Title: "Shades of Naught"
Author: Athena Parthenos
Feedback: Constructive criticism, suggestions, and praise will be gladly accepted.
Rating: R
Category: Angst
Spoilers: "Fool for Love," "Seeing Red," "Lessons" through "Selfless," "Lies My Parents Told Me"
Summary: Specters from his past mercilessly haunt a tortured Spike, sending him deeper into madness and despair.
Disclaimer: Spike, Dru, Cecily, Buffy, Anne, and any other M.E. characters mentioned within belong not to me but to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy.
Author's Note: While Sane!Spike is brilliant, I enjoyed Mad!Spike, too. This story details what a single day in the basement might have been for Spike . . . however did he survive weeks down there, the poor thing? Oh, also dedicated to "Lucien, Prince of Lies." Too bad that was cut from the "Lies My Parents Told Me" script. Enjoy!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
He shrinks into himself, pulling his legs up against his chest, resting his chin on his knees. The cold shadows seem to flit about him, dancing on the dull concrete walls of his basement prison. Within his tortured mind images arise of his victims, screaming, weeping, begging. Spike closes his eyes and shudders, praying they will leave, knowing that they won't.
"William?" The voice is hesitant, mild, but it startles him anyway. "William, dear boy, whatever are you doing in the dark?" He looks up and sees his mother, frail and delicate, leaning on her cane. Her eyes are tired, but still contain that brightness he remembers so well from her last days. Her dress is crisp and white, its folds hiding the feet that at so many times refused to bear her slender frame. Her familiar white shawl is clasped at her throat with the pearl brooch he gave her for her last birthday. A tender smile lights her worn, kind face. "Oh, William, how good it is to see you again!" She takes a step forward, leaning heavily on her cane.
"Mother?" he murmurs in shock. What is she doing here? "Mother, how can it be -- you died so long ago --"
The tender smile falters, and for a moment there is something cold and alien in her eyes. Her mouth is a thin, hard line. "So did you, and yet here you are. So too should I be. Or did you forget?"
He flinches at the memory threatening to rise to the surface, the memory of his mother restored by his hands and his fangs -- renewed, glowing, healthy, and . . . evil. Her last words to him are suddenly ringing in his ears for the first time in more than a century, and he gasps at how much they still hurt. Quickly he casts his mind away from that torturous last meeting, because he knows he cannot bear to hear his beloved mother hissing such monstrous things to him, even now. That wound has never healed, only festered; he knows it, and shies from it. He swallows, looking up at her -- she looks kind and fragile once more, and he lets himself sink into the sweet memories of her he still carries so close to his heart.
"Mother," he tries, again. "Are -- are you real?"
She smiles, kind once more. "Oh! Why -- what a question! Oh, William, you always were such a fanciful boy." She raises a pale hand and laughs into it, trying to hide her amusement and failing. The old, familiar gesture tugs at his heart, and suddenly he is near tears. He falls forward onto his hands and knees and crawls to her feet, seeking the comfort she once brought him.
"I'm in trouble," he confesses to her, looking up at her face. She raises her eyebrows, curious. "So many things I've done -- so many people I've hurt, or worse -- and now it's all come back to me, and I can't bear it, Mother." His last word is a plea, and he hangs his head in shame. "Please -- help me --"
Her voice is serious. "Don't be ridiculous. You know you have to atone. What did you expect? That you would get a soul and God would let you be? That it would earn you a seat in heaven, after all you've done? Didn't you ever listen in church? Or were you too busy casting sheep's eyes at Cecily Underwood in the pew across the way?"
He trembles, then backs away from her, still hiding his face from her and her quiet onslaught.
She chuckles scornfully at his action. "Oh, you're as naive as you ever were. I had thought immortality might toughen you up, but I see that you're still that prattling little babe I so detested."
A sound escapes him -- he isn't sure if it is of pain or of anger. He feels torn, straddling two mindsets -- he wants to go to his mother, apologize for everything he's done, and yet he also wants to dispense her and her harsh words. A sob forces its way through his lips, and he sits back on his haunches, hiding his face in his hands.
"William the Bloody Awful Poet," she says, relishing the words. "Oh, yes, I knew what they called you. Do you know how humiliating it was for me, to hear secondhand of how ridiculously sentimental my fool of a son was? As if hearing your wretched stuff at home wasn't enough! I remember your first poem; some nonsense about a 'wee birdie that flies, high up in the blue sky.' How old were you then? Six? It never ceased to amaze me how you never improved -- even in the slightest -- beyond that masterpiece. Oh, William -- you were *nothing.*" She snorts, the sound strange coming from such a delicate-looking woman. "A nothing of a little boy, who never did anything useful or worthwhile in his entire miserable life. I expect you devoted your energies to other endeavors; getting into my bed, perhaps?" The leer he knows she wears on her face is all wound up in her breathy little voice. "I know it's what you wanted . . . all those years trailing after me with nothing but *lust* in your eyes --"
"You're not my mother," he says shakily, his eyes screwed shut, his body tensed. Perhaps if he believes it, it will come true.
"You're right. I'm not." He hears a swish of her skirts, and breathes a sigh of relief, hoping this monster-mother has left him --
"William," a soft voice whispers. He blinks and raises his head to see Cecily Underwood standing before him as he last saw her: beaten and bloodied, tears streaking her cheeks. Her fine dress is ripped, and her soft brown hair curls in tendrils around her bruised, swollen face. Her eyes are cold, accusing. He casts his mind back to that night and remembers the way he tortured her until she was too weak to scream.
