hobgoblinn (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
hobgoblinn) wrote2006-12-09 11:33 am
hobgoblinn) wrote2006-12-09 11:33 am
Entry tags:
Fic: Summer 6/9 - Making Sense
Previous Parts here:
Summer 1 - Where Do We Go from Here?
Summer 2 - Preparations and Farewells
Summer 3- Muddling Through
Summer 4 - The Business of Living
Summer 5 - Growing Up
Summer
Part 6/9 - Making Sense
DISCLAIMER: See full disclaimer on Part 1 - Short version is, I own Nothing in the Buffyverse. Or anywhere else, for that matter. I mean no harm and intend no copyright infringement. Still want to sue me? Knock yourself out.
***
They fell into a routine as the weeks went on. Giles made it over to the Summers house for dinner most nights, and afterwards helped Willow by answering questions on Watcher/ Slayer lore or fighting techniques. But his conversation with her remained much more formal and distant than it had ever been before. He also began delegating more and more of Dawn’s tutoring to Tara, who had not only the patience and calm wisdom needed for the task, but genuine gifts as a teacher which he recognized as clearly superior to his own. He offered input when asked, but frequently merely approved her own ideas and lesson plans.
But as the weeks passed he spent less and less time there, and more in shop. All day, of course, helping Anya, and beginning the daunting task of catching up the bookkeeping that had fallen by the wayside over the past months, and then of setting things in order for his announced departure. But also most evenings after supper with his young friends, pleading tiredness, or old age, or anything else that would let him get away, he would return to the silent shop.
It was silent largely because, at night, the shop was the one place no one, himself included, wished to be. The memories resonated more painfully in the night air and dim light. At his home, Willow would drop by rather frequently, ostensibly to ask a question or borrow a book, and then stay to chat or read with him or scan more volumes into their ever growing database until he retired to his bed. Much as she had done these many summers past. But the undercurrent of concern, of keeping an eye on him, was stifling at times, if well meant. And the private task he had set for himself required, well, just that. Privacy. So he endured the ghosts and memories around him, and thought it fitting, in a way, that he should be here to work on his final gift to his Slayer.
He still recalled with absolute clarity the night they had sat here together, thumbing through volume after volume of Watcher diaries, looking for some common denominator to explain why the final battles of Slayers past had ended thus, searching for any clues that could help Buffy avoid their fates. She had assumed that the Watchers’ strange reticence had been a result of some misplaced sense of decorum, until he had quietly corrected her. He’d had no inkling then, how right he’d been, to guess that the subject had been too painful for them. But he had resolved that night, that when the time came, he would make sure every detail of his own Slayer’s final battle would be recorded for posterity. Not to help some future Slayer. How likely would it be that another would have to face a hell god? No, he was doing it for only one reason: to honor his own.
And so it was that Spike found him alone in his shop, after the nightly patrol. He reported to Willow most nights now, as she had become the de facto leader of their pathetic little group. Giles wanted nothing more to do with that role, deferring to Willow, or Xander, or even the vampire himself at every opportunity. The children couldn’t see what he was doing, but Spike saw everything. He listened to them yammer on, worrying about the Watcher, when they came out of their own self absorption long enough to even notice. But he saw no need to enlighten any of them. Giles was detaching himself, trying to make his peace and go, though Spike wasn’t yet sure whether that journey was simply back to the mother country, or somewhere a little more permanent. Didn’t matter, really. Spike was feeling a growing respect and even fondness for the man, and he reckoned if anyone had earned a bit of peace, Giles had.
Spike sauntered up into the dim shopfront from the basement door, quietly as always, but not troubling to hide his presence, either. The Watcher glanced up, regarded him for a moment with a weary eye, then turned back to his books without a word. Spike, used to such a reception by now, helped himself to a clean glass from the bottom shelf of the tea table and reached for the half empty bottle of Scotch at Giles’ elbow. Giles glared at him again as the vampire splashed a generous amount into the glass and tossed back half of it in a single gulp.
“I really must ask Willow to see what she can do about putting a de-invite spell on a public building,” Giles sighed drily, but without rancor. Just the same weary, grey sadness that punctuated his every move these days. Spike raised the glass in mock salute and sank into the chair next to his erstwhile countryman. Giles caught the considering, sidewise look, and then the decision as Spike refrained from pulling any of the books towards him, choosing instead to lean back in his chair and take another sip from his glass. Though Giles had poured himself a similar drink hours ago, he had yet to taste any of it, and he was sure Spike’s demon heightened senses were aware of the fact.
Spike regarded him through narrowed eyes for a time, while the Watcher did his best to ignore his unwelcome visitor. At last, Giles glanced up and sighed, “Why are you still here, Spike?”
Spike affected surprise at the question. “Still? I been patrollin’ since dusk. A fellow might ask you that question. If he cared.”
When Giles made no further reply, Spike tried again. Gesturing toward the laden table with his glass, “Uh--special project?” he guessed quietly, knowing as well as anyone that there were no big bads clamoring for the Watcher’s attention in Sunnydale just now. The demonic population was only beginning to trickle back after the showdown with Glory, and the Watcher chaps had helped him take out the most troublesome of the refugees from the dimensional rifts and were already on their way back to England, to everyone’s immense relief. No sense of humor, for one thing, the wankers.
