murky yellow stains on the padding, and for a brief moment, I felt sorry for him. I knew what it was like, to have your mind eaten away by guilt.
"So after my death, He decided that I should wait outside of the golden gates till He had made up His mind of what to do with me. I was a lucky chap not to be cast down into the fiery pits of hell immediately. I mean, every word picking judge would have found me guilty and discarded me with the rest of the sinners to spend the rest of eternity in damnation. It was, to a certain extend, a very cowardly approach to attempt suicide from my side, allowing her to kill my old self in return for something better. Such a fool I was."
I listened quietly. My heart quivering, my palms sweating. I didn't really like this scary little bedtime story he was telling. Even if it was of course, as fake and unlikely as a tasty brand of American beer, the whole theory behind his imaginative babbling brought a chill into my body.
"But I'm here because of you. You are one nasty piece of work, you know that?"
I nodded, and for the first time since the poofter had appeared in the room, I became a bit frightened of him.
"They told me they were watching you. Just as I did if I was drunk enough to dare to take peek down, that was. There isn't a spot on our skin that hasn't been once drenched in other people's blood."
I sank my head in shame. Somewhere from behind the secured door, I heard one of my demons laugh at me.
"They say that you've changed."
I lifted my head, gazing up at this mirror image of myself. Unable to understand how it could be that I wasn't the man that I believed to be, William August Byron, the insecure young man dreaming of becoming a writer, driven to madness by his own delusions, a complete nutter, perhaps, but real. A person.
This noncy git who was halfway down to scaring the crap out of me was terribly convincing in pushing me to believe that I was nothing but a dark ugly force cast into a deceased man's body. His body, of all bloody people.
"It's all because of her, isn't it? That girl. The Slayer?"
Buffy, again everything leaded back to Buffy. As if my whole soddin existence was built on hers. That I merely came to be, to play a part in her struggles fighting against the dark evil forces. How did this wanker exactly know, how to make me feel so insignificant and utterly useless?
"She's a good thing that we're having in our life. Don't turn your back on her. She's the only one who keeps you away from damming us straight to hell."
"I won't abandon her. I love her." I uttered, before I could put a cork in it.
He smiled. "I know you do. You've done something extraordinary because of that love. Something that's possibly my only salvation. Yours too."
I blinked my eyes, heavily confused.
"You see, you were not supposed to end up in here. There had been a bit of a mix up in the fate department."
"What?!" I asked, dumb-folded.
He sighed, embarrassed to have to tell me this. "Well, you were not supposed to be getting poisoned by that Glarkal kulllurlu - oh balls."
"Glarghk guhl kashma'nik." Slightly surprised by his swearing. You don't get to hear your Victorian double utter a word like that everyday.
"Right, that thing. Thank you. It should not have been you who was sent into this asylum-verse of Sunny Dale. It should have been Buffy."
"What?!!" I uttered, that daft moronic word again, but I was too baffled to think of something smarter to say.
"Honestly, I don't have any bloody idea what you were doing there in the first place. It was by all means, hardly helpful what you did. It only complicated everything, sent destiny reeling off track. The chaps up there are working overtime trying to fix this little paradox you've created. Hence, my part in the whole rescue mission."
"I don't get this."
"It's simple. I have to convince you to get back into the right dimension. I didn't have the slightest idea how to do that, so I decided to just tell you the whole story. Hoping that you might still have enough common sense in the pudding of your brains to realize that you don't belong here."
"I do belong here." I muttered, desperately clinging on to those words. "I - I'm crazy and all that about me being a - a demon, a vampire. It's all bullocks! Made up, like you are! All fancy little lies to keep me from staying awake. Staying sane. I won't believe a word you blather you hallucinated wanker!"
"Spike, listen. You really can't stay here. I know it's quite comfortable for you, particularly now that Dr Summers has finally told you the one thing that you like to hear so much, but the point is that you're needed back in the other reality. The original intention of getting Buffy here was to let her know that she was needed by her friends, that she couldn't just keep her head stuck in a pail of mud to avoid the blows. If everything went according to schedule, like it had infinite times before, she would have figured what was to be taught by the end of her second day in the institution. You, on the other hand, are a very slow student."
"Look, I'm not going back, no matter what you say. Why do you care if I return to good ol' SunnyHell or not? Are they gonna let you in as soon as I transport my consciousness back into your corpse or what?"
"It's hardly that easy." He grinned, bitterly. "It has to cost a lot more than that. In the end, I've to pay dearly for all of our sins. And so do you."
