A/N: Hey, hey! Long time no write! =D lol Lame, I know, heh. -.-' Welp, anywhos, "The Affair" has been removed, so that's why I wasn't able to update for so long due to my...erm...banning. ::blush:: Yes, I've been a "bad" girl, rotfl. Welp...hopefully you like this chapter...I'm not so sure if I do or not...it's interesting, lol.
FLASHBACKS ARE IN ITALICS (this flashback is before Julia died, so don't be confused...and no, she's NOT in it =-P)
"I know that you know where Valentine is hiding! You're his best and closest employee!"
Spike didn't reply, perspiration beading profusely upon his naked body in tiny droplets as a mechanical claw continued to hold his right eye open, a small needle hovering above it with the full intention of slamming down if the circumstances called for it.
Absolutely outraged that his captive was not responding, the silvery-haired man continued coldly, "If you don't answer me, Spike, these fine surgeons, here, will be more than happy to take your eye out and replace it with a new, just as efficient one. Would you like that?"
Spike was about to shake his head, but instantly thought better of it due to the device attached to his eyelids, his voice hoarse and pained as he choked in acknowledgement, "I swear that I know nothing, Vicious....in fact, Valentine might already be dead! Julia told me that he came in to work Tuesday, and that was the last that she saw of him."
"Who cares what Julia saw?!," Vicious growled, thus causing his captive to cringe due to the deep bite within his subzero vocals. "What did you, yourself, see, Spike? Was Tuesday the last day that you saw him?"
"Uh....no. I last saw him yesterday evening."
"And?," Vicious pressed. "What else?"
Spike frowned. "There is nothing else. If you were expecting a long, frivilous speech, please allow me to apologize in advance since I have nothing more to report. Now, if you'll be so kind, unstrap me from this cold metal table and get me the hell out of here!"
Vicious glared daggers at his adversary, then made a cryptic motion towards one of the surgeons, the man smirking to himself as he immediately flicked back a nearby switch upon the wall and waited for the horrendous outcome.
Hurriedly jerking downward, the needle above Spike's eye plunged deep within the moist orb with a sickening 'squish', the young man howling at the top of his lungs as his chest thrusted outward in utter agony due to feeling the incredible pain of his own blood leaking out of his iris like a fountain of quietus and destruction.
"Well, now, isn't this interesting?," Vicious commented smugly to himself, completely unable to keep a bloody-thirsty smirk from forming along his thin lips as he looked the young man before him over with obvious amusement. "The man who was blind to all of his decisions finally has the impediment to prove it. How ironic."
Spike merely gave a pained grunt in response, his eye pulsating as he clenched and unclenched his fists tautly amidst his shackles and prayed to God that Julia wouldn't be targeted by this inhumane torture, as well.
Biting his lower lip as the surgeons prepared to remove his eye in order to replace it with the mechanical one, he then realized that he would never see life through the same light again. To him, he was now officially dead.
"Cigarette?"
Spike blinked. He had been dreaming.
"Hey," his friend tried again, waving a hand in front of his face, "do you want a cigarette, or not?"
Spike nodded slowly, then swiped the precious cancer stick from his comrade's outstretched hand with a deep desperation, replying gratefully, "Thanks, Shin...I owe ya one."
"Owe me? For what?," the young brunette demanded, quite baffled. "Oooh, wait a minute, I see. You're thanking me for suggesting to the boss that they should send you to protect Miss Valentine. Is that it?"
Spike choked. "What?! NO! Where in the hell do you get a crock-full-of-shit idea like THAT?!"
Shin shrugged, returning slyly, "I dunno....guess I just figured thatcha had the hots for her. She is pretty cute, after all."
"Oh, please," Spike groaned, casting his eyes heavenward. "You're such a child, Shin! There's so much more to women than tits and curves!"
"Oooh, so you have been looking at-"
"SHIN!!!"
"Sorry," he apologized, completely unable to supress the smirk that was tugging dangerously at the corners of his lips.
Suddenly meeting with his comrade's mirthful gaze, Spike announced softly, "Faye will be dead soon, anyway, Shin, so what's the point of developing a crush on a woman with a death warrant hovering over her head?"
Shin blanched. "Dead?! B-but how?! I thought that you were supposed to protect her!"
