Loose Ends
Chapter 3 of several
by Lynne C.
Rating: This part rated PG-13, later episodes will become more adult.
Disclaimer: It's all Joss' - I worship at the altar of his genius, and acknowledge that he owns all these folks and everything that they do and say.
Setting/Spoilers: AtS Season 5, generally - and, Spike's "semi-canon" past (London, mid-1970s)
Summary: An unexpected epilogue to an incident in Spike's past, inspired by a throwaway line from Buffy 7.8
Misc: You can look in my ff.net profile for my website, and check there for updates to this story, or to read this part with its proper formatting (italics and such).
Loose Ends
He'd heard of the band by chance, on a regular visit to a curious clothing shop in King's Road. It had been not long before he had brought Dru to the UsofA for the second time – he recalled it as either '75 or '76. Not like he owned a calendar. But by his reckoning afterwards, it was somewhere in there.
They'd been back in London. Wherever they roamed, they always seemed to end up back there – where they'd each been born, both times, in fact – as humans and as vampires. She'd spent much of this particular sojourn caught up in "reliving" her last months as a human. She seemed drawn to churches and the very few Church of England convent houses, including the one that had been her own, all those years ago.
Spike had accompanied her as often as his patience allowed, but he would just never draw the same satisfaction as she did from the symbolism she assigned the games she played with her food before she ate. He loved her, but he'd never understand how that beautiful, broken, depraved mind of hers worked. Besides, all those middle-aged holy women were so bland. Generally, they hadn't a lot of fight in them, just a devout acceptance that this had been foreordained by the Almighty, and it was their duty to accept it. Not that they weren't properly terrified – they were. But the fact that they didn't get that he was an independent operator in the universe, rather than the pawn in some divine predestination, was insulting.
What'd they think? He'd wondered, that they'd done something so evil themselves that He'd decided they deserved this as punishment? Else, if they held to this 'loving God' as they claimed, how to explain an end so vile, from their perspective, anyway?
Those meals were sustaining, but not especially enjoyable. So, more and more, they'd hunted separately. And while Dru was visiting the past, and dining on the meek and the good, Spike was exploring in a whole other direction. He'd taken a fancy to bleach his hair not long before they'd come home to England, having eaten an albino in Italy, and appreciated the way the fellow stood out in the crowd. All the better to see you…as the fairy story said.
And Spike was most definitely interested in being seen.
He'd gotten a bellyful of Angelus' blend-in-and-enjoy-the-comforts-of-society approach to vampire existence. They'd fought about it any number of times, thrashing one another to the point of bloody exhaustion, Angelus always so cool and calculating and pompously serious in his effort to "teach the boy a lesson". Blighter never got that I was baiting him the fight was half the bloody fun!
So, even all these decades later, Spike was still looking for ways to be seen, to create chaos, and generally tell "society" to "Fuck Off!" with everything he did. Yeah, he knew it was the most basic psychology of rebellion and "father issues", but he didn't care. He'd never before felt so alive, and that was what mattered.
Thus it happened that Spike found himself in King's Road in Chelsea early one evening, swaggering down the middle of the sidewalk in combat boots, daring the other pedestrians to refuse to give way. None did. Between the attitude that he exuded, and the striking look of his singed and ripped t-shirt held together with safety pins, heavily lined eyes and chain wrapped double around his neck, their wariness was tinged with fear, without him even looking directly at them.
This is more like it! He recalled breathing in the satisfying whiffs of adrenaline that would peak infinitesimally as he neared and then passed each person, their primal fight-or-flight instincts recognizing him for the predator that he was, though their conscious minds assumed he was just a common street thug. It was a delicious tease that primed him for whatever entertainment he'd devise for himself later on.
He wasn't going anywhere in particular, just working his way through some of the grittier neighborhoods of London. He figured he'd know where he was going when he got there, or had, in one way or another, sated his appetite(s), and it was time to return to the lair just ahead of the sunrise.