"I'm sorry," he breathes.
She scoffs. "Sorry? William, 'sorry' means nothing to me. Just as you mean nothing to me, even now." Her once-pretty face twists in disgust, her cracked and bleeding lips forming a sharp sneer. She reaches out a pale hand, once soft with a lifetime of pampering, now fat and stiff with a mass of bruises, and stops just short of stroking his cheek. Her voice is dark. "Wasn't that what you wanted? To mean something to me?" She purses her lips as if deep in thought. "Yes. I do remember." Her face is drawn into a mocking caricature, her voice a simpering stutter as she echoes his words of more than a century ago. "'All I ask is that -- is that you try to *see* me. . . .'"
His eyes burn with tears of shame as she laughs. The sound is a sharp bark, unflattering, unlovely. Not at all the way he remembers her, so poised and delicate. He looks askance at her, begging her silently to stop.
"That was what you wanted," she says matter-of-factly, pulling away her hand and bringing it to her blood-lined chest. She begins to circle him, taking the mincing little steps he remembers so well. Her skirts, their rich fabric in tatters, float gracefully along behind her as she walks. "Even when you died, you couldn't let me go. Oh yes, I do recall what you did. Came to my house; the butler was *so* surprised to see you. Everyone had heard of how miserably you acted at the party, you see." She sniffs disdainfully, then affects a lower voice, mimicking her serving-man. "'Miss Cecily! Master William Farrington is at the door. He wishes to see you.' I was surprised, of course -- that you would dare show yourself after the spectacle you'd made." She is behind him now; he tilts his head back to look at her. "He invited you in. The fool. And then -- why, I believe you know as well as I what happened next."
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. . . ." he mumbles, trying to keep her from recalling any further the memory of that night.
She shakes her head. "As if I would entertain the notion that a monster such as yourself could feel *remorse*!" Again the sharp, barking laugh. "No. You weren't sorry. You *enjoyed* it. *All* of it." Her voice is a low hiss, now, as she leans over him, face twisted. "How you killed the serving-man -- snapped his old thin neck. I screamed like this --" She lets out a shrill, keening wail that bounces off the walls, hurting his ears, and then returns to her hisses. "And I ran -- I was *so* frightened, William --" She sounds as if she's humoring him, and indeed, in her eyes a dark maliciousness dances. A bitter smile contorts her face. "And you leapt after me, and pinned me to the ground -- hardly a fair fight, William. I, a poor, helpless lady, and you, a . . . creature. An . . . animal."
She begins walking again, circling him tightly, letting her hands swing freely. They miss his face by mere inches as she goes round and round, continuing her tale. "You ripped my dress; I still remember the sound. It was very loud, William. Everything else seemed to have gone -- quiet. There was only me crying, and you laughing, and that long *rip* of the cloth. It was a most illuminating moment, really." She tosses back her proud head, her blood-streaked hair bouncing behind her. "Do you remember what you said then? You said, 'You're going to see me now.' And you had your way with me." Her voice, now, is level. She fixes him with those cold, dead eyes and says, "Did you enjoy it?"
She doesn't give him a chance to answer. He is breathing heavily, now, trying to block out that terrible night, closing his eyes, wanting to clap his hands over his ears and knowing it will do no good. At this moment, with Cecily's spirit taunting him, and the memories of a thousand thousand deaths by his own hands -- at this moment, remorse is palpable. He feels it in the twisting in his chest, in the tightness prickling at the back of his eyes, in the way his hands tremble against his will. He takes a deep, hitching breath, and folds his knees to his chest, resting his head on them. His arms go around his head, trying to keep out Cecily's calm charges.
"I say you did. You relished the pain I was in, I know it. Every scream torn from my lips was a *pleasure.*" She crouches down before him. "Look at me the way you did that night, with that hatred, that *obsession*, still in your eyes. Do you remember how you were so rough with me that the blood came, trickling out to stain my skirts? Do you remember how when you had got tired of using me in that manner, how you beat me? How you threw me into the wall? How you broke my nose into little slivers? Do you remember how you sat down beside me, and carefully, ever so carefully, broke every single one of my fingers?" Despite himself, he looks at her. She holds up her hands, the little hands he had dreamed would touch him one day, and waves them before his face. They are so swollen and gnarled that the knuckles cannot be seen; they are black and blue, knobbly and hideous. He notes that there is blood under her fingernails -- the blood she shed from him in her frantic struggle to escape. Dazedly he touches his cheek, remembering how her nails had gouged him there, how the blood had flowed freely, how it had only made his game that much more exciting. . . .
She leans forward so that her mouth hovers just before his ear. She speaks, her words soft, silky. "And the whole time, your little paramour stood in the doorway, watching as you had your fun right there in the front hallway. What was her name? Drusilla? Do you remember how she clapped and laughed to see such gaiety?" Her eyes blaze, but her voice is calm. "Do you remember, dear William, how you sank your fangs into my neck and drained me until I was nothing but a broken, empty shell?"
A sob escapes him. He wants her to stop, but can find neither the energy nor the words to speak, to tell her how sorry he is. His hands form themselves into fists; his fingernails cut into his palms, and he vaguely feels blood trickling down his wrists, but he doesn't mind. Concrete, physical pain -- that he can understand, and bear. It's only the mental anguish that keeps him so bewildered and afraid.