"It's a personal matter....you wouldn't understand," Spike insisted, lethargically bringing his cigarette forth from his thin lips before flipping it over onto the pavement with a careless toss. "I only warned you so that you wouldn't go crushing on that wench and then get your heart broken when word gets out about her soon-to-be-death. Do me a favor and keep this all under wraps, will ya?"
Shin blinked, clearly thinking that this whole ordeal was simply preposterous. One look into his comrade's haunting two-toned irises, however, changed everything within the bowels of his cluttered mind in a heartbeat.
"Y-yes, sir," he stammered, bowing as if the man before him were his mentor. "As long as you can promise me that her death will be painless-"
"I promise nothing," Spike growled, turning his back on his comrade with a simple spin of his heel. "What I do promise, however, is that I obey my orders. You should do the same."
Shin frowned deeply. "I-I'm afraid that I don't understand. What are you getting at?"
Spike allowed a faint smirk to cross his lips, his voice filled to the brim with apparent amusement as he returned softly, "I didn't expect you to understand, but you will, in time."
"What?"
"You will," Spike assured him once again, his shoulders now hunched forward as he slowly began to walk away, "you will."
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"Dammit! I lost, again!," Lindsay wailed, tugging at her fiery tresses as she disdainfully watched Faye remove her winnings from the small table between them and place them a top her lap, her voice urgent and gradually rising in decibels as she continued shrilly, "Let's just stop this, alright? You've already won all of my friggin' prized possessions, so all I've got left are the very clothes on my back!"
Faye smirked. "Alright, fine....can't have any fun around here, anymore. Especially now that Spike's constantly breathing down my neck like a mad bulldog. He's apprently supposed to be protecting me from these alleged crooks, yet I feel as if I have to protect myself from him! I mean, have you ever seen the man after he comes out of the shower? Bitchy as a wet hen!"
Lindsay giggled, returning slyly, "Lucky you! How's he look in just a towel, anyway? Nicely-carved physique? Sexy wet hair?"
"He looks like a drowned rat," Faye insisted, making a face. "He's just like 'Fuzzy Wuzzy', but with hair."
"Why, thank you, Miss Valentine. You're always just so kind to me."
Both women gasped, immediately turning away from the card table, only to lay their stunned gazes upon the smug-faced bodyguard, himself.
"Spike!," Faye choked, pressing a tremulating hand to her chest in utter astonishment. "Didn't anyone ever teach you to knock?!"
"Only when I'm within the presence of a woman," he quipped shortly, bestowing her with a lop-sided smirk.
Absolutely infuriated by this degrading remark, Faye dug her nails into the soft flesh of her palms, her voice hushed and filled to the brim with sheer enmity as she returned dryly, "It's always a pleasure to engage in conversation with you, Mr. Spiegel. I'm a real lucky girl to have a man like you on my side."
He grinned broadly. "Yes, yes, I know. Although it's very kind of you to say something so true, there is absolutely no need to remind me of such a fact."
Faye opened her mouth to speak, only to immediately close it, her deep jade irises flashing dangerously as she suddenly turned to Lindsay and requested coolly, "Do you think think that you could possibly leave us alone? I believe that Mr. Spiegel is now in store for a little lesson on manners."
"Sure," she agreed good-naturedly, slowly rising to her feet, "I was just leaving, anyway. Goodnight, Faye.....Mr. Spiegel."
"Goodnight," they both returned politely, only pausing to glare at one another as Lindsay sauntered out of the room and into the hallway in order to show herself out.
As soon as the young woman's delicate foot falls had finally ceased, Spike turned back towards Faye and smirked, questioning coyly, "So what, may I ask, is my punishment, Miss Valentine? A nice little spanking, perhaps?"
"Hmph....in your dreams," she returned dryly, turning her nose up into the air before flopping back down onto the sofa with a graceful bounce. "If you'd like, however, you can sit down with me for a while. I'm honestly not mad at you, anymore....I just felt like picking a fight, I suppose. Cigarette?"
Spike raised an eyebrow at her off-the-wall elucidation, then smiled, agreeing good-naturedly, "Sure...I could never turn down the offer of a woman, after all."
