Voices Inside My Head, Part 2
Spike feels...remarkably calm as he sits on Buffy's bed in the dark, anticipating the continuation of their earlier conversation.
She's inside of me. He thinks. My heart. My soul. And now my bloody mind. He laughs and shakes his head. Buffy always amazes him. Without thinking, he searches his duster pocket for cigarettes.
"Right, mate," he corrects himself. "Smoke in her room...that'll win 'er back."
He feels something else in his pockets and pulls out the contents. It's a CD, a soundtrack from a movie that he loves: Brimstone and Treacle. "Cor, I wondered where you'd gotten off too, luv." He caresses the disk, and opens it.
Standing up, he crosses the room to the portable stereo and flips open the player's lid. "Ugh...Limp Bizkit?" he whispers in disgust, eyeing the disk already inside. "Slayer, please." He grabs the CD as if it was made of something loathsome and tosses the offensive object onto the floor, popping in his disk. He fumbles with the buttons and pushes play.
He'd been in this room countless times, but rarely alone. He looks at the photos of Buffy as a little girl. He smiles. I would've loved to watch her grow. The music starts and memories suddenly flood the vampire's mind.
Oh when the role is called up yonder,
When the role is called up yonder
Oh when the role is called up yonder,
When the role is called up yonder I'll be there.
Children's voices. Spike uncomfortably remembers his "Parish" phase, as Angelus had called it. William the bloody at his very bloody best. He is overwhelmed as the faces come back, one by one. Then dozens of impassioned Spanish Catholics he'd terrorized one fateful night so long ago. He squeezes his eyes shut and clenches his fists against the black cloud that is descending upon his mind. Oh God, I can't. I can't, not now. Please.
He thinks of Buffy smiling up at him. The images recede. He gasps for a breath that he doesn't need to take. He thinks to turn the CD off, but the music has changed. He doesn't want to be defeated or weak, so he locks his jaw and listens. Nothing but music, no images come. All he needs is Buffy.
Just the thought of her. Golden like sunshine. Fierce and beautiful. Strong. Gentle. A force of nature. I need her more than the blood.
He begins to silently weep.
He wipes angrily at his tears and forces them to cease.
He walks over to the window, idly singing along with the man on the CD.
He stands and he waits.
TBC