A tall, leggy redhead had caught his attention, crossing from his side of the street to the other, so that he didn't notice the place right away. But, when the very eatable girl had gotten into a waiting car and pulled away, Spike had turned to look at the place he was passing, and stopped. The door was standing open, and voices drifted out into the evening air. But it was the spraypainted graffiti covering the inside walls that had caught his attention.
So, he went in. It took him a moment to realize that it was, essentially, a clothing shop. The sex toys and rubber curtains tended to catch the attention first, but when he looked past them, there were racks of t-shirts with scrawled epithets and slogans screened or written on them.
Interesting….
There was a buxom girl with a very blond beehive and shiny black vinyl dress near the cash register, being chatted up by a couple of teenage boys dressed in products obviously purchased on the premises. They spared him a quick glance, but their attention returned immediately to the shop girl, focused intently somewhere below her chin.
Spike toned down the attitude of outright insolence with which he'd made his way there, for one of nonchalant superiority, hooked his thumbs in his beltloops, and strolled around the place. Beehive-girl might make a tasty morsel, and if he looked around a bit, he could make up his mind if it was worth waiting for her to finish work and take to the dark streets.
He could feel himself being watched, from the back corner of the place, but didn't look up until he'd found a trinket he liked. He picked up a studded leather wristband, turned it over, slowly running his fingertips over the protruding bits of steel. He paused, then wrapped it around his wrist and snapped it into place. Spike flexed his fingers, making a fist and feeling the resistance from the new leather.
Feels good… looks good…yeh, no need to hang about to eat this could be fun.
Finally, he looked up and met the challenging gaze that could only belong to the proprietress – a striking woman in her 30s with pale hair shaved close and spiked up on top. Their eyes held for a long moment, before Spike gave her a defiant sneer, tongue caressing his front teeth, flexed his fist once more, then turned and strolled out of the shop. She never said a word or stirred, having correctly read the danger emanating from him. But her relentless eyes were on him until he'd left.
He liked that – tough broad, not backin' down, but sharp enough t'stay outta m'way.
He'd prowled the Tube for a bit after that, finally grabbing a bite, in the form of a lone tourist, a few transfers away, driving a game of cat and mouse with her into the recesses of an abandoned branch line.
Spike had let a couple of weeks pass before he returned to the store, but his curiosity had been piqued. So, he'd gone back, interested to see what his reception would be like. After all, the place seemed to be almost as intent on giving the world the two-fingered salute as he was. Who knew what might come of it.
The second visit was a bit disappointing, as the owner-lady was in an argument with some tosser who was trying to tell her that the place needed to "make a statement" (Oi! Like the bondage gear don't speak up loud 'n' clear!) and "defy commercialism", by which Spike assumed that the bloke was of the opinion that if it was making enough money to sustain itself, it had become part of the establishment. Besides being a patronizing git, he was ruining Spike's return to the scene of his petty crime. So, he did a quick turn of the place, again being ignored by beehive-girl, but earning a nod from a scrawny young man with green hair. At the very end of his tour, he bumped into the self-important pillock, cutting him off mid-rant.
"Hey, watch where you're…"
Spike's response was a low growl right up in the fellow's face, coupled with a yellow flash of the eye that came and went so quickly he'd never be sure later that it had actually happened.
The color drained from the wanker's face, and though his mouth opened and closed a couple of times, he couldn't seem to find the breath to say whatever was swirling in his head.
And then Spike left. He could never be quite sure afterwards, when he thought back on it, why he hadn't just ripped the guy's throat out. He would finally conclude he'd just wanted to keep his options open.
After that, he returned sporadically, always taking away a souvenir of some kind. He liked their dedication to giving shock and offence, so decided not to mess with anyone he found there. It was worth dining elsewhere to let it continue to exist. And he enjoyed the fact that he was getting away with taking what he wanted, bold as he pleased.
It was lurking about the establishment in King's Road that he heard about a new band playing out. Despite the fact that the tosser, who turned out to also be the husband – or boyfriend – Spike wasn't quite sure which, of the brassy owner-lady, seemed to be the one who'd put the whole thing together, he decided to give them a go.
So, he showed up at a grimy little club in North London to hear the Sex Pistols.