"Do you want to know something?" she asks, suddenly bright and cheerful again. "Through all of that -- through *all* of it -- never once, *ever*, did I *see* you." He looks up at her, stricken. "Oh, I looked at you, to be sure. I could hardly help what my eyes did during your little game. But even then -- even when you had broken me -- you were still nothing. A nothing 'man' who simply became a nothing monster." She folds her arms across his chest, still smiling despite the way her voice is harsh, almost guttural. "You were *pathetic!*"
He lets out a strangled cry of grief, of horror, of apology. She dismisses it easily, leering at him, giving him a salacious little half-grin and a wink with one swollen eye. He pulls back, further into himself, hoping desperately to escape her.
She has nearly finished. "Pathetic," she muses. "And so you are now, and so you shall always be." She laughs quietly, as if to herself. "You shall never be anything, William, to anyone."
He shakes his head, grief flooding him for his actions. "Dru," he manages, before he ducks his head to hide from the dreadful apparition. "I was something to her."
There is a laugh, bright but hard, and he recognizes Drusilla's singsong voice. "But darling," she purrs, "I was mad." He looks up and sees Dru laughing, her eyes dancing, her white arms raised towards the ceiling. A bunch of white lace lines her pale throat; her crimson dress, underlaid with black, forms delicate folds at her high-heeled feet. "And so are you."
He stares at her, stricken -- and then bows his head in agreement. "I think you're right, pet." He stifles a sob, and wonders, fleetingly, if anything -- the basement, Drusilla, himself -- is truly real. But the thought flees as quickly as it had appeared, and he closes his eyes again, lost within the shadows of his own mind.
"And yet, Spike, we are different, you and I." Drusilla sounds thoughtful, lucid. "Daddy tortured me, made me cry, made me see all sorts of lovelies. I used to push them away; with both hands, yes! Mummy told me they were naughty, and I always listened to my mum, but Daddy. . . . Daddy taught me it was best to keep my pretty pictures. Best to keep my pictures; best to bathe in blood." She giggles. "You learned it." Daintily she draws pictures in the air with her long slim fingers. "Do you remember how you would catch those lovely little girls in the streets? They oughtn't to be walking alone at night, after all; so you brought them back to me and we would play. Oh, how we would play, darling. . . ." She snaps her teeth, suddenly, shifting into vamp-face. She smiles. "Rip their pretty skin like lace, and all their insides come tumbling out. Little girls break so easily. We should know. So many little girls never went back to their mummies and daddies, to eat cakes in the morning with the cruel sun shining. No. We stopped them, we did."
"Please, Dru," he mutters. "No more." He doesn't want to think about the countless deaths the two of them have caused, ranging through the countries of the world, leaving terror and death and grief behind them. He doesn't want to think about the dead eyes of every victim, about how, in the end, they all looked exactly the same -- a white mouth drawn up in shock, eyes clouded and dull, body cool and stiffening. He realizes she is still talking, but not about their victims anymore; she's back to rambling on quietly about the joy she finds in her befuddled mind.
She has slipped back into human guise, a tiny, mysterious smile on her lips. "It was Daddy what did it all. Daddy brought me the people, and the stars, and all those strange, beautiful sights you could never have imagined." Her voice is hushed; but suddenly she laughs again. "It hurt me, Spike, what my Angelus did; but it was so beautiful. All the colors, and the music, and -- the stars. . . ."
He looks up at her, wondering what she is trying to say.
She grants him a small smile. Matter-of-factly, she states, "There is no beauty for you."
He nods assent, feeling tired and miserable. He wants to tell her about the horrors lodged in his mind, the way the madness skitters along the inside of his skull like a phalanx of spiders. He wants to tell her about the apparitions stalking his every move, how their voices sing dark songs of the pain that he caused. He wants to tell her about the pain, stark and terrible, that tears at his mind and his heart and makes him weep. He wants to tell her about the cruel words of his mother, of Cecily. He wants to explain to her all these things, but instead he simply mumbles, "Just -- just darkness, Dru."
She draws herself up to her full height. "Well, it's how it should be, isn't it?" She flashes her teeth in a wide grin. "Everything must be bought for a price. You know that, Spike." She sounds for all the world like a teacher faced with a reluctant, thickheaded student. She holds up a hand, sheathed in black lace, and counts off on her fingers. "Puppies, and posies, and blood. All of it charged by little dark fairies. They keep the numbers and the hearts; how much do you owe the fairies, love?" Her voice cracks with sudden anguish. "How many pounds will it take to buy your guilt?"
A thought strikes him, then. "Dru, love, we're in America. They use dollars here."
She looks at him with wide eyes, then giggles. "Oh, my Spike, I'm not. You're mixed up, you are. Nothing's right in your little spinning head; nothing's *in* your little, spinning head." She chuckles at the play on her words, while he simply stares at her.
"You're not in America?" he asks in disbelief. "I may be mad, Dru, but at least I know where we are. We're in the soddin' basement of the high school. Sunnydale, California, pet. Ring a bell?"
She sighs. "Dear heart. . . ." She snaps her long, white fingers in front of his face, and he flinches. "I'm a little pixie, dancing in your head." She laughs, and the sound is long and high and painful. Her dark eyes -- the eyes he used to drown in -- sparkle with mischief. "And you thought *I* was mad." She sniffs and steps past him, holding her head up high, casting not even the barest glance in his direction. As she walks, she says in her singsong voice, "My little Spike left his mummy dearest. Left the sweet night for an endless day -- for a pretty little girl of satin and steel, and roses red like blood. But he'll see, now. He'll find the sun will burn."
