| Sympathy for the Devil by ComedyofErrors |
| Chapter #1 - Prologue |
 Banner by Karyn Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters used in this story. Dialogue taken from Crush, Fool for Love, and other episodes has been confirmed using Buffyworld.com. *****Prologue***** “You, Mr. William the Bloody, are the most self-centered person I’ve ever met!” Harmony pointed at him angrily, then crossed her arms and spread her feet slightly in a challenging stance. Her suitcases stood beside her just inside the door of the crypt. Spike stared at her incredulously. It had already been a bad night. He’d gone to the Bronze to meet up with the slayer. Maybe get her to at least talk to him. He got brushed off of course. He tried to take it as casually as her other dismissals, but somehow this one continued to sting. He’d made a genuine effort to be friendly and she’d ordered him to leave. Later he saw her chattin’ up the doctor bloke she met at the hospital. Spike’d gotten frustrated and taken Harris’s change off the table to buy himself another beer. So stealing Harris’s dosh wasn’t friendly, but was picking up spare change evil? It was only a few bucks. He’d pay the boy back sooner or later. Spike sighed. Had to get his jollies in somewhere. It wasn’t as though he had much to do in the world, anymore. Chip kept him from being a proper vampire. Couldn’t get a job in the demon community: he was a liability because he teamed with the slayer from time to time. Could get a job as a human, but no amount of cash was worth some fast food joint like the Doublemeat Palace. And it wasn’t as though he needed money. He’d saved plenty over the last hundred years, but he preferred to live on what he could get by the means at hand. He just needed something to do with his time. Spike had thought for a while that he might be, not welcomed exactly, but accepted by Goldilocks and her Merry men. He’d helped with the troll…and that Glory bint that went after the Nibblet. But he never got so much as a thank you for his pains. They acted like he was just a sodding convenience. And every time he did something remotely nice, it had to be because he had some dark, evil motive. He did. He wanted people to care about him. The feeling had been growing on him since Dru left him for good. Spike had no strong ties. His sire was gone. His grandsire hated him. Angelus couldn’t bear to look at him or Dru while he had his shiny soul. They were his mistakes; dark, deformed creatures that reminded him of what he was capable of. Maybe if Spike had childer, he would have been alright. Wouldn’t have been so fucking lonely. But he hadn’t turned anything but minions since…but he didn’t want to think about that. Why he picked the Scoobies to get approval from, he had no idea. Well, he knew, but he wasn’t about to admit that he respected them. They were the only people to get the better of him consistently in a century, so why wouldn’t he respect them. One catch though. They didn’t respect him. Spike used to be the Big Bad. They were scared of him. They tied him up even when they knew he had a chip in his head to keep him from hurting him. He was just a novelty now. Spike thought he could deal with being a white hat. He could learn to play by their rules. He didn’t care about causes anymore; good, evil, it hadn’t mattered to him in a long time. If he was going to be a good guy, it would be because he had friends among the good guys. Or at least acquaintances that would care enough to pull him inside on a sunny day. But they just weren’t willing to see. The things he did that contradicted everything his vampiric instincts told him to do didn’t register with them. They were polite and selfless all the time. He hadn’t been either in a century. It takes a while to get back into the habit. And he was trying, damn it, hard enough to give him headaches. Or maybe that was the chip. Either way, whiskey only went so far to help a migraine. This evening just made him feel worse. Lonelier and more depressed than he had been since he’d been turned. Then he’d come home to find Harmony waiting for him with her suitcases. It almost made him laugh. Harmony was calling him selfish. Pot and kettle, anyone? She must have seen his disbelief, because she started spouting. “I know what you’re thinking. You have no idea what I mean, do you? That’s just typical. I pick up blood for you. I’m sweet, and I give you blow jobs, and I try to make this place livable. Un-livable. Whatever. And you just