Title : Blood and Alcohol
Author : Ultrawoman
Rating : PG
Spoilers : Major for Entropy and Crush, references to S/B relationship during seasons 5 and 6.
Summary : Fairly short, one shot fic (unless anyone really wants more...) Spike drinks and thinks - kind of dark and angsty compared to my usual stuff, but I was in the mood so, here it is... [After Spike and Anya's 'table-polishing' in Entropy and before the nasty 'S/B bathroom scene' in Seeing Red]
Feedback : Yes, please!
Disclaimer : All characters belong to that wonderous man called Joss, who we all thank muchly for creating the great shows 'Buffy' and 'Angel', and the best character ever, Spike! [Also, a couple of bits of dialogue are lines (or close to lines) from Entropy, so they kind of belong to the writers of that episode]
Blood and Alcohol
"It's complicated, Nibblet" Spike told the girl he saw as the sister he never had.
It was complicated too, his relationship with the Slayer, from beginning to end, and it was the end now, he knew he had to accept it really was over this time.
"Everybody keeps saying that" Dawn retorted, her tone so close to Buffy's own when she was angry at him. She was his bitty-Buffy, Spike had not been wrong about that, he realised as he drained his glass of blood and vodka combined.
"Must be true then" he answered quietly as the alcohol burned his throat and the plasma made his demon growl within him. It didn't help, it should, but it didn't.
Part of the vampire ached when he sensed Dawn leave the crypt. He wanted her company, anyone's company, anyone who might understand...
'All I know is, if you wanted to hurt Buffy, congratulations, you did it'
That's what the little girl had said. He'd hurt his Slayer. Sure she'd hurt him too, she'd never know how much it pained him, to be so close to her and yet so far, to be physically with her, practically part of her, while emotionally she was miles away. Her mind was in a different world all the time, but he noticed it most when they were really together. That hurt more than any physical blow she could lay on him, any nasty words she could throw in his face.
And yet he forgave her. He would not blame her for not loving him. You can't control who you love, that much was obvious. Would a vampire love a Slayer if love were sensible? Of course not.
The silence and the dark only made Spike's mood blacker, his problems seem heavier. The drink in his hand began to separate. No matter how many times he swirled the glass, brought the alcohol and the blood together, they always came apart - everything came apart. Some things just weren't meant to be together, some people weren't.
In a rage he jumped from the seat and threw the glass at the crypt wall. A million shards of glass fell down as the vampire dropped to his knees. He watched the rivulets of red liquid trickle down the wall, accompanied by the drink it had shared it's vessel with, but never really wanted to admit to being close to.
Then he laughed. Spike let out a hysterical burst of a giggle, as tears streamed down his cheeks. It was laughable. His very existence was a cruel joke and it was all his own fault.
He could blame fate for dealing him the hand he held.
He could blame Dru for turning him, Angelus for siring her, or Darla for starting it all.
He could say it was the Slayer's fault for charming him, or those soldier boys for wiring up his brain, but in the end it's the choices you make that make you what you are, it was all his own fault.
'...if you wanted to hurt Buffy, congratulations, you did...'
He thought of those words again and Spike wished they made him feel better, but they didn't. If she was hurting, surely she had to care, had to feel something for him, right? Then why didn't she admit it? Would things ever work out even if she did? Or was it all royally screwed up beyond saving now?
The unlife of William the Bloody had just hit a new low. It felt as if he'd reached rock bottom when she'd ended it but now...now there was rock bottom, several feet of hell and then him. And it wasn't just sleeping with Anya that did it, it was all the most horrible of messes before. That last mistake, that search for solace, that was just the straw that broke the dromedary.
Another drink, vodka straight from the bottle, the fridge seemed too far away to bother about the blood. None of it helped anyway so what was the point? What was the point to anything if his Slayer was in pain, pain he'd caused and hurt he could not ease. Or could he?
Spike's mind flashed back to just a over a year earlier, the day he had admitted his feelings to Buffy. Okay, so he'd not gone about it in the best way. Chaining girls up in crypts and threatening them with death - probably not a turn on for them in retrospect. He'd begged for something though, for a hint of a crumb of a feeling for him, something he could cling to...but she couldn't even give him that.
Now though, now there was something.
If what he'd done had hurt her then she had to feel something for him, even if it wasn't love, she had to admit she cared, even just a little...and she would admit it, he'd see to that.
She couldn't lie anymore.
THE END ?