To be continued….
Chapter 3 of several
by Lynne C.
Rating: This part rated PG-13, later episodes will become more adult.
Disclaimer: It's all Joss' - I worship at the altar of his genius, and acknowledge that he owns all these folks and everything that they do and say.
Setting/Spoilers: AtS Season 5, generally - and, Spike's "semi-canon" past (London, mid-1970s)
Summary: An unexpected epilogue to an incident in Spike's past, inspired by a throwaway line from Buffy 7.8
Misc: You can look in my ff.net profile for my website, and check there for updates to this story, or to read this part with its proper formatting (italics and such).
Loose Ends
He'd heard of the band by chance, on a regular visit to a curious clothing shop in King's Road. It had been not long before he had brought Dru to the UsofA for the second time – he recalled it as either '75 or '76. Not like he owned a calendar. But by his reckoning afterwards, it was somewhere in there.
They'd been back in London. Wherever they roamed, they always seemed to end up back there – where they'd each been born, both times, in fact – as humans and as vampires. She'd spent much of this particular sojourn caught up in "reliving" her last months as a human. She seemed drawn to churches and the very few Church of England convent houses, including the one that had been her own, all those years ago.
Spike had accompanied her as often as his patience allowed, but he would just never draw the same satisfaction as she did from the symbolism she assigned the games she played with her food before she ate. He loved her, but he'd never understand how that beautiful, broken, depraved mind of hers worked. Besides, all those middle-aged holy women were so bland. Generally, they hadn't a lot of fight in them, just a devout acceptance that this had been foreordained by the Almighty, and it was their duty to accept it. Not that they weren't properly terrified – they were. But the fact that they didn't get that he was an independent operator in the universe, rather than the pawn in some divine predestination, was insulting.
What'd they think? He'd wondered, that they'd done something so evil themselves that He'd decided they deserved this as punishment? Else, if they held to this 'loving God' as they claimed, how to explain an end so vile, from their perspective, anyway?
Those meals were sustaining, but not especially enjoyable. So, more and more, they'd hunted separately. And while Dru was visiting the past, and dining on the meek and the good, Spike was exploring in a whole other direction. He'd taken a fancy to bleach his hair not long before they'd come home to England, having eaten an albino in Italy, and appreciated the way the fellow stood out in the crowd. All the better to see you…as the fairy story said.
And Spike was most definitely interested in being seen.
He'd gotten a bellyful of Angelus' blend-in-and-enjoy-the-comforts-of-society approach to vampire existence. They'd fought about it any number of times, thrashing one another to the point of bloody exhaustion, Angelus always so cool and calculating and pompously serious in his effort to "teach the boy a lesson". Blighter never got that I was baiting him the fight was half the bloody fun!
So, even all these decades later, Spike was still looking for ways to be seen, to create chaos, and generally tell "society" to "Fuck Off!" with everything he did. Yeah, he knew it was the most basic psychology of rebellion and "father issues", but he didn't care. He'd never before felt so alive, and that was what mattered.
Thus it happened that Spike found himself in King's Road in Chelsea early one evening, swaggering down the middle of the sidewalk in combat boots, daring the other pedestrians to refuse to give way. None did. Between the attitude that he exuded, and the striking look of his singed and ripped t-shirt held together with safety pins, heavily lined eyes and chain wrapped double around his neck, their wariness was tinged with fear, without him even looking directly at them.
This is more like it! He recalled breathing in the satisfying whiffs of adrenaline that would peak infinitesimally as he neared and then passed each person, their primal fight-or-flight instincts recognizing him for the predator that he was, though their conscious minds assumed he was just a common street thug. It was a delicious tease that primed him for whatever entertainment he'd devise for himself later on.
He wasn't going anywhere in particular, just working his way through some of the grittier neighborhoods of London. He figured he'd know where he was going when he got there, or had, in one way or another, sated his appetite(s), and it was time to return to the lair just ahead of the sunrise.