Giles again made no reply. Spike took another sip and considered the books on the table. He saw that while many books lay open on the table, Giles was not consulting any of them. He had only one book in his hand–his own Watcher’s Journal, which Spike recognized by the cramped, miniscule, but absolutely legible writing. Another clue there was the pen in his hand. Spike suddenly realized Giles was not researching, but composing. A cold horror swept through him, as it dawned on him what Giles was probably up to, and he rose, wanting in that moment to be anywhere else, several hell dimensions included. He was halfway out of his chair when Giles’ quiet voice froze him where he stood.
“She… she said… you told her… things. About the other Slayers.”
The memory of that night welled painfully in Spike’s cold breast. At first a game, flirting and bragging. Then more serious, as he’d realized how close she had come, and how close she still was, to giving in to that wish–to finally know what death was like, to lay down her arms and rest. “To cease upon the midnight with no pain,” he heard himself murmur, sinking back down into his chair.
Giles cocked an eyebrow at the vampire in surprise. “Keats?” he said, not at all a question of identification, but of surprise that Spike would be quoting him, and doing it now.
Spike shot an irritated glance at the Watcher, but was inwardly relieved to have something besides his memory of that night’s humiliations to focus on. “Hey,” he shot back. “Just because I was a godawful poet myself, don’t mean I didn’t appreciate the real ones.”
Giles closed his diary and leaned back in his chair, finally taking a sip from his own glass. “Did you first read him before or after you were turned?” he asked conversationally, as if he, too, welcomed the break.
“Oh, Please,” Spike huffed. “What, you think the Great Pouf introduced Me to Keats’ poetry? Like the prat could even read before he was turned.”
Giles suppressed a slight chuckle. “I imagine the, um, broodiness of Keats might have appealed to him.”
Spike snorted rudely, but then turned somber again. “I suppose you could say, Keats explains why I let myself get turned in the first place,” he found himself admitting quietly.
Giles suddenly felt very cold, as another line came to him. “La Belle Dame sans Merci/ Hath thee in thrall,” he breathed, and Spike nodded, his eyes very far away. Then he recollected himself and chuckled mirthlessly.
“Still does,” he rasped, as close to tears as Giles had ever seen him, save once, and Giles somehow knew the vampire was not thinking of Drusilla now. Spike rose abruptly and turned away to begin rooting through the weapons chest in the corner.
“Uh, look,” he said after a moment, in a stronger voice, “I found a nest of Vauxalla demons down the way–thought I’d take out mum and dad quick-like now, and get the young ones when they come slinkin’ home after curfew.” He selected an axe with runic figures carved into the head and held it up. “Mind if I borrow this?”
Giles blinked. “Oh, um, no, not at all,“ he replied, rising from his own chair and stretching himself stiffly. “In fact, give me five minutes and I’ll join you.” Spike eyed the Watcher doubtfully, taking in the bloodshot eyes and rumpled clothes, the tie loosened unevenly around his neck, but shrugged.
“Suit yourself, Mate.”
In more like ten minutes, Giles rejoined the vampire, dressed in faded blue jeans and a grey sweatshirt. He had apparently splashed some water on his face and looked a good deal better for it. He carried a broadsword from the weapons stash in the back room, and he seemed somehow younger and more energetic than Spike could recall ever seeing him. “Right, then,” the Watcher said. “Let’s go.”
Two hours later, the vampire had learned a new respect for the mild mannered shopkeeper. Both of them were covered in a dark, sickly greenish demon ichor. They were hunkered down behind a dumpster awaiting the return of the last of the young ones. The older, more dangerous members of the family had already been dispatched, and they felt reasonably safe about letting the last one come to them, it being at the stage in its life cycle where it only posed a threat to squirrels and other small rodents.
“Glad I left my jacket back at the shop,” Spike remarked, using the tail of his shirt to mop the worst of the muck off his face.
Giles grimaced. “Are you sure there was another one?” he asked, a little more peevishly than he intended. He ached all over, and while this demon blood was not caustic, its stench was both unique and pungent, and Giles was envying the vampire his ability to go without breathing. He was pleased to notice that he hadn’t reopened any of his wounds, though. He was really healing remarkably well. He frowned a moment, trying to pin down what was troubling about that, but found himself too tired.
Spike chuckled. “Yes, Rupert, I’m sure. But you needn’t stay–it’s pretty small. Dawn could probably take it…” he caught the Watcher’s stern glare and amended quickly, “but, of course, we’d never let her anywhere near something like this.” Mischief glinting in his eyes, the vampire continued, “Speakin’ of the Niblet, how’s her schoolwork comin’?”
Giles rewarded him with a dark glare. “I take it you’ve seen her history essay.”
“Oh, yeah,” Spike chuckled proudly. “And before you ask, I had nothin’ to do with it. ‘Cept, of course, I might have suggested some spelling corrections….” His grin grew wider as he caught Giles’ shudder, but he refrained from adding any more. For a moment. Then, “I coulda given her some more background information, but I kinda liked it as it was.” His speech took on the pretentious tones of an academic as he added, “Her writing has such a refreshing innocence about it…”
‘Innocence’ was not a word that sprang to Giles’ mind when he thought of the essay in question. But he wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or troubled that Spike had added no firsthand knowledge to Dawn’s research. He was spared the choice of how to respond by the sound of the last demon lumbering into the alley.
Spike gave the exhausted Watcher a quick appraising look and began to rise. “I’ll get this one, Rupert. You look right knackered….” But Giles was already on his feet and striding out to confront the beast head on, not even waiting for it to pass their hiding spot so they could ambush it from behind. Shaking his head, Spike followed Giles out into harm’s way.