"And you're surprised that I'm not eager to jump in?" I stated. "Besides, they're punishing me already. All those made up victims of my shadowy past? They're here. Tormenting me. Driving me to the bloody edge of self- mutilating desperation."
"And it will become worse. Trust me, I know. But it's part of the path you've chosen."
"What soddin path? I didn't explicitly ask to become a masochistic nut! I just - I just want to be sane again - normal - to be with her."
"But you'll never be able to be with her if you stay here. Don't you see this, Spike? This is the devil's easy way out. His free-out-of-jail card offered to you on a silver serving-tray, rimmed by slippery deceit with a forked tongue. You think you've earned it, after all that you've suffered. You think you should get the girl and live happily ever after as the reward of everything fate had made you to swallow. But you have to ask yourself, truly, what have you done so far to deserve to be forgiven by Him? What in your actions has made you equal enough to deserve her?"
"I - " I tried to think clearly, search deep within my memories, both the false and real ones, to justify myself, justify my luck to have her. But I couldn't find anything or I had to lie.
"I - don't. Oh God. I don't." My words became garbled as my over- productive tear-ducts started working again. He watched me sob in silence, compassionately, but unresponsively, like God himself watching the disasters that taunt humankind taking place from up his throne shaped cloud. Deeply moved, perhaps blinking away a tear or two, but generally not even lifting a bloody finger to help out.
"He's not indifferent you know. He's only doing what a good parent should, let His children stand on their own feet and find their own strength. You can't blame Him for the weakness of man to abuse whatever freedom of will that is given to them to turn it into something ugly."
"What are you? A bloody mind-reader?"
"I'm just a soul who had spend too much time talking to other miserable souls, only I had time to think about everything what was said while the others rushed into heaven after a couple of decades or plunged right into the burning inferno below."
"I don't exactly remember you having a very strong and balanced character either." I snorted, shielding my sorrow and insecurity with sarcasm and wit. "What happened to the bloody awful whimpering poet?"
He didn't bite. "People grow, Spike. Even dead ones. Demons on the other hand, are not very known for their ability to change for the better. That's what makes you such a strange case for them to crack. You're different. It's hardly imaginable for a demon to be able to grasp something as elusive to them as the concept of conscience. But here you are, feeling guilt and remorse without the guidance of a soul. That is quite an achievement."
"You're wrong." I tried, one more time, to plead for my insanity instead of having to swallow all that terrifying truth that he was forcing down my throat. "You're absolutely wrong! I'm not a demon. You're contradicting yourself. A demon cannot feel any remorse. Go ask fluffy Peaches in LA. He will tell you. You can't be all remorseful and flogging yourself with a cat o' nine tails for what you've done without a soul. That's you, mate."
I really thought I had him then with my clever observation, but he just shook his head and smiled sadly at me. The bloody git. "You've confused me with your conscience. Sometimes, to make things easier to understand, people try to explain the soul as the ability of a being to distinguish right from wrong. But you know that it's not entirely true, right? Serial- killers, rapists, dictators, terrorists, Bill Gates, they all have souls but are at least a bit deprived in the conscience department. Your conscience is just a tool to help you to make the right decisions. If you're pigheaded enough, you'll be able to ignore it, choose not to use it and do whatever comes to your liking instead, which is exactly what you did the first hundred-odd years of your existence. A soul on the other hand, is an essence. A force with a mind on its own. Most souls are good and pure, but not strong enough to withstand temptations, and people end up heavily screwed or screwing others. In my case, I was the one who got screwed, and the result of my weakness ended up hurting others."
"But - then, w-what is left for me to be?" I stuttered. A sickening feeling doing a somersault in my stomach. Didn't much appreciate to be cast down all the way of the celestial ladder, to be defined as once again, a soulless evil thing. "I mean, you can't just hop in here and tell me I'm a soddin soulless monster! I have to be something to be able to feel all this! Otherwise, what is the bloody point?" my voice quivered, fear and anger mixed into a powerful emotional cocktail. "Why should they make me fall in love, torment me with it till I can hardly breath without thinking about her! Why would they let me know what's it like to feel guilt? It's an utter waste of time if it wasn't for that they wanted to redeem me, force me to see the wrongs in my doings, right?"
"I told you before. I don't know exactly who you are. You are a demon, but you entered my body as a blank sheet of paper, no word about the character was written on it perhaps expect for the total lack of control over so much emotions, the trait mark of evil and insanity. However, what you have become, partly because of who I once was, partly because you had time to experience life itself, is a mystery to me. To be honest, I don't believe that you're entirely soulless, Spike. And I do realize that demon's don't carry around souls in the very way humans do. But, there is something in there. Something very much like yours truly here that perhaps can be defined as one. Otherwise, you're right. I wouldn't understand why they would bother with us both if there wasn't a small chance of you and me finding forgiveness."
