Chapter 11
*****Flash*****
The sickening sound of Dru and Angelus screwing was getting uncomfortably familiar to Buffy.
Well, obviously in this memory Angel had already lost his soul. Buffy was in the Crawford Street Mansion, judging from the creepy hallway, and the two vampires she could hear through the door she was facing. So that also meant this was after the Judge, after Jenny’s death, and after Giles burned down the factory.
Back then the Scoobies had been moving between disasters, from the kid-killing demon at the hospital to the possession of the school to the transformation of the swim team into fishy demons. It was the big lull in Angelus’s attacks before Acathla. She had figured he spent the time plotting up new tortures for her and her friends. But surprise, he was actually screwing Drusilla into the carpet.
Buffy turned from the door, ready to find something else to listen to, and came face to face with Spike. Or she would have, if he weren’t sitting in his wheel chair. Once again, he didn’t act as though he saw her. In fact, he looked like he was staring through her, right at the door that hid Angelus and Dru. Buffy stepped closer to wave her hand in front of his eyes, but he continued to focus on the door behind her.
The burns on the side of his face were mostly healed now. She could see the jaw muscles below both his cheeks tense with anger. His eyes radiated loss and a feeling of, not disbelief, but betrayed sadness. Buffy supposed it could have been because he was thinking about Dru’s unfaithfulness. It must have been horrible, to have her leave him after all those years he’d cared for her after Darla left. After he’d saved her in Prague. After he’d loved her with everything he had. But it wasn’t enough for Dru.
It must have been like being reduced to fledgling status all over again. Just without the ability to move freely. Buffy reached her hand up without thinking, running her fingers along his left cheek. She could feel the softness of his skin and the hard, sharp bone beneath, but still he didn’t respond. His eyes never moved, his head never shifted, almost as though he were in another world.
Maybe he couldn’t feel her because it wasn’t really her body touching him, just astral projections of her fingers. It felt real enough to Buffy, so why wouldn’t it feel real to Spike’s mental projection of himself? If that’s what this was. This was a memory, something that had already happened. Maybe Spike wasn’t actually here in the way Buffy was. Could he be watching all of this? Or could he only feel and see what the memories let through?
Perhaps she’d never had any chance of reaching him in these memories. All of this was in the past. Spike was part of the present. So where was the present him? Not in the wheel chair in front of her. He was buried in here somewhere; he might be on a level she hadn’t reached yet.
The Spike of this memory slowly looked down at the stone floor of the hall. His arms reached for the wheels of his chair, and he backed away from the door. He headed down the hallway, with Buffy following him. She heard a T.V. laugh track a few moments before they entered a room containing three minions. They were watching re-runs of an old seventies game show, judging by the huge amounts of orange in the set decoration.
They were seated on a ragged claw-foot sofa, and though they must have heard Spike enter, they didn’t stand to greet him. They didn’t look at him at all. Buffy hadn’t spent much time in vampire courts, but she was fairly certain that this was not the way minions treated masters. Unless they wanted to be dusted. Spike seemed annoyed, but not surprised by their behavior. He cleared his throat loudly, trying to get their attention, but not one turned a head in his direction. “Hey,” Spike said forcefully a moment later, “I want one of you to go get me something to eat. Now.”
Finally, the least Cro-Magnon looking of the three sighed in annoyance and met his gaze. “Go get it yourself. You aren’t our Master anymore, and our show’s on.” He didn’t wait for Spike’s response; instead, he went back to watching the game show.
“Yeah,” one of the other minions grunted. “Go hunt for yourself. Wheels.”
Spike’s eyes shifted to gold for a moment, sparking with anger, then suddenly back to the cool human blue they had been. He looked so lost, wandering in sad thoughts. But he said nothing. He wheeled his chair out of the room and into the corridor, continuing along it past other rooms, some of them filled with minions. Buffy supposed they all thought he was a joke now.
Angelus probably encouraged them to laugh at Spike. Look at the poor, helpless vampire. Angelus probably ordered them not to feed Spike, too. That was why he’d been so thin when he came to Buffy’s rescue while the police were arresting her for Kendra’s death. No wonder Spike had been willing to come to the slayer for help against Angelus. And he had still waited months before betraying his grandsire. Only when Angelus wanted to start the next apocalypse did Spike turn against his elder.
Loyal to the last. That was Spike.
Buffy followed him as he rolled down the hallway, until they turned a corner to face an open doorway. Spike paused his wheelchair before reaching the door, and a good thing too, because the doorway led to some kind of garden. A currently very sunny garden. For several long moments Spike stared at the line of sunlight a few feet beyond him, his eyes glazed and his face taught. Then he braced his hands on the armrests of his chair and pushed himself upward.
The chair shook from the weight he was putting on it and his arms quivered as his feet slid off onto the ground. He forced himself to balance on his stiff, shivering legs, before removing his hands with care from his wheelchair’s arms. He was upright. He lifted one unsteady foot and took a step toward the sunlight.
“God, Spike, no. She isn’t worth it,” Buffy murmured. She was tired of being quiet in this place, saving up her words to try and reach him. It didn’t matter if she spoke to his image, since it couldn’t hear her. “You’re better than this Spike. Really.”