A few violence filled minutes later, they stood over the body of the demon, Giles panting hard. Spike shot an irritated glance at his companion. “You know, Rupert,” he said, as he began cleaning the gore off his weapon with his t-shirt, “if you go and bloody off yourself, she’ll never forgive you for it.” Giles’ head snapped up, his eyes glinting dangerously.
“What would you know about it?” he spat out.
Spike shrugged. “More than you think. I also know that Dante didn’t get it all wrong in that poem of his. Suicides don’t go the same place as heroes.” Giles’ face took on a strange expression, one that Spike couldn’t read. He seemed to slump in on himself, defeated.
“Neither do murderers,” came the reply, so low that Spike wasn’t sure he’d heard it. He was distracted from formulating an answer by a sound at their feet, and a slight twitch from the fallen demon. Without thinking, Spike shoved Giles aside as the creature gave a sudden huff of air. Spike looked down to see two long, thorny spines sticking out of his abdomen. He dropped to his knees and heard his weapon clatter from suddenly nerveless hands. He was dimly aware of Giles hacking the body apart, then of a hand on his shoulder.
“Are you all right?” The voice sounded very far away. The question struck him as rather funny, but his body’s reaction to laughter was excruciating. He doubled over in pain as the voice said, “Here, lean on me.”
The vampire tried to pull the spines out, but his hands were too weak and slippery to get a proper grasp. He heard himself gasp out, “Giles, what…?”
The calm voice in his ear replied, “It would appear you’ve been poisoned by a Verrush demon. Very similar to the Vauxalla, and sometimes they nest together; means they’re often confused with one another. It’s a magical poison–disrupts the connections between spirit and flesh. Unfortunately for you, it doesn’t require a working circulatory system to spread.”
Spike felt the man pause and shift his hold on him slightly, to bear a bit more of the weight Spike was increasingly not able to help with. Giles continued more quietly, “If you hadn’t pushed me at the last moment, it might well have proved fatal for me.” Even given their words of moments ago, Spike couldn’t tell whether Giles sounded thankful or sorry about that. He heard a door open and found himself being lowered to a mat on a stone floor.
“Hang on, I’ve got a first aid kit in here somewhere. Try not to move.” Spike repressed the urge to chuckle at that unnecessary admonishment. He heard the light switch flick, but his vision was hazy and darkening. He sensed a presence return to his side and heard the metal case click open, and someone digging through rustling bandages and rolls of tape. Then….
“This may hurt a little,” warned the voice, not sounding the least bit regretful. Spike felt an intense pain in his stomach as one of the spines was yanked free. The second one was more deeply embedded, and Spike found himself praying fervently for death, or well, something, before it came loose. He felt a liquid being poured into the wounds–cold at first, then so white hot he thought for a moment it was holy water, before the acrid tang of rubbing alcohol hit his nostrils with his involuntary gasp of pain.
A few minutes later, Giles finished taping a pressure bandage over the wounds, and Spike’s vision began to clear. “How do you feel?” Giles asked quietly, almost gently.
“Like someone’s had my bloody guts for garters,” Spike replied, in a raspy whisper. He struggled to sit up and instantly regretted it. Quite aside from the pain and dizziness, he felt very different, very unlike himself. He began to shake uncontrollably. “Giles,” he breathed. “What’s wrong with me?”
Giles looked up from wiping off his hands. “Until the poison works its way out of your body, I expect you may be feeling a bit odd. The effects should be temporary….”
“No.” The fear in Spike’s voice was palpable now. “Before this. What’s been wrong with me?” He moistened his lips and pulled himself together. “She’ll never know, or care, yet here I bloody stay, keepin’ promises she never asked of me, and…” he went on brokenly, finally saying aloud what he had been torturing himself with every moment since that awful night, “’S not like I even kept the one that mattered.” Spike met Giles’ wide eyes, his own curiously unfocused, but absolutely devastated. “I failed her. She’s dead because of me.”
Giles felt the air leave his lungs, replaced by the cold horror of hearing aloud the thoughts that had been tormenting him all these weeks. Spike, even in the depths of his own misery, could not miss the man’s reaction. Their eyes stayed locked for what seemed an age, riveted to the grief and shame mirrored in the other’s eyes, having found a common ground where they least expected it.
At long last Giles drew a deep shuddering breath and tore his eyes away. He rose and Spike heard his footsteps echo across the bare room. A few minutes later, he heard the sound of running water in the sink, and the sound of the man removing blood soaked clothing and using a wet towel to wipe as much of the drying gunk off his body as he could, and putting his head underneath the spigot to rinse it from his hair. He heard the gasping, muttered curses as the cold water poured over the other man, and then chattering teeth as the water was shut off and he began drying off with another towel. A sniff, then a quiet, “I’ll be right back.” The bare feet padded to the door into the shop, and Spike heard the door close.
He noted that his senses were not as acute as usual–he could not make out the sounds of Giles’ movements on the other side of the door. Without the sounds to distract him, he was forced back to his question, and his growing awareness that the monster he held within him–that Was him, in fact, was not what it had been. The demon that had reanimated his flesh, the one that was constantly tempting him to kill, maim, and destroy, was fading into silence. And as his awareness grew, he realized that it had been losing its hold on him for some time.
The door opened again, and Giles appeared at his side, dressed once again in his rumpled suit, and holding a bottle of scotch in one hand, and two clean glasses in the other. He set them down and sat, his back leaning against the wall. He poured himself a drink, then glanced over with the questioning raise of his eyebrow. Spike gave a slow nod, and a second glass was poured. He grimaced as the man helped him to pull himself into a sitting position, leaning back against the same wall.