ignore me. You give nothing back.” Spike raised an eyebrow. “You’re the one that came to me for protection from the slayer. I’m the one that cleans up, I go down on you, and I listen to you talk to your bloody unicorns. What the hell are you talking about?” “That. Just…that.” Harmony gestured vaguely. “You don’t respect me. I’m your girlfriend Spikey! You’re supposed to have some respect for me.” In light of the events of the night, Spike felt a twinge from the direction of his conscience. His eyes wandered to the floor. Harmony kept going. “It’s always all about you. First you mope around because you can’t kill the slayer, and now you mope around because you can’t get her to sleep with you.” Spike’s head snapped up to stare at her. She huffed. “I’m not stupid. I’ve seen all that crap you’ve stolen from her downstairs. Well guess what, Blondie Bear. I’m tired of playing second to the girl you have sick fantasies about. You do realize she’s the slayer, right?” Spike rubbed his forehead. Another headache was working its way up from the back of his neck. “Yeah, Harm, I realize.” Harmony wrinkled her nose. “That’s just wrong, Spike. But I don’t have to deal with it anymore. I’m leaving you. So bye.” She grabbed her bags and headed up the steps. It was just Harmony. Harmony picking up her suitcases and walking out on him. Yet another woman he’d managed to drive away. His heart joined his head in the ache. He was a master vampire damn it! A bastion of the Order Aurelius. He wasn’t supposed to feel guilt. He should be able to ignore his conscience and get on with life. But in keeping with his thoughts tonight, he couldn’t stop himself from feeling guilty about the way he’d treated Harmony. He hadn’t really considered her his girlfriend. Fuckbuddy was the term that came to mind. Cryptmate. But that wasn’t how she saw it. To her, in her perpetually teenage mind, he was her boyfriend. He’d betrayed her in thought, if not in deed. He used her the way other women used him by taking what she offered and not realizing that her heart was in it. He’d become a right bastard to put all that on her. “Harm!” She turned to look at him, one suitcase propping the crypt door open for her dramatic exit. She set the other valise down to cross her arms again. “What is it Spikey? Gonna beg me to stay?” He shook his head. “I…” his mouth felt dry. “I wanted to say I’m sorry. For what it’s worth,” he mumbled, looking down again. Harmony looked shocked. “You are? Really?” “Yeah.” He swallowed, and forced himself to look her in the eyes. “You’re right. I wasn’t very good to you. Wasn’t good to you at all. You deserved better. I’m sorry. And good luck, wherever you’re going.” Harmony grabbed her suitcases and jumped back down to floor level. She tossed them aside and ran to give him a hug. “Oh, Blondie Bear, I knew you’d come to your senses. Now things can be so much better between us.” Spike pulled back, confused. “I thought you were leaving.” Harmony waved her hand in dismissal. “Oh, that. No, the suitcases aren’t even packed. I just wanted you to realize how you’d been taking me for granted.” The bint played him. For half a moment Spike wanted to kill her. How dare she make him expose himself like that! Yet, everything she’d said was true. He couldn’t blame her methods. It was something the average vampire would do. Spike had kept her around for his own sake, not to save her from Buffy’s wrath. He wanted someone to fall back on. Someone beneath him, for a change. He was as self-centered around her as she’d accused him of being. And now, he could accept her back for the same reasons as before. But if he was going to throw in with the forces of good, he might as well get used to being selfless. “Harm, I think you should pack up and go, for real this time.” She looked at him questioningly. “Why Spikey?” He sighed. “Because, pet, I may realize that I took you for granted, but it’s not gonna stop me from doing it again.” “But why?” He hesitated. He’d gone this far; he might as well be honest. “Because I don’t love you Harmony. And I don’t expect to.” He waited for the backlash. She laughed. “Oh, that’s okay. I don’t love you either. But that doesn’t mean we can’t build a relationship on something else. We can go somewhere, get your chip out, and then you can be master of a town and I can be your queen. We’ll have sex and support each other. It works for all kinds of married people.” Spike winced. She was managing to trample on the few relationship ideals he