“Buffy shame on you... Why does a man do what he mustn't? For her. To be hers. To be the kind of man who would nev-... To be a kind of man.” He starts walking towards the large cross on the stage in front of them. “And she shall look on him with forgiveness. And everybody will forgive and love. And he will love.” As he reaches the cross his voice dropping a little lower like a distant whisper making it unclear to either of them if his words are really meant for him or for her or anyone at all as he lays his arms over the arms of the cross his cheek turned to rest against his right arm. The sound sizzling sound of his flesh burning heard beneath his next words while steam rises around him and tears spill unseen down his burning cheek. “So everything's okay, right? Can we rest now? Buffy?” He pauses after he utters her name as a faint pleading question. “Can we rest?”
The scene in front of her seems to play on repeated several times in her mind before her brain truly registers that it's actually happening, it's not some dream or a mirage. He's real. She shakes her head, the band of chocolate brown rubber holding her hair back from her face falls and lands unnoticed on the dusty floor of the abandoned chapel as she walks quickly towards him. “Spike…” She breathes his name without really thinking through why she's doing this or what her plan is. She stops behind him using grabbing him by his forearms and pulling him off of the cross more easily than she had anticipated. He seems to almost collapse against her, the shock of which causes them both to tumble down the two steps from the cross and land on the dust covered floor.
When Spike realizes he's no longer burning and clinging to the cross but in fact half lying on Buffy on the ground he scrambles onto his hands and knees skittering away from her, his ramblings renewed. “No! Can't touch! No! Stop! Make it stop!”
Of course not a single word of it made a bit of sense to her as she moves swiftly to her feet to close the small gap of distance between them. She kneels down beside where he now lays in the shadows, his body pulled into the fetal position and shaking against his silent sobs. She can still smell the burnt flesh, her nose wrinkling from the smell even as she tries to push it to the back of her mind before pulling his head into her lap.
Some how hearing his words, the confession and admission of what he'd done for her, it snapped something inside of her and turned everything around and inside out. For now she doesn't give it a second thought, she just rakes her fingers through his brown rooted platinum tresses freeing them of the shell of gel that was holding them in place. “Shh... You can rest Spike, but not here... This isn't the place for you.” When his sobs have ebbed for the time being she tries again to force his attention to her instead of some unseen being that he seemed to mutter to despite her closeness. “Let's get you out of here okay? I think Clem's still crypt sitting for you. Let's go there, okay?” She slides out from under his head standing to her feet but in the same moment she's pulling him to his with her hands under his arms. When he tries to pull from her she simply tightens her hold on him.
Twenty minutes later she's managed to get him back to the crypt downstairs and into his bed, Clem leaving the minute they'd come in without asking any questions for the time being. She rummages through his place until she finds some cloth and ointment that can be used to clean and bandage his self inflicted burns, while he has exceptional healing he'd done quite a number on himself in holding onto the cross for so long before she 'woke up'. Once she's gathered everything she needs she leans over him setting to work to carefully clean his burns, occasionally shushing him or blowing against his skin when it hurt most.
By the time she's finished he's worn himself out to the point he can barely keep his eyes open let alone continue to rant and ramble about things that made no sense to her but seemed to burn him in a sense, all over again. It's now that his eyes, though half lidded, really seem to look at her without the glaze of obvious insanity frosting their never ending blue depths. “Buffy?” He utters her name like a question before licking his lips to wet them and asking, “Really you luv?”
“Yeah Spike...” She's not really sure what to say, how to explain why she's even here. So for the time being she just lets her lips pull into a slight smile and sits down beside where he lays on the bed. She reaches out, hesitating for only a moment, before she starts running her fingers through his hair slowly, her nails grazing against his scalp as she pulls his curls free of the gel shell that encases them. “We'll talk later okay? You need to sleep right now.”
The moment she utters the word 'sleep' he pushes himself to a half seated position which dislodges her hand from his hair as he shakes his head wildly, his blue eyes wide with fear and his body beginning to shake slightly. “No! Can't sleep! Don't want to see. Hear. No!” He tries to scramble to the other side of the bed and off but doesn't get a chance to move more than an inch before her strong hands yank him back in place, moving instinctively to his shoulders to gently but firmly place him against the mattress.