Spike looked down at his nerveless hands, trying to get them to unclench enough to grasp his glass. Giles took a deep drink from his own glass, then, set it down and brought Spike’s to his lips. Spike gulped a bit down, grinned weakly, and said, “Thanks.”
Giles set the glass back on the floor and took up his own again. “Don’t mention it,” he replied quietly. But the questions burning in the vampire’s brain would not be still, and after a moment, Spike cleared his throat hesitantly.
“Rupert. I don’t have a soul. So, why….” He paused, drew in a shuddering breath, forced himself to put it into words, his need to know finally outweighing his unwillingness to seem weak or vulnerable. “Why do I Care? Why do I Hurt?”
Giles set down his drink abruptly and began polishing his glasses thoughtfully. “I have a theory about that.” He paused as if unsure where to begin, then he said, with an echo of his old didacticism, “When the Initiative implanted you with that chip, I thought your overtures of… er… at times, friendship, were just the product of a vampire’s natural social instincts. You are by nature something of a pack animal, if you will, and of course none of your own kind would accept you, unable to hunt, or to kill.”
Spike nodded. So far, none of this was news. Giles pursed his lips, choosing his next words carefully. “Have you ever heard of a man named Phineas Gage?”
Spike’s eyes screwed up in concentration as he searched his memory. “Sounds vaguely familiar–oh wait. I know this…. Yeah. Wasn’t he that prat who blew a railroad spike through his head, and lived?” At Giles’ nod, Spike grinned a little in spite of himself. “Never managed to recreate that little effect myself, though it weren’t from lack of tryin’.” Giles looked slightly ill, but not surprised.
“Yes, well. You remember how the injury affected his personality? One day he was kind, decent, responsible, and the next….”
“A right sodding bastard,” Spike supplied approvingly. Then his expression changed as he realized what Giles was getting at.
“Such injuries are not at all common, but they are not unprecedented, either,” Giles continued. “And some have taken, as you put it, ‘right sodding bastards’ and changed them in the opposite way. My guess is that either in the process of implanting the chip into you, or more likely in the constant electrical impulses keeping your, um, instincts at bay, that same part of your brain has been damaged.”
Spike was gazing at the Watcher in open mouthed horror. Finding his voice, he said, “Are you telling me…? No, Giles, stake me now. Please. I will Not become another tortured, ensouled, Nancy boy like Angel….”
Giles shook his head. “I don’t think that’s it, not exactly. If I understand what happens when a man becomes a vampire, the demon changes the host’s personality to suit his, er, inclinations. In your case, I believe the demon’s hold over your personality has been disrupted by your chip, and the human memories and thought patterns of the man you once were are being set free.” Giles fixed piercing green eyes on the horrified vampire. “I’ve seen you with Dawn–with all of them. If I thought for a moment that your demon was in control now, I’d stake you where you sit, Hellmouth be damned. But I don’t think that it is. Something has upset the normal balance.” He took another sip from his glass.
Spike considered this for a time, but looked unconvinced. “I still crave it, though,” he admitted quietly. “The killing, the cruelty. I have dreams….” He trailed off, wondering if Giles would stake him now, and if he cared. Giles regarded him searchingly for a moment.
“And the man you were is sickened by it,” he replied at last. “The fact that you call it killing, cruelty, gives it away. You’re different, Spike. Something entirely new. What you do with that is up to you,” he paused and drained his glass, then continued, a ghost of a grin playing at his lips, “but I must say, I find it a good deal preferable to a certain ensouled vampire who might revert at any moment to his former, ever so charming self….”
Spike looked up from his troubled thoughts with a slight grin of his own. He reached out now to grasp his own glass and bring it to his lips. Another bit of common ground, there–they both shared an intense dislike for the brooding wonder. He raised his glass in mock salute and took a sip. “There is that,” he agreed.
They sat in silence for a long while. Then Giles stirred and glanced down at his watch. He sighed heavily, then struggled to his feet. “Better get you home before sunrise.” He offered the vampire a hand up. Spike stared at it blankly for a moment, then nodded and accepted the help gratefully. He still felt weak and dizzy, but no more so than the time he’d drained a crack addict, back in the day. He’d only made that mistake once, but it had been interesting. A pang of something very like regret competed with the latest random thought to zing through his brain: wonder what would happen if you got a pig very stoned, then drained its blood….
He shook off the speculation, leaning on Giles as they made their way out of the shop and down the alleyway to Giles’ car. “Hang on,” Giles instructed quietly, popping the boot with the button on his key chain and pulling out a blanket. Spike looked at it, perplexed.
“Not that late, is it?” he asked. Giles was transferring the vampire’s weight from himself to the hood of the car, turning away after first satisfying himself that Spike would not topple over. Giles unlocked the passenger door and opened it.
“No,” he replied over his shoulder and spreading out the blanket. “I just don’t fancy having to get several different types of demon blood out of these seats.”
Spike snorted. “Thanks ever so,” he shot back sarcastically, but with only a shadow of his usual cockiness.
They drove through the darkened streets of Sunnydale in silence. Spike’s vision was swimming too much to follow their progress, so he was surprised when they pulled to a stop, to see that they were not at the gate to the cemetery, but rather in the lot of the Watcher’s apartment complex. He raised a questioning eyebrow at his companion, but Giles either didn’t notice it, or chose to ignore it. Spike decided hot running water beat the heck out of whatever he could rig up in his crypt, and wisely held his tongue, shrugging as he accepted the man’s assistance to the door and inside.