"Dru!" he cries, getting jerkily to his feet and whirling, intent on bringing her back to him. If anyone can understand his confusion, his fears, the way things now shift so cruelly and quickly, it will be Dru, locked inside her own head for a hundred and fifty years. "Drusilla!"
But it is not Dru facing away from him, playing languidly with a strand of her long hair, one hand resting on a small hip. It's Buffy.
Hearing him she turns around, her face strangely worn and fatigued. She shakes her head, blonde hair shimmering in the faint light. She wears a long, beaded black dress; it makes her look pale and wan. "Spike? Why are you down here in the basement?"
"I . . . there's nowhere else," he admits, ashamed. He lifts a blood-stickied hand and rubs the back of his neck with it; the drying blood turns his skin gummy, and he pulls the hand away in disgust. He is suddenly confused -- how can his mother be there one instant, Cecily the next, Dru after her, and now Buffy? He gulps, tears pricking at the back of his eyes. "I don't know what to do."
Her lips are drawn down in a worried frown. "What's wrong?" she asks softly, closing the distance between them until she stands but inches away. The beaded fringe of her dress swishes back and forth with every step she takes; it distracts him in his bemused state, but when she is standing so close to him he cannot help but look at her. Her eyes are filled with nothing but concern -- he reels at the depth of emotion shining out from her face, and steps away, knowing he cannot deserve her. "What's wrong?" she repeats.
"Nothing," he chokes, his voice thick. He tries to laugh away the pain that has come roaring up from his subconscious, but the laugh comes out a miserable, unnaturally high giggle, ending in a desperate half-sob. Clumsily, his shoulders hunching, he brings curled-up hands to his face to hide from her. Of course, though, she is still there, watching him with sympathetic eyes, and he knows he cannot lie to her. "Everything," he confesses brokenly.
"Spike --" She reaches out a slender hand to stroke his cheek, but he jerks away before she can touch him. She stares at him, hurt. "Please -- I can't help you if you don't tell me what's going on."
He lets out a ragged breath, raising his head and looking past her, into the darkness of the empty room. He knows that if he glances at her face for even a moment he will be lost in her pity and her tenderness, and he will never escape. He blinks away tears before they have the chance to fall, and says painfully, "Is this what your soul does?"
She seems taken aback. "I don't know what you mean."
A muscle works involuntarily in his cheek; he swallows. He keeps his gaze firmly fixed on the back wall, and speaks carefully, trying to stay composed. "Do you see things? See everything you've done, everyone you've hurt, every damn drop of blood on your hands? The people you've hurt -- do they come to you? Do they -- speak -- to you --" He cannot finish the thought; he is choked with pain, with grief. It is too much. There is too much to bear, too much blood to wash away, and the weight of it is so very heavy. . . . He falls to his knees, and tears streak his pale face.
"No," she whispers. "They don't. Probably -- probably because I've never done anything terrible." Her voice is warm; he can hear the smile in it. He wants to think she is being kind to him, but he knows she is only toying with him. "Not like you have, anyway."
He closes his eyes, knowing what is coming -- the sharp words, the cruel laughter, the harsh voice. "Please," he begs. "I *know* what I've done. You don't need to tell me." The shame overwhelms him -- shame for what he's done, yes, but also shame for how pitiful, how wretched, he is now. He takes a deep, hitching breath. "Please stop. . . ."
"Like you stopped for me?" she asks wickedly. She changes her voice; it sounds high, frightened -- the way it was that last night, in her bathroom. "'No! Stop! *Please stop!*'" She switches back to her regular tone and laughs derisively. "Remember that?"
Through the anguish -- a force so strong that he physically aches with the horror of it -- he whispers, "I . . . I could never forget." The memories come flooding back at him, and he gasps at the guilt that comes with them. The memories blur sickeningly in his head -- the fear in her eyes and the fury in her voice, the power he had felt as she struggled beneath him, the way the cloth of her robe gave so easily, the feel of her hot flesh beneath his hands -- He retches, shaking.
She laughs quietly to herself. "Nothing will change what you've done, Spike. Nothing. Remember *that.*"
He forces himself to calm down, to stop shaking. He takes a deep breath, then raises his head weakly, wanting to apologize, or maybe to scream at her to leave him alone and let him suffer in peace. "Buffy --"
But she is gone.
He hangs his head. "Right, then. Gone away, had your fun. I see how it is." Sighing, he lowers himself to the cold floor. Exhaustion overwhelms him, and he curls into himself, trembling, whispering a steady stream of quiet nonsense to the empty room around him.
At last the vampire falls into a fitful half-sleep. The blood on his hands and the tears on his cheeks dry in the cool air of the basement, but he does not know it; he is too occupied with the tumultuous, painful dreams that plague him. In these dreams the torture continues, unceasing, unstoppable. Voices assault his ears and faces haunt his sight; his mouth feels heavy with the rich taste of blood. Unconscious whimpers escape the mad, broken man curled up on the floor; the pitiable sounds echo faintly off the walls surrounding him.
He stays that way for hours, shuddering, weeping, teetering on the edge of sleep but never truly slipping into blessed unconsciousness. His agonized, sleepless state does not surprise him, though. He knows that he will find no rest.
He knows that he is nothing.
~FIN
Reviews will be gladly accepted; I'm always looking to improve. And yes, the two meanings of the title -- "shades" referring to both ghosts and differing qualities -- were intentional. :)
Author: Athena Parthenos
Feedback: Constructive criticism, suggestions, and praise will be gladly accepted.