I sucked in a ragged breath of air. My emotions rampant. My mind clogged with contradicting facts and knowledge. I felt heavy, worn-out like an old shoe. I wanted to crawl in a corner and sleep.
"Forgiveness." I whispered. "That's not something that's easily earned. Better not expect it, than to be horribly disappointed after trying very hard to get it."
"It's the only way to silence the voices, to allow ourselves peace."
"I thought you weren't me. That you didn't want to be me. You shouldn't be talking in plural like we're best mates or something. Because we're not."
He gave me small, all knowing grin. "In the end, there will be no difference anymore between you and me. It's what He wants. And ignoring the popular saying of Him moving in mysterious ways, most of his biddings, are actually very carefully planned."
TBC
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.
ACT 8: I shouldn't be talking to myself. I can't stand that bloody git.
SCENE 9
Wonderful, beautiful, and incredible. That's what she was. The soddin cherry on my soddin pie, all sweetness and sugary goodness. Did I mention she was wonderful? Did I? Well, she was. Didn't want to spin three times around forgetting about that! She, with her goldy-locks and pouting lips. Her eyes, God, I could swim and drown in those eyes.
I loved her so much that it bloody hurts.
And she loved me.
She - she kissed me.
Buffy kissed me!
Not that she had never kissed me before. The fake Buffy that was. Back in Crazy Never Never land where she was a sadistic little Slayer and I the ever love-sick whipping boy, her pet vampire so to speak. But even then, before I finally realized after waking up that I had been trippin on foggy brain-farts, I knew very well that it wasn't real. Lust, craving to do wrong, the dark luscious appeal of seduction, followed by mind-boggling, sweaty flesh on flesh shagging. That's what it was. Not love. It had never been love. Until now.
I gazed up at her, all cheer happiness and moronic gratitude, strapped in my wheelchair, wheeled around because my legs refused to walk. Stupid, silly little legs, all rubbery, like they were made of molten strings of soddin tin instead of bone and flesh and skin. But I didn't mind. How could I? She was right beside me, supervising my ol' mate Mike while he was wheeling me through the corridors (You may think it was buggery-daft, but you have to be in control of these things. Really, wheelchair-pushing is not for the average inexperienced wanker. You need to have a licence to be allowed to get behind that chair, trust me).
"Where are we going?" I asked, and watching her face reminded me of that kiss she had given me just then. She smiled at me, her endless kindness warm and pleasant on my skin and I wished that she could bath me in that loving, caring, radiant smile forever and ever.
"We're bringing you back to your room. Don't worry. Everything is going to all right. I'll take care of you, promised."
Back to my - But there were - Oh no no no no! That was definitely not all right. Not good. Not good at all.
"Don't bring me there!" I yelled, a tad to loud, a bit too freaked. "Buffy, I don't wanne go back there. That room, it's swarming with the nasty head buggers. Don't want to be crazy again. Don't wanne let them get into my head." I pleaded with her, eyes begging. Begging helped. With her it always did. "Please, don't."
She looked at me, a gracious God, ever forgiving. Ever loving. Even if I had been worse than the devil himself. She did pity me. I'm bloody well insane but not a complete idiot here. But I knew that she loved me not because she though of me as a poor lost wee little lamb to be guided back into the flock of brain-dead, drooling sheep, she loved me because - Why did she actually love me? I couldn't think up any good reason for her to hand her heart over to this nasty piece of work. I didn't deserve her. She was light, compassion, everything that was bloody worth spending your days on this rotating heap of dirt for. I, on the other hand, was - (a tyrant, a killer, a liar, ruthless, pitiless, EVIL) was not worth her love.
I started to hyperventilate. Somewhere from down the very depressing hallway returned the first whispers of doubt, cold and bitter. It swept me away, carried my soddin carcass like a corpse drifting on foaming waves, and I froze.
"William, what's wrong?"
The whispers grew stronger, more violent in their descriptions of malice, but still it was no more but a faint, ghostly murmur of a long dead crowd. I shook my head and pressed my hands on ears, frightened whimpers escaping my throat while my personal demons droned monotonously in my head.
~ Murderer ~ Murderer ~ Dead inside ~ Evil disgusting thing ~ Soulless ~ She won't ~ She doesn't ~ She will never ~ She is ~ weakness ~ Your weakness ~ hunted ~ hunter ~ killer ~kill her ~ Kill her ~ That last request came to me in Dru's luring voice, sing-songing it into my brains. I closed my eyes, horrified.