His steps, short and awkward though they were, carried him toward the light. His brow began to sweat with the effort each inch’s advance took. Until finally, his atrophied muscles gave and he sank to the ground. He lay still a moment, then crawled, not toward the sun, but toward the wall. He propped his back against it and using his hands managed to straighten his legs. He stared at the sun for a moment, then turned away, tears forming in his eyes. His hands came up to cover his face and mute his sobs.
Buffy kneeled down beside him and laid a hand uselessly on his shoulder. “Can’t even kill yourself the way you want to, huh? You know, I bet you’re glad this plan failed. I know I am. If you’d died I would have watched the world end from a jail cell.”
*****Flash*****
Spike was standing with his back to a small open air café or bar, judging by the sea of white metal tables behind him. Farther back stood a stucco building with Spanishy architecture. Fairy lights had been strung between poles ringing the café so that the scene was very bright, even though it was dark outside. Drusilla was sitting at a table near Spike, and there was a slimy demon with antlers standing to one side. So that was a chaos demon. Buffy watched a thin strand of his ooze stretch and fall to the ground. Bleagh.
Drusilla’s taste could not be explained. She had a perfectly loyal and reasonably attractive vampire to dote on her and she went out after hours to play with Mr. Ooze. This had to be the moment when she broke up with Spike, the incident he’d cried about in her mother’s kitchen.
Drusilla’s intense stare was trained on Spike’s back. “Why can’t you kill her?”
Spike wheeled, obviously furious. “You’re the one who keeps bringing her up!” He began pacing. “I haven’t said a word about the bloody Slayer since we left California. She’s on the other side of the planet, Dru!”
Dru shook her head, a sorrowful expression on her face. “But you’re lying! I can still see her floating all around you, laughing. Why? Why won’t you push her away?”
That was odd. Spike always said Dru couldn’t stand him because he’d made the deal to stop Acathla. To judge from what Dru was saying, they’d actually been fighting more about his obsession with Buffy rather than his betrayal of Angelus. Well, that explained why Spike came all the way back to California to try to kill her, even if he hadn’t managed it.
So Spike was fixated on slayers. Big whoop. Was that a surprise to anybody? Surely Dru, who’d been around when he killed the first two, understood that. Dru was nuts, and that explained a lot, but Buffy couldn’t figure out why she thought Spike’s fascination with Sunnydale’s slayer was such a threat.
Spike shook his head, looking as confused as Buffy felt. “But I did, pet. I did it for you. You keep punishing me. Carrying on with creatures like this.” He gestured toward the chaos demon.
The demon looked uncomfortable. “Okay, you guys obviously have a thing going on here,” he said, gesturing between the two vampires with a mug of beer.
Drusilla spoke in earnest. “I have to find my pleasures, Spike. You taste like ashes.”
Spike pointed at the chaos demon in outrage. “So this is my fault now?”
Buffy noticed the demon was getting more uncomfortable. Maybe he’d heard of Spike’s reputation, or maybe he just wanted to get out of this awkward situation. He smiled nervously as he spoke. “I didn’t know she was seeing somebody. I should take off.”
Spike crossed his arms with a frown. “Yeah, why don’t you do that?”
The demon blew Dru a kiss before striding off, leaving a sticky trail behind on the dirt. Drusilla watched his retreat for a few moments before turning back to her former boyfriend. “You can’t blame the ghoul, Spike. You’re all covered with her. I look at you... all I see is the Slayer.”
Without giving Spike a chance to reply, she stood and loped after the tall antlered monstrosity. Spike stayed frozen for a few seconds before striding after Dru. But she was already gone from sight, without having ever looked back. His steps slowed until once again he was standing still.
Out of the corner of her eye Buffy caught movement. A waiter with very curly horns sticking out over his ears walked cautiously toward Spike carrying a tray with a bottle of tequila and two shot glasses. “Senor? The lady and gentleman have left?”
Spike laughed, a dry, hoarse chuckle. “Yeah. They’re gone.” The waiter bowed and made to leave. “Wait. Leave the bottle.”
“Si, Senor.” He left the tequila on the table nearest Spike and trotted away as fast as his hooves would carry him. Spike grabbed the bottle by the neck and swung it to his lips, drinking the clear liquid rapidly. Obviously he wanted to get started on the bender that would take him back to Sunnydale.
It was strange to know that she was the real reason Dru and Spike had broken up. Before, she’d been one of several reasons, but now it, it seemed like she was the person that had come between them more than any other. Yet one more thing Spike had managed to overcome hating her for. She was going to have to make this up to him, somehow. She felt bad that his good act had brought him so much pain.
She didn’t, however, feel guilty for separating him from Drusilla. No, Buffy wanted him as far from his sire as possible. Not because of the recently discovered fact that she was starting to like Spike in a more than friends way. That wasn’t a factor because she wouldn’t let it be one. Dru was bad for Spike, and Buffy wanted him to continue to fight for the right side. That was it. Yes. No jealousy. Nobody mentioned jealous Buffy.
*****Flash*****
It was another break up scene between Spike and his sire. It must have been after he returned from Sunnydale to win her back. Buffy wondered if he really did torture her into submission. Whatever he did, it didn’t go far to convince Dru that he’d given up thinking about Buffy. She threw him away as she had before, ranting about ashes and little Buffys dancing around his head.
The only real difference this time was that it was a fungus demon, not a chaos demon, that Dru went chasing after. And wow, but that thing made the chaos demon look pretty. And the smell…ugh.
And that was the end of Spike and Dru.
*****
Please let me know what you think! Thanks to Linda, my beta.
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