Disillusioned
Summary: What does a pissed off
vamp do when he's dragged to the Hellmouth when he'd rather be swanning
around Europe? Why, he gets inventive in order to have fun with the
Slayer of course.
Rating: I'll go for R at this
time. Though knowing me, a change is possible.
Disclaimer: These characters
belong to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy. I have merely manipulated his
creation to make myself and hopefully you happy. I gain nothing but
satisfaction mentally.
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Chapter Seventeen
The chill in the basement made her
shiver.
Buffy clung to the cardigan she'd retrieved from her room as soon as
the emotionally difficult job of chaining her school friend to the wall
had been taken care of. Xander and Giles had been uncharacteristically
silent while they waited, not knowing exactly how long the process of
turning would take for a new vampire to exist in the world.
He was stretched out on a basic cot against the wall, the chains just
long enough for his hands to lie beside his body. Buffy knew that it
wasn't just the atmosphere in the dank basement that caused ice to
creep through her veins. Prolonged looks at this boy that she'd once
walked in the sun beside was enough to add an element of gothic horror
to her night.
It was late. Spike hadn't returned and anxiety ripped at her to go and
find him. She had a bad feeling, despite suspecting that he wouldn't
come back to them quite so willingly. There was nothing to indicate a
need to anticipate problems—if you could exclude the fact that a
grief-stricken yet defectively ensouled vampire was gunning for dust.
"How long do these things take, Giles?" She'd always been under the
impression it was a couple of days from the draining to the dusting,
given that most were in the ground before she got to them. Things like
funeral services took planning. But what did she know? It was probably
outlined in that nifty little handbook that gave her all the nitpicky
hints about being the perfect slayer, but being that she never got one,
she was operating under a severe lack of knowledge.
I wonder how Giles justifies not letting me read it? Maybe he knew
me and study, not so mixy.
"I'm actually not that certain. The Council was able at some point to
gain access to a number of...er...bodies, and observed the length of time
it took for each to regain consciousness. I rather think the length
depended on the sire. O-of course, Spike is a master vampire—"
"Huh?" Xander butted in, his face a picture of confusion before
understanding shifted and anger took its place. "But, isn't he kind of
young? And what did he have to do to get that honour?"
Giles was suddenly shifty, looking at Buffy before quickly diverting to
the floor, his hands scrabbling for the ear piece of his glasses as the
nerves set in.
"I-it would seem that Spike was—is—known as the Slayer of Slayers. He's
killed two in his time, Buffy. If what Angel said is true, and Spike
doesn't have a soul, then it seems more than reasonable to assume he
was here to make you his third. I'm so sorry to have to tell you this."
Compassion settled around his eyes and he let go of the stiffness that
was his calling as a watcher, moving decisively to hug Buffy awkwardly
around her shoulders. "I know you care a great deal for him."
Buffy nodded, her heart beginning to ache with how much. She was scared
now. Terrified about him being out on his own when he was obviously
reacting emotionally to something that she had no clue about, as well
as knowing that Darla's dusting wouldn't remain a secret for long if it
hadn't already reverberated throughout the clan, and Spike was a
sitting duck for The Master.
"Giles, that whole soul thing? So not what it's cracked up to be. And
if Angel has one, it's defective. Spike doesn't and yet I trust him
anyway. I—" She wanted to say the words to her friends, despite not
having been explicit with them to Spike himself, yet the stunned look
in Giles's eyes forestalled her confession. "Look, what you just said?
So not news. Spike told me everything already and I trust him. I...care
about him. He didn't do this to be evil. He did this to be good."
Everyone looked again to the deathly pale prisoner of the Summers'
basement and Buffy felt tears prickle at her eyes. She didn't want this
to be happening. It was one thing to have this as her calling—to go out
every night and stake the badness of the night so the rest could sleep
safe and indulge dreams of things better. It was entirely another to
have to look at one of her friends and see the life bleach from their
skin only to be replaced by artificial animation in death. A horrifying
monster. Despite Xander's hopes, Buffy knew this would only end in
badness.