Summer 7 - Poetic License
Summer 1 - Where Do We Go from Here?
Summer 2 - Preparations and Farewells
Summer 3- Muddling Through
Summer 4 - The Business of Living
Summer 5 - Growing Up
Summer
Part 6/9 - Making Sense
DISCLAIMER: See full disclaimer on Part 1 - Short version is, I own Nothing in the Buffyverse. Or anywhere else, for that matter. I mean no harm and intend no copyright infringement. Still want to sue me? Knock yourself out.
***
They fell into a routine as the weeks went on. Giles made it over to the Summers house for dinner most nights, and afterwards helped Willow by answering questions on Watcher/ Slayer lore or fighting techniques. But his conversation with her remained much more formal and distant than it had ever been before. He also began delegating more and more of Dawn’s tutoring to Tara, who had not only the patience and calm wisdom needed for the task, but genuine gifts as a teacher which he recognized as clearly superior to his own. He offered input when asked, but frequently merely approved her own ideas and lesson plans.
But as the weeks passed he spent less and less time there, and more in shop. All day, of course, helping Anya, and beginning the daunting task of catching up the bookkeeping that had fallen by the wayside over the past months, and then of setting things in order for his announced departure. But also most evenings after supper with his young friends, pleading tiredness, or old age, or anything else that would let him get away, he would return to the silent shop.
It was silent largely because, at night, the shop was the one place no one, himself included, wished to be. The memories resonated more painfully in the night air and dim light. At his home, Willow would drop by rather frequently, ostensibly to ask a question or borrow a book, and then stay to chat or read with him or scan more volumes into their ever growing database until he retired to his bed. Much as she had done these many summers past. But the undercurrent of concern, of keeping an eye on him, was stifling at times, if well meant. And the private task he had set for himself required, well, just that. Privacy. So he endured the ghosts and memories around him, and thought it fitting, in a way, that he should be here to work on his final gift to his Slayer.
He still recalled with absolute clarity the night they had sat here together, thumbing through volume after volume of Watcher diaries, looking for some common denominator to explain why the final battles of Slayers past had ended thus, searching for any clues that could help Buffy avoid their fates. She had assumed that the Watchers’ strange reticence had been a result of some misplaced sense of decorum, until he had quietly corrected her. He’d had no inkling then, how right he’d been, to guess that the subject had been too painful for them. But he had resolved that night, that when the time came, he would make sure every detail of his own Slayer’s final battle would be recorded for posterity. Not to help some future Slayer. How likely would it be that another would have to face a hell god? No, he was doing it for only one reason: to honor his own.
And so it was that Spike found him alone in his shop, after the nightly patrol. He reported to Willow most nights now, as she had become the de facto leader of their pathetic little group. Giles wanted nothing more to do with that role, deferring to Willow, or Xander, or even the vampire himself at every opportunity. The children couldn’t see what he was doing, but Spike saw everything. He listened to them yammer on, worrying about the Watcher, when they came out of their own self absorption long enough to even notice. But he saw no need to enlighten any of them. Giles was detaching himself, trying to make his peace and go, though Spike wasn’t yet sure whether that journey was simply back to the mother country, or somewhere a little more permanent. Didn’t matter, really. Spike was feeling a growing respect and even fondness for the man, and he reckoned if anyone had earned a bit of peace, Giles had.
Spike sauntered up into the dim shopfront from the basement door, quietly as always, but not troubling to hide his presence, either. The Watcher glanced up, regarded him for a moment with a weary eye, then turned back to his books without a word. Spike, used to such a reception by now, helped himself to a clean glass from the bottom shelf of the tea table and reached for the half empty bottle of Scotch at Giles’ elbow. Giles glared at him again as the vampire splashed a generous amount into the glass and tossed back half of it in a single gulp.
“I really must ask Willow to see what she can do about putting a de-invite spell on a public building,” Giles sighed drily, but without rancor. Just the same weary, grey sadness that punctuated his every move these days. Spike raised the glass in mock salute and sank into the chair next to his erstwhile countryman. Giles caught the considering, sidewise look, and then the decision as Spike refrained from pulling any of the books towards him, choosing instead to lean back in his chair and take another sip from his glass. Though Giles had poured himself a similar drink hours ago, he had yet to taste any of it, and he was sure Spike’s demon heightened senses were aware of the fact.
Spike regarded him through narrowed eyes for a time, while the Watcher did his best to ignore his unwelcome visitor. At last, Giles glanced up and sighed, “Why are you still here, Spike?”
Spike affected surprise at the question. “Still? I been patrollin’ since dusk. A fellow might ask you that question. If he cared.”
When Giles made no further reply, Spike tried again. Gesturing toward the laden table with his glass, “Uh--special project?” he guessed quietly, knowing as well as anyone that there were no big bads clamoring for the Watcher’s attention in Sunnydale just now. The demonic population was only beginning to trickle back after the showdown with Glory, and the Watcher chaps had helped him take out the most troublesome of the refugees from the dimensional rifts and were already on their way back to England, to everyone’s immense relief. No sense of humor, for one thing, the wankers.
Giles again made no reply. Spike took another sip and considered the books on the table. He saw that while many books lay open on the table, Giles was not consulting any of them. He had only one book in his hand–his own Watcher’s Journal, which Spike recognized by the cramped, miniscule, but absolutely legible writing. Another clue there was the pen in his hand. Spike suddenly realized Giles was not researching, but composing. A cold horror swept through him, as it dawned on him what Giles was probably up to, and he rose, wanting in that moment to be anywhere else, several hell dimensions included. He was halfway out of his chair when Giles’ quiet voice froze him where he stood.