"Buffy." I said, weakly. My words got stuck. I was so very afraid that she could hear them too, so terrified that she might get to know what was spooking through my head and just leave.
"Don't listen to them." She grabbed hold of my hand. "I'm here. I'm not leaving you."
Really, how did this girl know when to say the exact right thing? Is she a natural or what? I nodded, sensing the hostility in the chaotic voices swell like a soddin baboon's bum after spanking. Ignoring it, as best as I could. Any idea how hard that is, to ignore a thousand voices all yelling at you at the same time, trying to talk you into doing crazy things, piling up a guilt complex inside of you that exceeds the limits of the soddin sky? It was impossible, almost. If it wasn't for her, I wouldn't have even tried. Got better things to do than attempt to empty the endless oceans with a leaky bucket. Got people to meet, places to be. The sulphuric pits of molten lava in hell to visit. But she was here, right by my side, and everything suddenly became so much less stressful. Made me wanne stay away from those voices instead of granting their common wish and go find a couple of sharp razorblades or stick my head in a thick pillow.
"Don't bring me back to that room." I sobbed, bloody sissy that I was. "Please don't. They're all waiting for me there."
She was silent for a moment. Indecisiveness and anxiety pulling on her like heavy weights. You could almost see her balancing her options in her bare hands.
"Mike, perhaps we should bring him to the seclusion-room. I don't like the idea of restraining him."
Mike nodded and made a turn left, away from the ghostly company that was expecting me in my own bedroom. I sighed of relief as their whispers died down till it was no more than an annoying buzz that I could ignore when I kept thinking my own train of thoughts. Had to keep myself busy though. The trick was not to be quiet enough to hear them.
"Hey, I've never been here before." I opted, when they helped me out of the roller and into the tiny room. "Padded walls, padded floor, padded door." I murmured. Then, getting curious, lifted my eyes to the ceiling. No padding of course. They didn't think that I could jump that high. "Oh, I get it!" I said, a bit proud. A bit cocky. I didn't get to be cocky a lot these days. "This is for crazy people, right?"
"Um, yes - I mean, no. It's just a quiet little place where you can calm down." Her cheeks flushed, pretty pink blushes. She was embarrassed, feeling guilty to have to lock me in here. I could tell.
"Silly me. Silly crazy William. It's - a resting kind of place, of course. Not a nut palace." I murmured, shaking my head. I didn't want to upset her. Wasn't her fault that I was as mad as a revolving door. I sat down on the wobbly floor with my back against the wobbly wall. Pulled my knees up, wrapped my hands around my legs and gazed up, giving her a huge - Hey, look at me, mom! - grin. "I think I stay here for a while. To get - calm."
Buffy hesitated. "You're sure? If you want to go somewhere else, there are vacant bedrooms at the other side of the ward and -"
"I'm fine, really." Shaking and nodding my head, not sure if I did the right thing in the right order. "It's a good place. No voices. And it's all comfy and soft and oh, look! No gory bloodstains! That's always a winner on my bed -and - breakfast guide."
She rewarded me with a little smile. Still, she looked sad, was concerned about me. I think I didn't try hard enough not to upset her.
"Look, don't worry about me." I said, in my sanest voice that I could master. "I'll be all right. You said so yourself. Go and do whatever you have to do to make a living in here and - and shut the door. Let me deal with myself. I think I can handle the bloody git."
She gazed at me, the tenseness in her shoulders dropped a bit after the thinned out comfort that I had to offer. "If you need anything." She said, gently. "If you don't want to be in here anymore. just open the small window on the doorpanel and call us."
I nodded and smiled at her. That type of smile you gave to your loved-ones on Sunday-lunches to let them know that your life was all roses and peaches, while in the meantime, you really got dumped by your girlfriend, fired from your job and evicted from your apartment. Quite desperation, hidden beneath a toothy, faked grin.
She leaned toward me and gave me peck on my damp forehead, her lips surprisingly warm against my flushed skin.
"Try to lie down and sleep a little. I'll be back to see you tomorrow morning." She cupped my face with a comforting hand. I leaned into it, brushing my cheek over the gentleness of her touch.
I didn't want her to leave me. In here, all by myself with nothing to listen to but my own bug-shagging gibberish. It was dark outside and all the corridors of this comfy madhouse were not stretched long enough to separate my torment-demons from my short-circuited brains for very long. She was my bloody sun that chased away the nasty dark dwelling creatures in broad daylight. And now that she was leaving, I was stuck at twilight with the growing sense of dread that I didn't exactly know how to make a light to be able to go through the night without getting hunted down and killed.
"Buffy." I tried. To explain it to her. To beg her.