Rating: R
Category: Angst
Spoilers: "Fool for Love," "Seeing Red," "Lessons" through "Selfless," "Lies My Parents Told Me"
Summary: Specters from his past mercilessly haunt a tortured Spike, sending him deeper into madness and despair.
Disclaimer: Spike, Dru, Cecily, Buffy, Anne, and any other M.E. characters mentioned within belong not to me but to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy.
Author's Note: While Sane!Spike is brilliant, I enjoyed Mad!Spike, too. This story details what a single day in the basement might have been for Spike . . . however did he survive weeks down there, the poor thing? Oh, also dedicated to "Lucien, Prince of Lies." Too bad that was cut from the "Lies My Parents Told Me" script. Enjoy!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
He shrinks into himself, pulling his legs up against his chest, resting his chin on his knees. The cold shadows seem to flit about him, dancing on the dull concrete walls of his basement prison. Within his tortured mind images arise of his victims, screaming, weeping, begging. Spike closes his eyes and shudders, praying they will leave, knowing that they won't.
"William?" The voice is hesitant, mild, but it startles him anyway. "William, dear boy, whatever are you doing in the dark?" He looks up and sees his mother, frail and delicate, leaning on her cane. Her eyes are tired, but still contain that brightness he remembers so well from her last days. Her dress is crisp and white, its folds hiding the feet that at so many times refused to bear her slender frame. Her familiar white shawl is clasped at her throat with the pearl brooch he gave her for her last birthday. A tender smile lights her worn, kind face. "Oh, William, how good it is to see you again!" She takes a step forward, leaning heavily on her cane.
"Mother?" he murmurs in shock. What is she doing here? "Mother, how can it be -- you died so long ago --"
The tender smile falters, and for a moment there is something cold and alien in her eyes. Her mouth is a thin, hard line. "So did you, and yet here you are. So too should I be. Or did you forget?"
He flinches at the memory threatening to rise to the surface, the memory of his mother restored by his hands and his fangs -- renewed, glowing, healthy, and . . . evil. Her last words to him are suddenly ringing in his ears for the first time in more than a century, and he gasps at how much they still hurt. Quickly he casts his mind away from that torturous last meeting, because he knows he cannot bear to hear his beloved mother hissing such monstrous things to him, even now. That wound has never healed, only festered; he knows it, and shies from it. He swallows, looking up at her -- she looks kind and fragile once more, and he lets himself sink into the sweet memories of her he still carries so close to his heart.
"Mother," he tries, again. "Are -- are you real?"
She smiles, kind once more. "Oh! Why -- what a question! Oh, William, you always were such a fanciful boy." She raises a pale hand and laughs into it, trying to hide her amusement and failing. The old, familiar gesture tugs at his heart, and suddenly he is near tears. He falls forward onto his hands and knees and crawls to her feet, seeking the comfort she once brought him.
"I'm in trouble," he confesses to her, looking up at her face. She raises her eyebrows, curious. "So many things I've done -- so many people I've hurt, or worse -- and now it's all come back to me, and I can't bear it, Mother." His last word is a plea, and he hangs his head in shame. "Please -- help me --"
Her voice is serious. "Don't be ridiculous. You know you have to atone. What did you expect? That you would get a soul and God would let you be? That it would earn you a seat in heaven, after all you've done? Didn't you ever listen in church? Or were you too busy casting sheep's eyes at Cecily Underwood in the pew across the way?"
He trembles, then backs away from her, still hiding his face from her and her quiet onslaught.
She chuckles scornfully at his action. "Oh, you're as naive as you ever were. I had thought immortality might toughen you up, but I see that you're still that prattling little babe I so detested."
A sound escapes him -- he isn't sure if it is of pain or of anger. He feels torn, straddling two mindsets -- he wants to go to his mother, apologize for everything he's done, and yet he also wants to dispense her and her harsh words. A sob forces its way through his lips, and he sits back on his haunches, hiding his face in his hands.
"William the Bloody Awful Poet," she says, relishing the words. "Oh, yes, I knew what they called you. Do you know how humiliating it was for me, to hear secondhand of how ridiculously sentimental my fool of a son was? As if hearing your wretched stuff at home wasn't enough! I remember your first poem; some nonsense about a 'wee birdie that flies, high up in the blue sky.' How old were you then? Six? It never ceased to amaze me how you never improved -- even in the slightest -- beyond that masterpiece. Oh, William -- you were *nothing.*" She snorts, the sound strange coming from such a delicate-looking woman. "A nothing of a little boy, who never did anything useful or worthwhile in his entire miserable life. I expect you devoted your energies to other endeavors; getting into my bed, perhaps?" The leer he knows she wears on her face is all wound up in her breathy little voice. "I know it's what you wanted . . . all those years trailing after me with nothing but *lust* in your eyes --"
"You're not my mother," he says shakily, his eyes screwed shut, his body tensed. Perhaps if he believes it, it will come true.
"You're right. I'm not." He hears a swish of her skirts, and breathes a sigh of relief, hoping this monster-mother has left him --
"William," a soft voice whispers. He blinks and raises his head to see Cecily Underwood standing before him as he last saw her: beaten and bloodied, tears streaking her cheeks. Her fine dress is ripped, and her soft brown hair curls in tendrils around her bruised, swollen face. Her eyes are cold, accusing. He casts his mind back to that night and remembers the way he tortured her until she was too weak to scream.