The silence this time was a little more comfortable, though it stifled
through the shared knowledge that none of them really knew what to
do—what to expect. There was little to do but wait, and unfortunately
none of them were much with the patience. There was nothing left but to
fill the emptiness with talk, and as soon as Giles opened his mouth,
Buffy felt twitchy.
"So, you knew then? That Spike made up the story of having a soul. Was
it to get into the group and slaughter us all?"
Yup, straight for the jugular.
"Yes, I knew. Well, okay, I just found out, and before you hold your
breath and go purple, it was my idea not to tell you. Spike thought it
was over, and I wanted you to just have some time to see that he wasn't
just a monster and that he could be good if we just gave him a chance."
She stopped, held herself strong and clenched her jaw. Catching Giles
shocked glance, she stared him right in the eyes and said the words
that would change everything.
"I love him."
Either her watcher would accept how they felt about each other, or not.
Heart thumping wildly in that scared way it does when you wait for
parental trouble, Buffy watched and took her turn at bating her breath.
He said nothing.
Looked at her for one shocked and disappointed moment, and turned away.
Buffy stood confusedly to the side as Giles flopped down on an
uncomfortable slab of the floor near Xander and then took a book from
the duffle bag he'd carried down the basement stairs from his car after
Jesse had been settled.
Well, that hook had been kind of weak—as in letting her off it really
fast. Buffy sighed in relief as she took to pacing in front of the
huddled pair. The older man took his time to open the book carefully,
his fingers reverent of the pages as he turned them slowly. Only when
his eyes widened and he sat forward, repositioning his glasses to see
more closely something so entirely captivating did Buffy feel the urge
to interrupt. To push her luck. She was getting a bad feeling, and
added to the previous fear she'd felt welling inside at Spike's
absence, it was adding up to all sorts of scary images in her head.
Giles's head whipped up too fast and his glasses dislodged, allowing
Buffy to catch the flash of guilt there. Somehow, in the pocket of time
between his disbelief of her actions and his tentative reading of the
cryptic book, he'd found something that Buffy wasn't meant to know.
"What?" she demanded, her voice all kinds of hard now that there was
something other than Spike's motivations at hand. "You've got 'uhoh'
face. 'Uhoh' face is never good." Beneath it all she was wide-eyed and
innocent, scared of all the baddies that were out there and targeting
her because she was the Slayer.
"I-it's nothing, Buffy. Just a prophecy that I will need to do some
further work on in order to translate it accurately." He tried to
brazen it out, taking to his feet and shuffling uncertainly until he
quickly stuffed the book back into his bag—at complete opposites with
the way he'd venerated its very existence earlier—and sat back down.
"So, Xander, how are your studies coming along?" Giles smiled at the
adolescent, being both desperately encouraging and panicked.
"Ah, you know," Xander answered as his eyes darted questioningly to
Buffy's, asking for some kind of clue. "Pretty much as non-existent as
it was the last time you never asked."
Buffy felt the dead weight of dread as it settled in her stomach. Giles
was keeping something from her. He'd read something in that ancient
book that probably affected her and he didn't want her to know about
it. That just felt so wrong.
Her worried eyes settled on the body on the cot and Buffy suddenly felt
like the walls were closing in. It was all happening again; the evil
she'd escaped by leaving LA was following and spreading, and yet here
she thought it could hurt her a whole lot more than before. No matter
what she did, she couldn't escape it. Evil sought her out—and even if
it was Spike and he changed for meeting her, it was never going to
stop. Not until she was dead. Or all her friends were and she didn't
care anymore.
Looking at Jesse sprawled flat out on top of the sheets, she couldn't
help believing that it was starting already. Tears sprung to her eyes
and Buffy felt the weight of helplessness.