"Yes?"
"Nothing." I swallowed a lump, huge and heavy to digest, chewing on my lower lip. Not enough balls to ask her. How sad.
"See you tomorrow. Good night."
"Uhuh." I managed to babble, then she left and the door was closed behind her and I could hear the clicking of several locks. The lights didn't go out, but somehow, the place seemed darker after she was gone.
It was not my intention to act crazy or anything. I wanted to be sane, whole again. No creepy mind crawlers to drive me crackers, no more vindictive dead aristocrats leaving piles of maggots under my bed. But the point was that it was kinda difficult not to act crazed when you were in fact absolutely nutters. Your body wanted to, your mind hungered for it, and the surroundings in which yours truly here was located right now was all inspiring, of course. It was really the most decent thing to do, to fill this quiet little room with all the madness that was slamming and screaming inside. I let it all out, the fear, the anxiety, the self- loathing, a Catholic sized GUILT. All in brilliant colours, sickening green, depressing blue, dangerously bright red, all with their own set of creative agony that compelled me to literally bounce off the soddin walls (No, I didn't bounce high enough to knock my head on the ceiling, if you wanne to know). I couldn't see or hear or notice anything till the raging storm had settled down, and I found myself weeping, huddled against the smelly padding and trembling like a wet dog. Rocking back and forth, my mouth uttering nonsense.
That was when I saw him standing there at the other side of the cramped room, silently watching me. Soddin pity all written over his haughty face.
I took a ragged breath, wiped tears out of my eyes with tugged up sleeves. Composing myself as best as I could.
"What do you want?" I asked, agitated. No patience was in me to deal with the likes of him right now.
He lifted his silver framed glasses with the tip of his finger, ever so slightly. A nervous tick the bloody nonce had, together with his pencil ticking on empty sheets of paper and endless nail biting. A disgusting habit if you asked me.
"I came to see you." He said. Just like that. As if it was all the information I needed to know what was exactly going through the wuss' pudding brains to pay me a visit on this hardly favourable time.
"Yeah? You're here and you're done with seeing me. So sod off. Leave me alone."
"What happened?" He asked, brows all furrowed in concern.
"It's none of your business. Piss off!"
"What do you mean it's none of my business?" He said, surprisingly louder now. "I was you, Spike! Don't you think I deserve to know what's happening to us while you're floundering around, wasting decade after decade, using my mortal vessel as a cheap rental to go cruising through the swamps of absolute immorality? Doesn't the rightful owner get a say in any of this delusional adventure of yours?"
"Hey, I thought you were supposed to be a poofy Victorian wanker. What's with all the modern poetic talk?"
"I was." He opted. "But try spending a whole century in limbo with a whole bunch of shady types flowing through the gates while your stuck at the bar with your millionth serving of Brandy and I can assure you that you'll be able to pick up the changes in modern language pretty fast."
He walked toward me. Well, not walking in the precise definition of the word. He moved his feet but he was sinking into the padding constantly, waddling through with possibly his neat shiny brown leather shoes dangling somewhere close to the ceiling of the floor below us.
"Really." I said, being sarcastic. " I didn't know you drink. Didn't I make you up to be all vomity allergic to alcohol?"
"Yes well, you learn to drink quickly and a lot with the likes of you keeping me out of heaven. Any idea what kind of hell limbo is? It's like sitting in an overcrowded cocktail-bar, watching everybody who came in later than you getting a table at Our Lord's first. I mean, I do have good manners of course, but even a soul has only a limited amount of patience."
"You're bug-shagging crazy." I said. "You're not real you idiot! Didn't you hear me? I said I made you all up! Some weird alter-ego thing probably. Hell knows what that was any good for. You're not my long lost soul spending eternity in God's waiting room. You wish."
"What? " The stupid git was one of those annoying as hell characters who did understand you loud and clear the first time around, but had to seal every line you utter with a moronic question. "Spike! You're not serious are you? I mean, you don't really believe that all this is real, do you?"
"Look Gibbering One, I'm ill. I'm bloody insane. So stop bugging me. We can have this conversation another time, over a cup of imaginative earl Grey and sandwiches perhaps. Right now, I'm trying my very best to calm down in here, because that's what this room is made for, right? To calm down and NOT to listen to the bloody headbugs who are trying to make me crazy. You being here, is not exactly helping."
"Spike, I'm not one of your personal demons. Listen to me. You're ill all right, but not in the way you think you are. We have to get ourselves out of here."
"Oh, really. Brilliant plan. Didn't think of it myself. Of course I have to get out of here! But only when I'm sane, dimwit!"