"I'm sorry," he breathes.
She scoffs. "Sorry? William, 'sorry' means nothing to me. Just as you mean nothing to me, even now." Her once-pretty face twists in disgust, her cracked and bleeding lips forming a sharp sneer. She reaches out a pale hand, once soft with a lifetime of pampering, now fat and stiff with a mass of bruises, and stops just short of stroking his cheek. Her voice is dark. "Wasn't that what you wanted? To mean something to me?" She purses her lips as if deep in thought. "Yes. I do remember." Her face is drawn into a mocking caricature, her voice a simpering stutter as she echoes his words of more than a century ago. "'All I ask is that -- is that you try to *see* me. . . .'"
His eyes burn with tears of shame as she laughs. The sound is a sharp bark, unflattering, unlovely. Not at all the way he remembers her, so poised and delicate. He looks askance at her, begging her silently to stop.
"That was what you wanted," she says matter-of-factly, pulling away her hand and bringing it to her blood-lined chest. She begins to circle him, taking the mincing little steps he remembers so well. Her skirts, their rich fabric in tatters, float gracefully along behind her as she walks. "Even when you died, you couldn't let me go. Oh yes, I do recall what you did. Came to my house; the butler was *so* surprised to see you. Everyone had heard of how miserably you acted at the party, you see." She sniffs disdainfully, then affects a lower voice, mimicking her serving-man. "'Miss Cecily! Master William Farrington is at the door. He wishes to see you.' I was surprised, of course -- that you would dare show yourself after the spectacle you'd made." She is behind him now; he tilts his head back to look at her. "He invited you in. The fool. And then -- why, I believe you know as well as I what happened next."
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. . . ." he mumbles, trying to keep her from recalling any further the memory of that night.
She shakes her head. "As if I would entertain the notion that a monster such as yourself could feel *remorse*!" Again the sharp, barking laugh. "No. You weren't sorry. You *enjoyed* it. *All* of it." Her voice is a low hiss, now, as she leans over him, face twisted. "How you killed the serving-man -- snapped his old thin neck. I screamed like this --" She lets out a shrill, keening wail that bounces off the walls, hurting his ears, and then returns to her hisses. "And I ran -- I was *so* frightened, William --" She sounds as if she's humoring him, and indeed, in her eyes a dark maliciousness dances. A bitter smile contorts her face. "And you leapt after me, and pinned me to the ground -- hardly a fair fight, William. I, a poor, helpless lady, and you, a . . . creature. An . . . animal."
She begins walking again, circling him tightly, letting her hands swing freely. They miss his face by mere inches as she goes round and round, continuing her tale. "You ripped my dress; I still remember the sound. It was very loud, William. Everything else seemed to have gone -- quiet. There was only me crying, and you laughing, and that long *rip* of the cloth. It was a most illuminating moment, really." She tosses back her proud head, her blood-streaked hair bouncing behind her. "Do you remember what you said then? You said, 'You're going to see me now.' And you had your way with me." Her voice, now, is level. She fixes him with those cold, dead eyes and says, "Did you enjoy it?"
She doesn't give him a chance to answer. He is breathing heavily, now, trying to block out that terrible night, closing his eyes, wanting to clap his hands over his ears and knowing it will do no good. At this moment, with Cecily's spirit taunting him, and the memories of a thousand thousand deaths by his own hands -- at this moment, remorse is palpable. He feels it in the twisting in his chest, in the tightness prickling at the back of his eyes, in the way his hands tremble against his will. He takes a deep, hitching breath, and folds his knees to his chest, resting his head on them. His arms go around his head, trying to keep out Cecily's calm charges.
"I say you did. You relished the pain I was in, I know it. Every scream torn from my lips was a *pleasure.*" She crouches down before him. "Look at me the way you did that night, with that hatred, that *obsession*, still in your eyes. Do you remember how you were so rough with me that the blood came, trickling out to stain my skirts? Do you remember how when you had got tired of using me in that manner, how you beat me? How you threw me into the wall? How you broke my nose into little slivers? Do you remember how you sat down beside me, and carefully, ever so carefully, broke every single one of my fingers?" Despite himself, he looks at her. She holds up her hands, the little hands he had dreamed would touch him one day, and waves them before his face. They are so swollen and gnarled that the knuckles cannot be seen; they are black and blue, knobbly and hideous. He notes that there is blood under her fingernails -- the blood she shed from him in her frantic struggle to escape. Dazedly he touches his cheek, remembering how her nails had gouged him there, how the blood had flowed freely, how it had only made his game that much more exciting. . . .
She leans forward so that her mouth hovers just before his ear. She speaks, her words soft, silky. "And the whole time, your little paramour stood in the doorway, watching as you had your fun right there in the front hallway. What was her name? Drusilla? Do you remember how she clapped and laughed to see such gaiety?" Her eyes blaze, but her voice is calm. "Do you remember, dear William, how you sank your fangs into my neck and drained me until I was nothing but a broken, empty shell?"
A sob escapes him. He wants her to stop, but can find neither the energy nor the words to speak, to tell her how sorry he is. His hands form themselves into fists; his fingernails cut into his palms, and he vaguely feels blood trickling down his wrists, but he doesn't mind. Concrete, physical pain -- that he can understand, and bear. It's only the mental anguish that keeps him so bewildered and afraid.