had left. “Maybe some people can do that Harm. But I’m not one of them. I don’t see a future for us.” Harmony’s brows furrowed and her voice got higher-pitched. “You really want me to go?” “No.” He could admit it. He still wanted a safety net. “But I think it’s best for you if you do.” Harmony frowned. “Damn. Well this plan sucked.” She kicked the ground with the toe of her high heel. “Do you want to have a little farewell fun?” She asked optimistically. She blinked at him and gave a coy smile. Unimpressed by her attempt at seduction, Spike shook his head. “No. You need to get moving if you’re going to get to shelter by dawn. Where you plan on goin’?” She sighed. “I don’t know. Maybe L.A. I’ve always wanted to go there.” ________________________________________________________________________ Spike watched the bus leave. Harmony’d kept making excuses to delay her departure. She packed slowly, she whined, she claimed she’d miss him too much. In the end he’d carried her suitcases to the depot and bought her ticket himself. He’d been feeling compassionate enough to give her some money to help her on her trip. She was more than happy to accept. They wished each other luck and that was it. He trudged slowly away from the bus station. He felt lost. And alone. So alone. A lonely vampire heading home to a lonely crypt. It was like being a human all over again. Powerless and defeated. Life just kept throwing him nasty surprises. He would be alright if he weren’t so damned hopeful that things would get better. ‘Hope is the thing with feathers, that perches in the soul’ blah, blah, blah, ‘Never asked a crumb of me.’ Stupid bint had no idea what hope could do to a person when she wrote that. Hope was self-delusion. Hope was a tormentor. Better not to let hope drive you into going on if you were just going to be hit over the head again and again. Lost in his thoughts, Spike didn’t hear the demon. Didn’t smell it or sense it until it was too late. He felt it sting him through the layers of his clothing. He leaped away from it, making the spine pull out of his flesh and leave a jagged cut. Vamping out, he whirled to see his adversary. It was a Glarghk Guhl Kashma'nik. Bloody great, he’d been poisoned. The creature, having finally realized that he was a vampire and not an easy meal, ran. Spike rotated his shoulder, trying to see if the spine had done any severe damage. No, it seemed to work fine. He was a little boy sitting on the seashore, lost. His auntie had forgotten him in the press of his loud and annoying cousins. Nobody remembered little William. He was too quiet. It was lonely out here. It was getting dark. He didn’t like the dark, there might be monsters… Spike shook his head violently. The old wisp of a memory lingered at the back of his mind. The venom was starting to take hold. He’d better get back to the crypt, quick. Sure as hell didn’t want to stand here hallucinating all night. He wasn’t quite ready to dust in the morning sun. Even so he paused on entering the crypt ten minutes later. It was too quiet. Not even the rats came in through the sewer anymore. He stripped off the now ruined brown jacket he’d worn tonight, grateful that his duster was safe. He tossed the coat over the sarcophagus and pulled a bottle of Jack Daniels out from under the stone slab. He set it on the particle board coffee table and dropped downstairs to shower and have a look at his still-bleeding cut. The wound on his chest was beginning to heal, slowly. He wondered briefly about the dangers of the venom. It caused hallucinations, he knew that. He supposed the symptoms would pass, given time and blood. That’s what happened when he got bitten by that damned adder in Romania. He washed the spilled blood off under his broken pipe of a shower, then dressed in his normal clothes. Silly costume hadn’t worked. Should have known the slayer’d never see him as normal, whatever he did. Bint didn’t really want normal anyway. He went back upstairs and flopped into his comfortable arm chair. With practiced ease he downed a shot of Jack straight from the bottle, then sat back. It was still fairly early. Maybe the poison would wear off before morning and he could get some decent kip, now that Harmony wouldn’t be around to whine. He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. Whatever his hallucinations were going to be, he doubted they could be that much worse than real life. Hell, right now he’d welcome a break from reality. ***** Please R&R! Thanks Linda! |