"So now I'm a woman, am I?," Faye questioned slyly, a roguish glimmer reflecting off of her eyes as her bodyguard sat down beside her with an unceremonious flop. "As I recall, Mr. Spiegel, you said earlier that you'd only knock if you were about to be within the presence of a woman, so why the sudden change?"
Spike smirked. "Don't flatter yourself, Miss Valentine. I'm just being nice."
"Hmph. Is there such a side to you, Mr. Spiegel?"
Spike grinned, then placed his hands behind his head, returning smugly, "Can't we just forget about all of this and get wasted, Miss. Valentine? You promised me a cigarette, so you might as well bring on the booze, as well."
Faye snorted. "Please....just call me by my first name. I absolutely hate it when you address me as 'Miss Valentine' because it makes me sound like some stuffy old bag."
"Well who's to say that that's not true?"
Faye glared daggers at Spike's smug countenance, then quickly retrieved two cigarettes from within the recesses of her breast pocket before chucking one of them over at his head in utter contempt.
"Thanks," he acknowledged, placidly bringing the slender cylinder up to his lips before patting his pockets for his precious Zippo. Finally coming out of the search empty-handed, he meekly turned towards his employer, then questioned hopefully, "Got a light? I seem to have lost mine."
Flick.
He grinned down at the spark that Faye now bestowed, his cancer stick bouncing precariously between his lips as he lowered it amidst the small flame and exhaled the sweet nicotine in utter contentment. "Thanks."
"Don't mention it....it's rather nice to have some company of the masculine sort once in a while," Faye returned softly, absolutely refusing to meet with his imploring gaze as she rose up from the beige-colored sofa and strode across the room in order to invade the liquor cabinet, her own cigarette propped between her lips at a rather peculiar angle as she reached for a couple of glasses and turned back to face him in expectance. "What would you like to drink? I've got just about anything that you can think of."
"Even a good 'ol vermouth?," Spike asked hopefully.
Faye smiled. "Of course.....what kind of snob do you take me for? I'm not all about the most expensive drinks, ya know."
Spike returned her smile as he leaned back against the cushions, returning good-naturedly, "A one-of-a-kind snob, of course. There's no one else quite like you."
Faye suddenly gasped at this, the two shot glasses that she had fetched slipping between her long, slender fingers and to the hardwood floor before shattering into a million diamond-like pieces. "W-what did you say?," she demanded, taking a slight step backward.
Spike blanched. "Faye, what the hell is wrong with you? Was it something I said?"
"No," she insisted forcefully, immediately turning away from him and holding herself like a frightened child.
"Faye..."
"NO!," she reiterated shrilly, tiny, prismatic tears forming along her ebony lashes as she choked on a sob and bowed her head in utter despair. "I....Chris....he-"
"Chris?," Spike interrupted, eyeing her with a keen interest. "Who's he? Some past boyfriend of yours?"
Faye paused, then nodded bitterly. "Yeah....that's right. I-I'm really sorry for freaking out on you like that, but the moment that you called me a one-of-a-kind snob, I was immediately reminded of my first meeting with Chris since he called me that. I know that that honestly doesn't sound very flattering, but it was love at first sight, as terribly cliche' as that sounds. We dated steadily for about two years, until...."
She trailed off. "I-I'm sorry....I honestly don't think that I can continue."
"No one's forcing you," Spike assured her, the very look in his eyes sending chills up her spine as she subconsciously took yet another step backward. "I know how much it hurts to speak of a loved one.....especially when they're no longer accounted for in this universe."
"You mean when they're dead," Faye supplied in a hushed whisper, a single tear trailing down her cheek.
Spike nodded grimly. "Yeah....that's right."
Faye suddenly turned to face him, her normally tenacious facade now completely diminished as she questioned daringly, "Does that mean that you've lost somebody, too?"
Spike immediately looked away. "Yeah.....the woman that I was going to marry."
"Oh! I am so sorry for-"
"She was one in a million," he continued softly, truly not even seeming to notice Faye's slight intrusion. "She was the part of me that I had left behind somewhere along the way....the part that had actually made me alive."
Faye couldn't help but gasp at this statement, her startling jade irises widening in utter astonishment as she watched the man whom she secretly admired for his never-ending sense of apathy place his head within his hands and release a sound that very much resembled that of a wounded animal.