She climbs on top of him, carefully straddling his hips as she looks down at him with a serious and firm expression. “Spike, listen to me. Are you listening?” She pauses, waiting until he slowly nods his head, something about the action and his wide eyes tugging at her heart strings in a way she’d never anticipated. “You need to sleep, to heal. You're safe here; this is your home Spike.”
“No!” He moves quickly enough he's able to toss her off of him onto his bed before scrambling from it and cowering in a shadowed corner of the room muttering to himself before she has a chance to recover.
She can feel the muscles in her jaw clenching for a moment before she's able to force herself to calm down and move from the bad over to him again. She grabs his hands as they try and literally pull his hair out from the roots, her fingers sliding against his palms once his fingers are forced open. “Spike, look at me.” She keeps her voice cool at collected the first time, but when he tries again to pull away, lost in the depths of whatever is going on in his head, she tightens her grip on his hands. “Spike!” She screams his name to pull his attention to her, thankfully that it finally works; she didn't want to have to resort to hitting him this time. “Listen to me, okay?” When he nods this time she arches a brow waiting for him to say something.
His chest rises and falls rapidly with the panting breaths he doesn't need even need passing through him. His eyes are wide and staring into hers, the color finally registering in his brain, her eyes like olives with the green/brown hue of them and the blueish gray ring around the outside. The visions that haunted him of her had her green eyes but the real thing is so much brighter, so vibrant, especially when she's this irritated with him. “I'm listening.”
“Good.” She relaxes her hold on his hands but doesn't let them go as she goes on, “I want you to tell me the truth Spike... You haven't been feeding or sleeping, have you? Where did you guy? Why did you...” She shakes her head stopping herself from the onslaught of questions that would do nothing now except push him back into his insane ramblings.
“Can't sleep.” His head shakes several times before he steadies to look at her again. “Been bleeding rats. Vermin, like me.” He shifts uncomfortably on the ground in front of her, trapped in the corner by her but his eyes briefly look past her seeing something only he can see and his head shakes wildly again. He closes his eyes trying to pull his hands out of his grasp, trying so hard to shut out the duplicate that only he can see.
She sighs, her grip on his hands tightening as she stands. She pulls him to his feet with her and pulls him over to the bed again. When he tries to dislodge himself from her grasp again she simply tightens it and yanks him towards her without thinking about it, the action causes them to both fall over onto the bed. This time to keep him from skittering away again she wraps her arms around him using her slayer strength to prevent him from pulling away until his struggling stops. She knows it has to hurt with his burns and all, but he hadn't given her much choice. “Calm down, it's okay. Look, just lay here, okay? Talk to me, stop muttering to yourself and talk to me.”
“About?” His gaze shifting to her suddenly, skeptically as he pulls from her again but just curls in on himself on one side of the bed careful not to touch her. The images of what he'd tried to do to her flashing inside of his head with the words whispered to him from her unseen twin.
“Let's start simple, why won't you sleep?”
“Can't.” He stares into her peculiar eyes and for a moment he can see her the way she was after she rescued him from Glory, when she'd pretended to be the bot and confessed his reasons for not telling the evil bitch about Dawn. In this moment she looked like that girl and not the one who would in an instant kick his ass into the ground for reminding her that she's loved.
“Okay... Why or how do you have a soul now?”
His brow arches slightly during this moment of sanity. He's having a hell of a time remaining sane and she asks about his bleedin' soul? “Why do you think I did it Slayer?”
“Did you think getting a soul would change something between us? That I'd swoon like I did at fifteen with Angel?”