"Do you want to know something?" she asks, suddenly bright and cheerful again. "Through all of that -- through *all* of it -- never once, *ever*, did I *see* you." He looks up at her, stricken. "Oh, I looked at you, to be sure. I could hardly help what my eyes did during your little game. But even then -- even when you had broken me -- you were still nothing. A nothing 'man' who simply became a nothing monster." She folds her arms across his chest, still smiling despite the way her voice is harsh, almost guttural. "You were *pathetic!*"
He lets out a strangled cry of grief, of horror, of apology. She dismisses it easily, leering at him, giving him a salacious little half-grin and a wink with one swollen eye. He pulls back, further into himself, hoping desperately to escape her.
She has nearly finished. "Pathetic," she muses. "And so you are now, and so you shall always be." She laughs quietly, as if to herself. "You shall never be anything, William, to anyone."
He shakes his head, grief flooding him for his actions. "Dru," he manages, before he ducks his head to hide from the dreadful apparition. "I was something to her."
There is a laugh, bright but hard, and he recognizes Drusilla's singsong voice. "But darling," she purrs, "I was mad." He looks up and sees Dru laughing, her eyes dancing, her white arms raised towards the ceiling. A bunch of white lace lines her pale throat; her crimson dress, underlaid with black, forms delicate folds at her high-heeled feet. "And so are you."
He stares at her, stricken -- and then bows his head in agreement. "I think you're right, pet." He stifles a sob, and wonders, fleetingly, if anything -- the basement, Drusilla, himself -- is truly real. But the thought flees as quickly as it had appeared, and he closes his eyes again, lost within the shadows of his own mind.
"And yet, Spike, we are different, you and I." Drusilla sounds thoughtful, lucid. "Daddy tortured me, made me cry, made me see all sorts of lovelies. I used to push them away; with both hands, yes! Mummy told me they were naughty, and I always listened to my mum, but Daddy. . . . Daddy taught me it was best to keep my pretty pictures. Best to keep my pictures; best to bathe in blood." She giggles. "You learned it." Daintily she draws pictures in the air with her long slim fingers. "Do you remember how you would catch those lovely little girls in the streets? They oughtn't to be walking alone at night, after all; so you brought them back to me and we would play. Oh, how we would play, darling. . . ." She snaps her teeth, suddenly, shifting into vamp-face. She smiles. "Rip their pretty skin like lace, and all their insides come tumbling out. Little girls break so easily. We should know. So many little girls never went back to their mummies and daddies, to eat cakes in the morning with the cruel sun shining. No. We stopped them, we did."
"Please, Dru," he mutters. "No more." He doesn't want to think about the countless deaths the two of them have caused, ranging through the countries of the world, leaving terror and death and grief behind them. He doesn't want to think about the dead eyes of every victim, about how, in the end, they all looked exactly the same -- a white mouth drawn up in shock, eyes clouded and dull, body cool and stiffening. He realizes she is still talking, but not about their victims anymore; she's back to rambling on quietly about the joy she finds in her befuddled mind.
She has slipped back into human guise, a tiny, mysterious smile on her lips. "It was Daddy what did it all. Daddy brought me the people, and the stars, and all those strange, beautiful sights you could never have imagined." Her voice is hushed; but suddenly she laughs again. "It hurt me, Spike, what my Angelus did; but it was so beautiful. All the colors, and the music, and -- the stars. . . ."
He looks up at her, wondering what she is trying to say.
She grants him a small smile. Matter-of-factly, she states, "There is no beauty for you."
He nods assent, feeling tired and miserable. He wants to tell her about the horrors lodged in his mind, the way the madness skitters along the inside of his skull like a phalanx of spiders. He wants to tell her about the apparitions stalking his every move, how their voices sing dark songs of the pain that he caused. He wants to tell her about the pain, stark and terrible, that tears at his mind and his heart and makes him weep. He wants to tell her about the cruel words of his mother, of Cecily. He wants to explain to her all these things, but instead he simply mumbles, "Just -- just darkness, Dru."
She draws herself up to her full height. "Well, it's how it should be, isn't it?" She flashes her teeth in a wide grin. "Everything must be bought for a price. You know that, Spike." She sounds for all the world like a teacher faced with a reluctant, thickheaded student. She holds up a hand, sheathed in black lace, and counts off on her fingers. "Puppies, and posies, and blood. All of it charged by little dark fairies. They keep the numbers and the hearts; how much do you owe the fairies, love?" Her voice cracks with sudden anguish. "How many pounds will it take to buy your guilt?"
A thought strikes him, then. "Dru, love, we're in America. They use dollars here."
She looks at him with wide eyes, then giggles. "Oh, my Spike, I'm not. You're mixed up, you are. Nothing's right in your little spinning head; nothing's *in* your little, spinning head." She chuckles at the play on her words, while he simply stares at her.
"You're not in America?" he asks in disbelief. "I may be mad, Dru, but at least I know where we are. We're in the soddin' basement of the high school. Sunnydale, California, pet. Ring a bell?"
She sighs. "Dear heart. . . ." She snaps her long, white fingers in front of his face, and he flinches. "I'm a little pixie, dancing in your head." She laughs, and the sound is long and high and painful. Her dark eyes -- the eyes he used to drown in -- sparkle with mischief. "And you thought *I* was mad." She sniffs and steps past him, holding her head up high, casting not even the barest glance in his direction. As she walks, she says in her singsong voice, "My little Spike left his mummy dearest. Left the sweet night for an endless day -- for a pretty little girl of satin and steel, and roses red like blood. But he'll see, now. He'll find the sun will burn."