A tall, leggy redhead had caught his attention, crossing from his side of the street to the other, so that he didn't notice the place right away. But, when the very eatable girl had gotten into a waiting car and pulled away, Spike had turned to look at the place he was passing, and stopped. The door was standing open, and voices drifted out into the evening air. But it was the spraypainted graffiti covering the inside walls that had caught his attention.
So, he went in. It took him a moment to realize that it was, essentially, a clothing shop. The sex toys and rubber curtains tended to catch the attention first, but when he looked past them, there were racks of t-shirts with scrawled epithets and slogans screened or written on them.
Interesting….
There was a buxom girl with a very blond beehive and shiny black vinyl dress near the cash register, being chatted up by a couple of teenage boys dressed in products obviously purchased on the premises. They spared him a quick glance, but their attention returned immediately to the shop girl, focused intently somewhere below her chin.
Spike toned down the attitude of outright insolence with which he'd made his way there, for one of nonchalant superiority, hooked his thumbs in his beltloops, and strolled around the place. Beehive-girl might make a tasty morsel, and if he looked around a bit, he could make up his mind if it was worth waiting for her to finish work and take to the dark streets.
He could feel himself being watched, from the back corner of the place, but didn't look up until he'd found a trinket he liked. He picked up a studded leather wristband, turned it over, slowly running his fingertips over the protruding bits of steel. He paused, then wrapped it around his wrist and snapped it into place. Spike flexed his fingers, making a fist and feeling the resistance from the new leather.
Feels good… looks good…yeh, no need to hang about to eat this could be fun.
Finally, he looked up and met the challenging gaze that could only belong to the proprietress – a striking woman in her 30s with pale hair shaved close and spiked up on top. Their eyes held for a long moment, before Spike gave her a defiant sneer, tongue caressing his front teeth, flexed his fist once more, then turned and strolled out of the shop. She never said a word or stirred, having correctly read the danger emanating from him. But her relentless eyes were on him until he'd left.
He liked that – tough broad, not backin' down, but sharp enough t'stay outta m'way.
He'd prowled the Tube for a bit after that, finally grabbing a bite, in the form of a lone tourist, a few transfers away, driving a game of cat and mouse with her into the recesses of an abandoned branch line.
Spike had let a couple of weeks pass before he returned to the store, but his curiosity had been piqued. So, he'd gone back, interested to see what his reception would be like. After all, the place seemed to be almost as intent on giving the world the two-fingered salute as he was. Who knew what might come of it.
The second visit was a bit disappointing, as the owner-lady was in an argument with some tosser who was trying to tell her that the place needed to "make a statement" (Oi! Like the bondage gear don't speak up loud 'n' clear!) and "defy commercialism", by which Spike assumed that the bloke was of the opinion that if it was making enough money to sustain itself, it had become part of the establishment. Besides being a patronizing git, he was ruining Spike's return to the scene of his petty crime. So, he did a quick turn of the place, again being ignored by beehive-girl, but earning a nod from a scrawny young man with green hair. At the very end of his tour, he bumped into the self-important pillock, cutting him off mid-rant.
"Hey, watch where you're…"
Spike's response was a low growl right up in the fellow's face, coupled with a yellow flash of the eye that came and went so quickly he'd never be sure later that it had actually happened.
The color drained from the wanker's face, and though his mouth opened and closed a couple of times, he couldn't seem to find the breath to say whatever was swirling in his head.
And then Spike left. He could never be quite sure afterwards, when he thought back on it, why he hadn't just ripped the guy's throat out. He would finally conclude he'd just wanted to keep his options open.
After that, he returned sporadically, always taking away a souvenir of some kind. He liked their dedication to giving shock and offence, so decided not to mess with anyone he found there. It was worth dining elsewhere to let it continue to exist. And he enjoyed the fact that he was getting away with taking what he wanted, bold as he pleased.
It was lurking about the establishment in King's Road that he heard about a new band playing out. Despite the fact that the tosser, who turned out to also be the husband – or boyfriend – Spike wasn't quite sure which, of the brassy owner-lady, seemed to be the one who'd put the whole thing together, he decided to give them a go.
So, he showed up at a grimy little club in North London to hear the Sex Pistols.
To be continued….