“She… she said… you told her… things. About the other Slayers.”
The memory of that night welled painfully in Spike’s cold breast. At first a game, flirting and bragging. Then more serious, as he’d realized how close she had come, and how close she still was, to giving in to that wish–to finally know what death was like, to lay down her arms and rest. “To cease upon the midnight with no pain,” he heard himself murmur, sinking back down into his chair.
Giles cocked an eyebrow at the vampire in surprise. “Keats?” he said, not at all a question of identification, but of surprise that Spike would be quoting him, and doing it now.
Spike shot an irritated glance at the Watcher, but was inwardly relieved to have something besides his memory of that night’s humiliations to focus on. “Hey,” he shot back. “Just because I was a godawful poet myself, don’t mean I didn’t appreciate the real ones.”
Giles closed his diary and leaned back in his chair, finally taking a sip from his own glass. “Did you first read him before or after you were turned?” he asked conversationally, as if he, too, welcomed the break.
“Oh, Please,” Spike huffed. “What, you think the Great Pouf introduced Me to Keats’ poetry? Like the prat could even read before he was turned.”
Giles suppressed a slight chuckle. “I imagine the, um, broodiness of Keats might have appealed to him.”
Spike snorted rudely, but then turned somber again. “I suppose you could say, Keats explains why I let myself get turned in the first place,” he found himself admitting quietly.
Giles suddenly felt very cold, as another line came to him. “La Belle Dame sans Merci/ Hath thee in thrall,” he breathed, and Spike nodded, his eyes very far away. Then he recollected himself and chuckled mirthlessly.
“Still does,” he rasped, as close to tears as Giles had ever seen him, save once, and Giles somehow knew the vampire was not thinking of Drusilla now. Spike rose abruptly and turned away to begin rooting through the weapons chest in the corner.
“Uh, look,” he said after a moment, in a stronger voice, “I found a nest of Vauxalla demons down the way–thought I’d take out mum and dad quick-like now, and get the young ones when they come slinkin’ home after curfew.” He selected an axe with runic figures carved into the head and held it up. “Mind if I borrow this?”
Giles blinked. “Oh, um, no, not at all,“ he replied, rising from his own chair and stretching himself stiffly. “In fact, give me five minutes and I’ll join you.” Spike eyed the Watcher doubtfully, taking in the bloodshot eyes and rumpled clothes, the tie loosened unevenly around his neck, but shrugged.
“Suit yourself, Mate.”
In more like ten minutes, Giles rejoined the vampire, dressed in faded blue jeans and a grey sweatshirt. He had apparently splashed some water on his face and looked a good deal better for it. He carried a broadsword from the weapons stash in the back room, and he seemed somehow younger and more energetic than Spike could recall ever seeing him. “Right, then,” the Watcher said. “Let’s go.”
Two hours later, the vampire had learned a new respect for the mild mannered shopkeeper. Both of them were covered in a dark, sickly greenish demon ichor. They were hunkered down behind a dumpster awaiting the return of the last of the young ones. The older, more dangerous members of the family had already been dispatched, and they felt reasonably safe about letting the last one come to them, it being at the stage in its life cycle where it only posed a threat to squirrels and other small rodents.
“Glad I left my jacket back at the shop,” Spike remarked, using the tail of his shirt to mop the worst of the muck off his face.
Giles grimaced. “Are you sure there was another one?” he asked, a little more peevishly than he intended. He ached all over, and while this demon blood was not caustic, its stench was both unique and pungent, and Giles was envying the vampire his ability to go without breathing. He was pleased to notice that he hadn’t reopened any of his wounds, though. He was really healing remarkably well. He frowned a moment, trying to pin down what was troubling about that, but found himself too tired.
Spike chuckled. “Yes, Rupert, I’m sure. But you needn’t stay–it’s pretty small. Dawn could probably take it…” he caught the Watcher’s stern glare and amended quickly, “but, of course, we’d never let her anywhere near something like this.” Mischief glinting in his eyes, the vampire continued, “Speakin’ of the Niblet, how’s her schoolwork comin’?”
Giles rewarded him with a dark glare. “I take it you’ve seen her history essay.”
“Oh, yeah,” Spike chuckled proudly. “And before you ask, I had nothin’ to do with it. ‘Cept, of course, I might have suggested some spelling corrections….” His grin grew wider as he caught Giles’ shudder, but he refrained from adding any more. For a moment. Then, “I coulda given her some more background information, but I kinda liked it as it was.” His speech took on the pretentious tones of an academic as he added, “Her writing has such a refreshing innocence about it…”
‘Innocence’ was not a word that sprang to Giles’ mind when he thought of the essay in question. But he wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or troubled that Spike had added no firsthand knowledge to Dawn’s research. He was spared the choice of how to respond by the sound of the last demon lumbering into the alley.
Spike gave the exhausted Watcher a quick appraising look and began to rise. “I’ll get this one, Rupert. You look right knackered….” But Giles was already on his feet and striding out to confront the beast head on, not even waiting for it to pass their hiding spot so they could ambush it from behind. Shaking his head, Spike followed Giles out into harm’s way.
A few violence filled minutes later, they stood over the body of the demon, Giles panting hard. Spike shot an irritated glance at his companion. “You know, Rupert,” he said, as he began cleaning the gore off his weapon with his t-shirt, “if you go and bloody off yourself, she’ll never forgive you for it.” Giles’ head snapped up, his eyes glinting dangerously.