There was so much hurt within this man; such despair. It pained her deeply to witness such a strong individual completely broken over a single woman.
"Spike," Faye began softly, gingerly reaching out and touching his shoulder, "I think that I should be honest with you since you have so graciously done so with me. You see, I-I must admit that I've been lying about Chris, and I've decided that I'd like for you to know what really transpired between us."
Spike paused, slowly lifting his face up from his hands in order to meet with his employer's pained gaze, her bottom lip trembling as she immediately stood up and turned away from him before continuing softly, "We really did love each other....that much is true. Or at least I thought we did. To be perfectly honest, I don't even know how Chris felt about me. Looking back on our awkward relationship, it was more like he was a dog and I a bitch in heat, so, naturally, we were attacted to one another like the horny teenagers that we were. I was about 18 when he asked me to move in with him, so, shortly after making a contract with a well-known record label, I greedily and foolishly, might I add, accepted his offer. That, I believe, is when things officially started to grow out of hand. He beat me, called me his bitch, made me perform several unbearable sexual rituals upon his body each night, locked me up in his bathroom, and rarely gave me meals. He told me that the come from his dick was enough to keep me full, and-and if I was ever hungry, that's what I'd get. In the long run, Lindsay found out and reported Chris to the authorities. A trial was held, and he was arrested shortly after before committing suicide a year later. All I have left of him are some scars on my back, and-oh, God, why am I even telling you all of this?! As if you even give a damn! I bet you're giggling with glee on the inside right now....you are, aren't you?!"
Spike immediately shook his head in utter denial, seizing Faye roughly by the forearms and pulling her towards him before insisting firmly, "I never take pleasure in another being's pain. I, too, have suffered time and time again, thus making me truly sorry to hear that you've suffered just as much, if not more than myself, and I hope that you'll always confide in me when needed. That, I feel, is apart of my job description.....to listen."
"Thanks....but no, thanks," Faye returned rather crisply, roughly yanking herself out of his taut grasp before moving away from him in what appeared to be fear. "Um, if you'll excuse me, I'd very much like to go to bed. Goodnight, Mr. Spiegel."
Spike sighed deeply. "Goodnight....Faye Valentine."
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She was absolutely beautiful, the moonlight only seeming to enhance her angelic features as the stars amidst the heavens shone brilliantly as if proclaiming the young woman's very existance.The knife within the anxious bodyguard's hand began to tremulate like a leaf caught within an updraft, Spike wetting his lips as he took yet another step forward in order to carry out his dreaded task.
"Come on, you can do this," he assured himself as he brought the knife up in front of him and kept his gaze locked firmly on his target. "You have to....for Julia's sake."
"But Faye has done nothing to deserve this," a small voice from within the bowels of Spike's cluttered mind suddenly shot back, thus causing him to gasp on impulse.
Shaking his head as if to rid himself of the sudden thought, he argued aloud, "That's ridiculous! Faye's been nothing but a stubborn bitch that's in desperate need of a nice kick in the ass!"
"That's not true and you damn well know it! Faye's been through nothing but heartache, but you can change that!"
Spike blanched. "What the hell are you talking about?!"
"What do you think I'm talking about? Save her.....protect her from Vicious. You're a bodyguard, aren't you? Start living up to your title!"
"But I-"
"JUST DO IT!"
Spike opened his mouth to reply, only to immediately close it, shaking his head as he cast the deadly weapon off to the side with a subtle clatter, conceding aloud, "That's it....I've officially lost all speaking priviledges. I must be going insane! Nonetheless, I guess that I should listen to that crazy voice."
Bending slightly downward, Spike captured Faye within his strong embrace and brought her sleeping form up within the security of his arms, his voice filled with utmost veracity as he promised softly into her ear, "Don't you worry, Miss Valentine, I will keep you alive, and that's a promise."
A/N: Yeah, I know that was weird, rotfl, but it seemed right whenever I wrote it, lol, & no, Spike is NOT crazy! Faye acted so coldly towards him because she truly becomes afraid and closed off whenever people start to show signs that they care due to her past relationship, so yeah, that's it, lol. Welp...PLEASE review! I haven't been blessed with reviews in SUCH a long time! =( Luv ya bunches!
3 Kendra Luehr =-=