He scoffs rolling onto his back, his eyes still open and staring up at the ceiling as he tries to find the words so that his reasons make sense to her. He enjoys this moment of mental clarity, hoping it'll last him through her oncoming whirlwind of questions he knows she's got brewing inside of her noggin. “This hasn't got a bloody thing to do with Captain Forehead. So just leave him out of this conversation.” He pauses long enough to turn his head and glance in her direction to make sure his warning, though unsaid, got through to her. Once he's sure it has he goes on with his reasoning, “This has nothing to do with being with you... At least...” He raises a hand covering his face with it for a moment as he sighs deeply, when he lowers his hand again letting it rest on the mattress between them he tries again. “I wanted to give you what you deserve. I can't be near you without it; I know that, I figured that out. With you and your lot burnin' it into my noggin I finally got the hint. No matter how much good I do, how many times I help you save the world it doesn't mean anything without a soul, at least not to you.” He sighs again slowly sitting up with his arms lazily resting on his legs and his head hanging as he stares at his hands. “But I thought at least with my soul I could help and you wouldn't constantly figure it was just about the soddin' chip all of the time. I mean I know it's not enough for me to deserve you, I get that.”
She stares at him for a long time in total silence trying to process everything before she ventures to ask, “How did you do it? Is it...” She pauses again trying to figure out how to phrase the question without bringing Angel into it only to have her thoughts interrupted by his voice.
“It was a reward of sorts. I went all the way to Africa pet looking for this, or well I guess what I said was what you deserved. So I guess this makes sense, I mean I can't be of any use to you if the soddin' git had made me human or something now could I? I mean you're the Slayer so a human is honestly less than you deserve, which is why Captain Cardboard was a waste of your bleedin' time.” He lifts his head then to eye her for a moment noticing the little bit of a smile she tries to hide at his words before clearing his throat and moving on. “So I've got my soul but I'm still me I reckon. I mean I haven't really checked for any other alterations, but let me tell you getting it hurt a hell of a lot. To even be worthy of what I'd asked I had to endure trials, gotta say though they were still a bit easier than dealing with the hell hoe. But that's the story there Slayer, happy?”
“It's... wow, that's a lot to digest...” She climbs off of the bed standing beside it as she pulls a cell phone out of her pocket. “I need to go upstairs for a minute and call Dawn and check in.” When he nods she climbs back upstairs to leave him in his thoughts.
She closes herself off once she's upstairs and then quietly heads outside of the crypt hoping it was enough to prevent his vampire hearing from catching wind of the conversation between herself and Dawn. She flips open her phone and dials her sister's number before switching it to speaker phone so she could pace more easily. “Hey Dawn is everything okay?”
“Yeah, where are you? Xander said you went off to chase some worm demon?” Dawn's voice asks as it comes through the phone only mildly distorted.
“If Xander calls make something up for me okay? Say I'm asleep or something.”
“Where are you? Are you coming home soon?”
“I don't think I'll be home tonight. I'm...” She pauses glancing towards the door of the crypt hoping she hadn't underestimated Spike's hearing. “I'm at Spike's. Look before you say anything I know what he tried to do and we both agree it was wrong, but...” She sighs, “He was a soulless demon Dawn and I provoked him. The things I...” She shakes her head her feet picking up their pace as she paces back and forth in front of the door of his crypt. “I'm part to blame. I mean normally when a man does that or tries... It's not her fault, not when you're dealing with humans Dawnie, but you have to believe me. This is different. But he's in bad shape and he has a soul... I'll explain later but I need to look after him Dawn so he doesn't do anything too stupid. Whatever is coming, we'll need him strong and we'll need his help.”
Dawn's silent for a moment letting Buffy's words slowly register in her mind. She still isn't sure she can really see nearly being raped as a woman's fault, demon involvement or not, but at the same time this was Spike! Spike had been her big brother, her safe haven for longer than anyone but them really knew and part of her couldn't just forget that. She knew how much he loved Buffy and she was slowly learning about the things her sister had done that hurt him more deeply than he'd ever admit and in fact blamed himself for it. Finally she finds her voice again, sucking in a deep breath to make her voice firm, sort of like Willow's resolve face but in a vocal form. “Bring him here.”
“What?”
“I said, bring him here. Look you can look after him better here anyway and I can help. Plus this way of Xander calls looking for you he doesn't have to know we're helping Spike. You know what you told me won't pacify him for even like a nano second, right? Do you need me to help you get him here or is he good to walk?”
“He can walk.” She stops in front of the door to the crypt leaning against the cold stone with one palm against it as she lowers her voice. “We'll see you soon, and thanks.” She hangs up the phone with a soft but audible snap as the plastic slaps against itself.