“What would you know about it?” he spat out.
Spike shrugged. “More than you think. I also know that Dante didn’t get it all wrong in that poem of his. Suicides don’t go the same place as heroes.” Giles’ face took on a strange expression, one that Spike couldn’t read. He seemed to slump in on himself, defeated.
“Neither do murderers,” came the reply, so low that Spike wasn’t sure he’d heard it. He was distracted from formulating an answer by a sound at their feet, and a slight twitch from the fallen demon. Without thinking, Spike shoved Giles aside as the creature gave a sudden huff of air. Spike looked down to see two long, thorny spines sticking out of his abdomen. He dropped to his knees and heard his weapon clatter from suddenly nerveless hands. He was dimly aware of Giles hacking the body apart, then of a hand on his shoulder.
“Are you all right?” The voice sounded very far away. The question struck him as rather funny, but his body’s reaction to laughter was excruciating. He doubled over in pain as the voice said, “Here, lean on me.”
The vampire tried to pull the spines out, but his hands were too weak and slippery to get a proper grasp. He heard himself gasp out, “Giles, what…?”
The calm voice in his ear replied, “It would appear you’ve been poisoned by a Verrush demon. Very similar to the Vauxalla, and sometimes they nest together; means they’re often confused with one another. It’s a magical poison–disrupts the connections between spirit and flesh. Unfortunately for you, it doesn’t require a working circulatory system to spread.”
Spike felt the man pause and shift his hold on him slightly, to bear a bit more of the weight Spike was increasingly not able to help with. Giles continued more quietly, “If you hadn’t pushed me at the last moment, it might well have proved fatal for me.” Even given their words of moments ago, Spike couldn’t tell whether Giles sounded thankful or sorry about that. He heard a door open and found himself being lowered to a mat on a stone floor.
“Hang on, I’ve got a first aid kit in here somewhere. Try not to move.” Spike repressed the urge to chuckle at that unnecessary admonishment. He heard the light switch flick, but his vision was hazy and darkening. He sensed a presence return to his side and heard the metal case click open, and someone digging through rustling bandages and rolls of tape. Then….
“This may hurt a little,” warned the voice, not sounding the least bit regretful. Spike felt an intense pain in his stomach as one of the spines was yanked free. The second one was more deeply embedded, and Spike found himself praying fervently for death, or well, something, before it came loose. He felt a liquid being poured into the wounds–cold at first, then so white hot he thought for a moment it was holy water, before the acrid tang of rubbing alcohol hit his nostrils with his involuntary gasp of pain.
A few minutes later, Giles finished taping a pressure bandage over the wounds, and Spike’s vision began to clear. “How do you feel?” Giles asked quietly, almost gently.
“Like someone’s had my bloody guts for garters,” Spike replied, in a raspy whisper. He struggled to sit up and instantly regretted it. Quite aside from the pain and dizziness, he felt very different, very unlike himself. He began to shake uncontrollably. “Giles,” he breathed. “What’s wrong with me?”
Giles looked up from wiping off his hands. “Until the poison works its way out of your body, I expect you may be feeling a bit odd. The effects should be temporary….”
“No.” The fear in Spike’s voice was palpable now. “Before this. What’s been wrong with me?” He moistened his lips and pulled himself together. “She’ll never know, or care, yet here I bloody stay, keepin’ promises she never asked of me, and…” he went on brokenly, finally saying aloud what he had been torturing himself with every moment since that awful night, “’S not like I even kept the one that mattered.” Spike met Giles’ wide eyes, his own curiously unfocused, but absolutely devastated. “I failed her. She’s dead because of me.”
Giles felt the air leave his lungs, replaced by the cold horror of hearing aloud the thoughts that had been tormenting him all these weeks. Spike, even in the depths of his own misery, could not miss the man’s reaction. Their eyes stayed locked for what seemed an age, riveted to the grief and shame mirrored in the other’s eyes, having found a common ground where they least expected it.
At long last Giles drew a deep shuddering breath and tore his eyes away. He rose and Spike heard his footsteps echo across the bare room. A few minutes later, he heard the sound of running water in the sink, and the sound of the man removing blood soaked clothing and using a wet towel to wipe as much of the drying gunk off his body as he could, and putting his head underneath the spigot to rinse it from his hair. He heard the gasping, muttered curses as the cold water poured over the other man, and then chattering teeth as the water was shut off and he began drying off with another towel. A sniff, then a quiet, “I’ll be right back.” The bare feet padded to the door into the shop, and Spike heard the door close.
He noted that his senses were not as acute as usual–he could not make out the sounds of Giles’ movements on the other side of the door. Without the sounds to distract him, he was forced back to his question, and his growing awareness that the monster he held within him–that Was him, in fact, was not what it had been. The demon that had reanimated his flesh, the one that was constantly tempting him to kill, maim, and destroy, was fading into silence. And as his awareness grew, he realized that it had been losing its hold on him for some time.
The door opened again, and Giles appeared at his side, dressed once again in his rumpled suit, and holding a bottle of scotch in one hand, and two clean glasses in the other. He set them down and sat, his back leaning against the wall. He poured himself a drink, then glanced over with the questioning raise of his eyebrow. Spike gave a slow nod, and a second glass was poured. He grimaced as the man helped him to pull himself into a sitting position, leaning back against the same wall.