I watched him roll his blue lookers to the padding-free ceiling and suck in his cheeks. Irritated of course, I know I would be if I were him.
"I'm only sent here to help. Stop being so obnoxiously offensive."
"Stop calling me Spike. It's William."
"No you're not. Not really. I am William. I'm not sure who you are." He tilted his head and stared at me, this poofy version of me in tweed jacket and flannel trousers. An air of bookish nerdism floating around his head like a soddin nimbus. "Actually, I'm not even sure why I need to be here in the first place. Undoubtedly, it wasn't your fault that you were injured by that horrible demon thing, what it's called? That dreadful Glarkul-what-me nik?"
"It's glarghk guhl kashma'nik. And you're partly right. You're definitely not me. You're a hell of a lot stupider."
The wuss strolled around the tiny room, ignoring my snarky response, obsessively rambling about himself. The egocentric git.
"Right, they send me here in order to fix things. Set the record straight. Offer me a chance to get off my barstool and into the highly desired place. But, bloody hell! What in heaven's name am I supposed to do with you? You're - a demon! I've never heard of any demons redeeming themselves successfully, let alone one of them slip past the gate's security and make it into heaven."
"I'm not a demon." I tried to explain to the very obnoxious illusion, not being very patient with him. "I'm a bloke. A crazy bloke, but still human, definitely not demon."
"You are a demon. Trust me. After I died, and the cosmic powers kicked me out of my dead and limp body before I could even finish my strings of embarrassing ohings, you came crashing in with the eagerness of an Hungarian immigrant. Don't you remember the first moments after being turned? How strange it felt to be a part of matter? To have a real body at your disposal? Before that, you were nothing but a wobbling field of chaotic energy drifting through the ether, clinging on to that insane vampire girl, nagging on and on in her poor head to help you find a vessel."
"I don't remember being surprised, except for suddenly being dead and buried, that is." I stated bitterly. Then, realizing that I was reasoning into the wrong direction again, added rather lamely. "Not that any of that was real of course."
"You thought it was you who died because you had my body, Spike. There are things that tend to seep into the mortal flesh, experiences, emotions, hiding in the cracks and creases, not removed when the soul is evacuated. I lived in that package of yours for 26 years, my friend. Even your rusty old Lincoln is getting shaped after your dare I say flamboyant personality after ten-odd years, don't you think that I would at least leave an impression of me in there? Something to affect a powerful but absolutely naïve demon barely taking its first steps into the material world?"
"You want me to believe all this?" I asked, trying to sound bold, but meanwhile, there was this feeling of unrest in my bones that started to work its way up into my spine, riding the express highway to my mind. "Bloody hell! I've heard enough gobbledigook in the last couple of hours to bake a soddin fruitcake out of it, but this is absolutely richer than dairy fat!"
"It's true. I'm not lying to you. You're not the real William August Byron who died in 1880. You're a demon, shaped by my memories and feelings, driven by your own instincts to do the absolutely wickedly wrong things, and thereby condemning my immortal soul to hell -"
"Hang on there a minute!" I thought I had discovered the flaw in his fantastic tale, something to shut the wanker up so he would stop making me nervous. "If you're right that you're by no means me, why will you be responsible for anything I do or won't do?"
"Because it was my fault. You see, I let Drusilla bite me. She tempted me into it, true, and I was having a particularly bad night, with Cecily breaking my heart and those rich snobs laughing at my work. He should have picked any other day to test my determination in doing the right thing perhaps. However, the point was, I still could have walked away. Stopped her. She would have probably drained me dry after refusing her, but I wouldn't be responsible for creating a dangerous vampire to taunt mankind for the upcoming 120 years. In a certain way, all the innocents you've murdered, all the evil you have done, was partly my doing too." He sank his head, his eyes averted to the murky yellow stains on the padding, and for a brief moment, I felt sorry for him. I knew what it was like, to have your mind eaten away by guilt.
"So after my death, He decided that I should wait outside of the golden gates till He had made up His mind of what to do with me. I was a lucky chap not to be cast down into the fiery pits of hell immediately. I mean, every word picking judge would have found me guilty and discarded me with the rest of the sinners to spend the rest of eternity in damnation. It was, to a certain extend, a very cowardly approach to attempt suicide from my side, allowing her to kill my old self in return for something better. Such a fool I was."
I listened quietly. My heart quivering, my palms sweating. I didn't really like this scary little bedtime story he was telling. Even if it was of course, as fake and unlikely as a tasty brand of American beer, the whole theory behind his imaginative babbling brought a chill into my body.
"But I'm here because of you. You are one nasty piece of work, you know that?"