One friend down, three to go.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
He felt so cold. Wasn't meant to; wasn't meant to feel anything. Not
now that he was so beyond physically broken that the pain was just a
numbing backdrop to the emotional torment.
He'd not wasted any time berating himself for getting into this mess.
He couldn't even hold on, expecting the cavalry to gallop to his
rescue. Not the way he'd run out like a coward. Even if Buffy hadn't
wanted to stake him after what he'd done, after what grief he'd more
than likely caused her, and she didn't hate him as much as he was
beginning to hate himself, she had no clue that he'd been caught. His
girly run out the door would probably be enough for her to think he
wanted to hide and that would keep her hesitant long enough for him to
be dust—or fulfil whatever nasty plan the bat-faced pillock had in mind.
Besides, she'd likely have her hands full. He didn't even question that
Xander would be as coercive toward her as he was to Spike, convincing
her to give the newly turned school mate the benefit of the doubt by
letting him rise. Not for one second did Spike contemplate that she
would have planted her stake in the boy's chest—even if he had no
doubts that it was exactly what she should do.
Dru had surrendered her game to the minions—to that wanker Luke—and
retired to wherever it was she wallowed her loss and dreamt up her
insane predictions. Spike was relieved. No matter how much he loved
Buffy now, it hurt to see the face of the woman he'd spent over a
hundred years worshipping and caring for wanting to do him damage. And
not the kinky kind, either.
Luke's fists hit a whole lot harder and believe it or not, his
punishments were much more twisted and devastating. As it now stood,
Spike couldn't move one small part of his body. He couldn't even crack
open an eyelid without feeling a tearing pain. He was covered in
blood—could feel it dried and caked on his flesh. Sometime after Luke
had entered the scene, Spike had been relieved of his jacket, the
leather being ripped from him to show the manacles holding him helpless
wouldn't impede them taking it. He'd been rendered shirtless, then, and
they'd painted their death patterns on his chest and poked him full of
holes.
When his eyes were still under his command, Spike was reminded what the
bitch Darla had first seen in Angelus. The ugly forehead look seemed to
be a family trait and he only could thank his lucky stars Dru had seen
something else in him and made him the black sheep. Black—because he
wasn't. Plutonic hair, a heart that loved the Slayer; he'd left black
way back in Europe and it was Dru's fault entirely. If she'd let them
go to Prague he'd more than likely still be happily feeding on young,
innocent virgins. Anyway, bugger the rambling. He was thinking about
Luke and how the nasty bastard never changed out of his demon face. The
Master was surrounded by demons of the purest intentions and Spike was
left regretting his jump over the fence. At least—no. He couldn't
regret it, couldn't feel that what had happened between Buffy and
himself was wro...
"Argghh!"
Something white hot and sharp sliced its way through his gut and struck
the rock wall behind him. Spike screamed out in agony, his eyes
shooting open against the blood crust that had hidden the view of his
own attack from him. Luke, a grin from one lopsided ear to the other,
watched as the pain took Spike over and he sunk as far as the chains
allowed.
"You've been bad, Spike." The deep, amused tones were barely heard as
Spike felt the groans against such intense pain fight their way from
his internal darkness. "You must be punished for your transgressions.
You will not be alone in this. Not once we catch Angelus and show him
that there are consequences for not protecting one's sire. How long do
you think you have, Spike, before I show you mercy and end your
miserable existence?"
He couldn't answer. He honestly didn't know. And to top it all off, he
didn't know what to wish for. Make it quick, something screamed
in his head, wanting to continue his not so courageous night and have
it finally reach its end.
But then another thought barged its way to the surface, just as his
head was lolling and he was fighting the onset of darkness and
unconsciousness. It was the voice that had turned him in Buffy's
direction and taught him that there was sense in falling in love with
her. It told him to hang on, because no matter what he thought, no
matter what he expected, she was coming.
Against the agony of his position, he waited.
She would save him.