"Dru!" he cries, getting jerkily to his feet and whirling, intent on bringing her back to him. If anyone can understand his confusion, his fears, the way things now shift so cruelly and quickly, it will be Dru, locked inside her own head for a hundred and fifty years. "Drusilla!"
But it is not Dru facing away from him, playing languidly with a strand of her long hair, one hand resting on a small hip. It's Buffy.
Hearing him she turns around, her face strangely worn and fatigued. She shakes her head, blonde hair shimmering in the faint light. She wears a long, beaded black dress; it makes her look pale and wan. "Spike? Why are you down here in the basement?"
"I . . . there's nowhere else," he admits, ashamed. He lifts a blood-stickied hand and rubs the back of his neck with it; the drying blood turns his skin gummy, and he pulls the hand away in disgust. He is suddenly confused -- how can his mother be there one instant, Cecily the next, Dru after her, and now Buffy? He gulps, tears pricking at the back of his eyes. "I don't know what to do."
Her lips are drawn down in a worried frown. "What's wrong?" she asks softly, closing the distance between them until she stands but inches away. The beaded fringe of her dress swishes back and forth with every step she takes; it distracts him in his bemused state, but when she is standing so close to him he cannot help but look at her. Her eyes are filled with nothing but concern -- he reels at the depth of emotion shining out from her face, and steps away, knowing he cannot deserve her. "What's wrong?" she repeats.
"Nothing," he chokes, his voice thick. He tries to laugh away the pain that has come roaring up from his subconscious, but the laugh comes out a miserable, unnaturally high giggle, ending in a desperate half-sob. Clumsily, his shoulders hunching, he brings curled-up hands to his face to hide from her. Of course, though, she is still there, watching him with sympathetic eyes, and he knows he cannot lie to her. "Everything," he confesses brokenly.
"Spike --" She reaches out a slender hand to stroke his cheek, but he jerks away before she can touch him. She stares at him, hurt. "Please -- I can't help you if you don't tell me what's going on."
He lets out a ragged breath, raising his head and looking past her, into the darkness of the empty room. He knows that if he glances at her face for even a moment he will be lost in her pity and her tenderness, and he will never escape. He blinks away tears before they have the chance to fall, and says painfully, "Is this what your soul does?"
She seems taken aback. "I don't know what you mean."
A muscle works involuntarily in his cheek; he swallows. He keeps his gaze firmly fixed on the back wall, and speaks carefully, trying to stay composed. "Do you see things? See everything you've done, everyone you've hurt, every damn drop of blood on your hands? The people you've hurt -- do they come to you? Do they -- speak -- to you --" He cannot finish the thought; he is choked with pain, with grief. It is too much. There is too much to bear, too much blood to wash away, and the weight of it is so very heavy. . . . He falls to his knees, and tears streak his pale face.
"No," she whispers. "They don't. Probably -- probably because I've never done anything terrible." Her voice is warm; he can hear the smile in it. He wants to think she is being kind to him, but he knows she is only toying with him. "Not like you have, anyway."
He closes his eyes, knowing what is coming -- the sharp words, the cruel laughter, the harsh voice. "Please," he begs. "I *know* what I've done. You don't need to tell me." The shame overwhelms him -- shame for what he's done, yes, but also shame for how pitiful, how wretched, he is now. He takes a deep, hitching breath. "Please stop. . . ."
"Like you stopped for me?" she asks wickedly. She changes her voice; it sounds high, frightened -- the way it was that last night, in her bathroom. "'No! Stop! *Please stop!*'" She switches back to her regular tone and laughs derisively. "Remember that?"
Through the anguish -- a force so strong that he physically aches with the horror of it -- he whispers, "I . . . I could never forget." The memories come flooding back at him, and he gasps at the guilt that comes with them. The memories blur sickeningly in his head -- the fear in her eyes and the fury in her voice, the power he had felt as she struggled beneath him, the way the cloth of her robe gave so easily, the feel of her hot flesh beneath his hands -- He retches, shaking.
She laughs quietly to herself. "Nothing will change what you've done, Spike. Nothing. Remember *that.*"
He forces himself to calm down, to stop shaking. He takes a deep breath, then raises his head weakly, wanting to apologize, or maybe to scream at her to leave him alone and let him suffer in peace. "Buffy --"
But she is gone.
He hangs his head. "Right, then. Gone away, had your fun. I see how it is." Sighing, he lowers himself to the cold floor. Exhaustion overwhelms him, and he curls into himself, trembling, whispering a steady stream of quiet nonsense to the empty room around him.
At last the vampire falls into a fitful half-sleep. The blood on his hands and the tears on his cheeks dry in the cool air of the basement, but he does not know it; he is too occupied with the tumultuous, painful dreams that plague him. In these dreams the torture continues, unceasing, unstoppable. Voices assault his ears and faces haunt his sight; his mouth feels heavy with the rich taste of blood. Unconscious whimpers escape the mad, broken man curled up on the floor; the pitiable sounds echo faintly off the walls surrounding him.
He stays that way for hours, shuddering, weeping, teetering on the edge of sleep but never truly slipping into blessed unconsciousness. His agonized, sleepless state does not surprise him, though. He knows that he will find no rest.
He knows that he is nothing.
~FIN
Reviews will be gladly accepted; I'm always looking to improve. And yes, the two meanings of the title -- "shades" referring to both ghosts and differing qualities -- were intentional. :)