I nodded, and for the first time since the poofter had appeared in the room, I became a bit frightened of him.
"They told me they were watching you. Just as I did if I was drunk enough to dare to take peek down, that was. There isn't a spot on our skin that hasn't been once drenched in other people's blood."
I sank my head in shame. Somewhere from behind the secured door, I heard one of my demons laugh at me.
"They say that you've changed."
I lifted my head, gazing up at this mirror image of myself. Unable to understand how it could be that I wasn't the man that I believed to be, William August Byron, the insecure young man dreaming of becoming a writer, driven to madness by his own delusions, a complete nutter, perhaps, but real. A person.
This noncy git who was halfway down to scaring the crap out of me was terribly convincing in pushing me to believe that I was nothing but a dark ugly force cast into a deceased man's body. His body, of all bloody people.
"It's all because of her, isn't it? That girl. The Slayer?"
Buffy, again everything leaded back to Buffy. As if my whole soddin existence was built on hers. That I merely came to be, to play a part in her struggles fighting against the dark evil forces. How did this wanker exactly know, how to make me feel so insignificant and utterly useless?
"She's a good thing that we're having in our life. Don't turn your back on her. She's the only one who keeps you away from damming us straight to hell."
"I won't abandon her. I love her." I uttered, before I could put a cork in it.
He smiled. "I know you do. You've done something extraordinary because of that love. Something that's possibly my only salvation. Yours too."
I blinked my eyes, heavily confused.
"You see, you were not supposed to end up in here. There had been a bit of a mix up in the fate department."
"What?!" I asked, dumb-folded.
He sighed, embarrassed to have to tell me this. "Well, you were not supposed to be getting poisoned by that Glarkal kulllurlu - oh balls."
"Glarghk guhl kashma'nik." Slightly surprised by his swearing. You don't get to hear your Victorian double utter a word like that everyday.
"Right, that thing. Thank you. It should not have been you who was sent into this asylum-verse of Sunny Dale. It should have been Buffy."
"What?!!" I uttered, that daft moronic word again, but I was too baffled to think of something smarter to say.
"Honestly, I don't have any bloody idea what you were doing there in the first place. It was by all means, hardly helpful what you did. It only complicated everything, sent destiny reeling off track. The chaps up there are working overtime trying to fix this little paradox you've created. Hence, my part in the whole rescue mission."
"I don't get this."
"It's simple. I have to convince you to get back into the right dimension. I didn't have the slightest idea how to do that, so I decided to just tell you the whole story. Hoping that you might still have enough common sense in the pudding of your brains to realize that you don't belong here."
"I do belong here." I muttered, desperately clinging on to those words. "I - I'm crazy and all that about me being a - a demon, a vampire. It's all bullocks! Made up, like you are! All fancy little lies to keep me from staying awake. Staying sane. I won't believe a word you blather you hallucinated wanker!"
"Spike, listen. You really can't stay here. I know it's quite comfortable for you, particularly now that Dr Summers has finally told you the one thing that you like to hear so much, but the point is that you're needed back in the other reality. The original intention of getting Buffy here was to let her know that she was needed by her friends, that she couldn't just keep her head stuck in a pail of mud to avoid the blows. If everything went according to schedule, like it had infinite times before, she would have figured what was to be taught by the end of her second day in the institution. You, on the other hand, are a very slow student."
"Look, I'm not going back, no matter what you say. Why do you care if I return to good ol' SunnyHell or not? Are they gonna let you in as soon as I transport my consciousness back into your corpse or what?"
"It's hardly that easy." He grinned, bitterly. "It has to cost a lot more than that. In the end, I've to pay dearly for all of our sins. And so do you."
"And you're surprised that I'm not eager to jump in?" I stated. "Besides, they're punishing me already. All those made up victims of my shadowy past? They're here. Tormenting me. Driving me to the bloody edge of self- mutilating desperation."
"And it will become worse. Trust me, I know. But it's part of the path you've chosen."
"What soddin path? I didn't explicitly ask to become a masochistic nut! I just - I just want to be sane again - normal - to be with her."
"But you'll never be able to be with her if you stay here. Don't you see this, Spike? This is the devil's easy way out. His free-out-of-jail card offered to you on a silver serving-tray, rimmed by slippery deceit with a forked tongue. You think you've earned it, after all that you've suffered. You think you should get the girl and live happily ever after as the reward of everything fate had made you to swallow. But you have to ask yourself, truly, what have you done so far to deserve to be forgiven by Him? What in your actions has made you equal enough to deserve her?"