Spike looked down at his nerveless hands, trying to get them to unclench enough to grasp his glass. Giles took a deep drink from his own glass, then, set it down and brought Spike’s to his lips. Spike gulped a bit down, grinned weakly, and said, “Thanks.”
Giles set the glass back on the floor and took up his own again. “Don’t mention it,” he replied quietly. But the questions burning in the vampire’s brain would not be still, and after a moment, Spike cleared his throat hesitantly.
“Rupert. I don’t have a soul. So, why….” He paused, drew in a shuddering breath, forced himself to put it into words, his need to know finally outweighing his unwillingness to seem weak or vulnerable. “Why do I Care? Why do I Hurt?”
Giles set down his drink abruptly and began polishing his glasses thoughtfully. “I have a theory about that.” He paused as if unsure where to begin, then he said, with an echo of his old didacticism, “When the Initiative implanted you with that chip, I thought your overtures of… er… at times, friendship, were just the product of a vampire’s natural social instincts. You are by nature something of a pack animal, if you will, and of course none of your own kind would accept you, unable to hunt, or to kill.”
Spike nodded. So far, none of this was news. Giles pursed his lips, choosing his next words carefully. “Have you ever heard of a man named Phineas Gage?”
Spike’s eyes screwed up in concentration as he searched his memory. “Sounds vaguely familiar–oh wait. I know this…. Yeah. Wasn’t he that prat who blew a railroad spike through his head, and lived?” At Giles’ nod, Spike grinned a little in spite of himself. “Never managed to recreate that little effect myself, though it weren’t from lack of tryin’.” Giles looked slightly ill, but not surprised.
“Yes, well. You remember how the injury affected his personality? One day he was kind, decent, responsible, and the next….”
“A right sodding bastard,” Spike supplied approvingly. Then his expression changed as he realized what Giles was getting at.
“Such injuries are not at all common, but they are not unprecedented, either,” Giles continued. “And some have taken, as you put it, ‘right sodding bastards’ and changed them in the opposite way. My guess is that either in the process of implanting the chip into you, or more likely in the constant electrical impulses keeping your, um, instincts at bay, that same part of your brain has been damaged.”
Spike was gazing at the Watcher in open mouthed horror. Finding his voice, he said, “Are you telling me…? No, Giles, stake me now. Please. I will Not become another tortured, ensouled, Nancy boy like Angel….”
Giles shook his head. “I don’t think that’s it, not exactly. If I understand what happens when a man becomes a vampire, the demon changes the host’s personality to suit his, er, inclinations. In your case, I believe the demon’s hold over your personality has been disrupted by your chip, and the human memories and thought patterns of the man you once were are being set free.” Giles fixed piercing green eyes on the horrified vampire. “I’ve seen you with Dawn–with all of them. If I thought for a moment that your demon was in control now, I’d stake you where you sit, Hellmouth be damned. But I don’t think that it is. Something has upset the normal balance.” He took another sip from his glass.
Spike considered this for a time, but looked unconvinced. “I still crave it, though,” he admitted quietly. “The killing, the cruelty. I have dreams….” He trailed off, wondering if Giles would stake him now, and if he cared. Giles regarded him searchingly for a moment.
“And the man you were is sickened by it,” he replied at last. “The fact that you call it killing, cruelty, gives it away. You’re different, Spike. Something entirely new. What you do with that is up to you,” he paused and drained his glass, then continued, a ghost of a grin playing at his lips, “but I must say, I find it a good deal preferable to a certain ensouled vampire who might revert at any moment to his former, ever so charming self….”
Spike looked up from his troubled thoughts with a slight grin of his own. He reached out now to grasp his own glass and bring it to his lips. Another bit of common ground, there–they both shared an intense dislike for the brooding wonder. He raised his glass in mock salute and took a sip. “There is that,” he agreed.
They sat in silence for a long while. Then Giles stirred and glanced down at his watch. He sighed heavily, then struggled to his feet. “Better get you home before sunrise.” He offered the vampire a hand up. Spike stared at it blankly for a moment, then nodded and accepted the help gratefully. He still felt weak and dizzy, but no more so than the time he’d drained a crack addict, back in the day. He’d only made that mistake once, but it had been interesting. A pang of something very like regret competed with the latest random thought to zing through his brain: wonder what would happen if you got a pig very stoned, then drained its blood….
He shook off the speculation, leaning on Giles as they made their way out of the shop and down the alleyway to Giles’ car. “Hang on,” Giles instructed quietly, popping the boot with the button on his key chain and pulling out a blanket. Spike looked at it, perplexed.
“Not that late, is it?” he asked. Giles was transferring the vampire’s weight from himself to the hood of the car, turning away after first satisfying himself that Spike would not topple over. Giles unlocked the passenger door and opened it.
“No,” he replied over his shoulder and spreading out the blanket. “I just don’t fancy having to get several different types of demon blood out of these seats.”
Spike snorted. “Thanks ever so,” he shot back sarcastically, but with only a shadow of his usual cockiness.
They drove through the darkened streets of Sunnydale in silence. Spike’s vision was swimming too much to follow their progress, so he was surprised when they pulled to a stop, to see that they were not at the gate to the cemetery, but rather in the lot of the Watcher’s apartment complex. He raised a questioning eyebrow at his companion, but Giles either didn’t notice it, or chose to ignore it. Spike decided hot running water beat the heck out of whatever he could rig up in his crypt, and wisely held his tongue, shrugging as he accepted the man’s assistance to the door and inside.
Summer 7 - Poetic License