"I - " I tried to think clearly, search deep within my memories, both the false and real ones, to justify myself, justify my luck to have her. But I couldn't find anything or I had to lie.
"I - don't. Oh God. I don't." My words became garbled as my over- productive tear-ducts started working again. He watched me sob in silence, compassionately, but unresponsively, like God himself watching the disasters that taunt humankind taking place from up his throne shaped cloud. Deeply moved, perhaps blinking away a tear or two, but generally not even lifting a bloody finger to help out.
"He's not indifferent you know. He's only doing what a good parent should, let His children stand on their own feet and find their own strength. You can't blame Him for the weakness of man to abuse whatever freedom of will that is given to them to turn it into something ugly."
"What are you? A bloody mind-reader?"
"I'm just a soul who had spend too much time talking to other miserable souls, only I had time to think about everything what was said while the others rushed into heaven after a couple of decades or plunged right into the burning inferno below."
"I don't exactly remember you having a very strong and balanced character either." I snorted, shielding my sorrow and insecurity with sarcasm and wit. "What happened to the bloody awful whimpering poet?"
He didn't bite. "People grow, Spike. Even dead ones. Demons on the other hand, are not very known for their ability to change for the better. That's what makes you such a strange case for them to crack. You're different. It's hardly imaginable for a demon to be able to grasp something as elusive to them as the concept of conscience. But here you are, feeling guilt and remorse without the guidance of a soul. That is quite an achievement."
"You're wrong." I tried, one more time, to plead for my insanity instead of having to swallow all that terrifying truth that he was forcing down my throat. "You're absolutely wrong! I'm not a demon. You're contradicting yourself. A demon cannot feel any remorse. Go ask fluffy Peaches in LA. He will tell you. You can't be all remorseful and flogging yourself with a cat o' nine tails for what you've done without a soul. That's you, mate."
I really thought I had him then with my clever observation, but he just shook his head and smiled sadly at me. The bloody git. "You've confused me with your conscience. Sometimes, to make things easier to understand, people try to explain the soul as the ability of a being to distinguish right from wrong. But you know that it's not entirely true, right? Serial- killers, rapists, dictators, terrorists, Bill Gates, they all have souls but are at least a bit deprived in the conscience department. Your conscience is just a tool to help you to make the right decisions. If you're pigheaded enough, you'll be able to ignore it, choose not to use it and do whatever comes to your liking instead, which is exactly what you did the first hundred-odd years of your existence. A soul on the other hand, is an essence. A force with a mind on its own. Most souls are good and pure, but not strong enough to withstand temptations, and people end up heavily screwed or screwing others. In my case, I was the one who got screwed, and the result of my weakness ended up hurting others."
"But - then, w-what is left for me to be?" I stuttered. A sickening feeling doing a somersault in my stomach. Didn't much appreciate to be cast down all the way of the celestial ladder, to be defined as once again, a soulless evil thing. "I mean, you can't just hop in here and tell me I'm a soddin soulless monster! I have to be something to be able to feel all this! Otherwise, what is the bloody point?" my voice quivered, fear and anger mixed into a powerful emotional cocktail. "Why should they make me fall in love, torment me with it till I can hardly breath without thinking about her! Why would they let me know what's it like to feel guilt? It's an utter waste of time if it wasn't for that they wanted to redeem me, force me to see the wrongs in my doings, right?"
"I told you before. I don't know exactly who you are. You are a demon, but you entered my body as a blank sheet of paper, no word about the character was written on it perhaps expect for the total lack of control over so much emotions, the trait mark of evil and insanity. However, what you have become, partly because of who I once was, partly because you had time to experience life itself, is a mystery to me. To be honest, I don't believe that you're entirely soulless, Spike. And I do realize that demon's don't carry around souls in the very way humans do. But, there is something in there. Something very much like yours truly here that perhaps can be defined as one. Otherwise, you're right. I wouldn't understand why they would bother with us both if there wasn't a small chance of you and me finding forgiveness."
I sucked in a ragged breath of air. My emotions rampant. My mind clogged with contradicting facts and knowledge. I felt heavy, worn-out like an old shoe. I wanted to crawl in a corner and sleep.
"Forgiveness." I whispered. "That's not something that's easily earned. Better not expect it, than to be horribly disappointed after trying very hard to get it."
"It's the only way to silence the voices, to allow ourselves peace."
"I thought you weren't me. That you didn't want to be me. You shouldn't be talking in plural like we're best mates or something. Because we're not."
He gave me small, all knowing grin. "In the end, there will be no difference anymore between you and me. It's what He wants. And ignoring the popular saying of Him moving in mysterious ways, most of his biddings, are actually very carefully planned."
TBC
