|  | |
 |
| In Omne Tempus - Excuse Me For My Sins by Holly (2 Reviews) | | - - abc + |  | | | A/N: I’m sure this won’t come as a surprise to anyone reading, but be warned…this chapter does contain a character death.
Thanks to Megan, Mari, and Kimmie for looking for this for me.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Excuse Me For My Sins
Sunnydale wasn’t a town of immense size, and despite the population, the law enforcement very rarely saw the need to get involved. Spike had suspected for a while that the ‘don’t-ask-don’t-tell’ policy when it came to human-demon relations had a seat in some of the city’s high ranking official chairs, though he had never cared enough to investigate. It just struck him as especially curious now, despite the mortality rate on the Hellmouth, that there was an active crime scene investigation, complete with police cars and ambulances. The sirens had awoken the town—human and demon populace alike—such to the point that by the time he, Buffy, and Oz saw where the commotion was, there was already a large crowd blocking their view.
There was something else. Something that made everything fall into place.
Spike knew exactly where his family was. Whatever veil they had used to shield themselves from his nose or the Slayer’s intuition had been lifted, and that clinched it for him. He knew what had happened. He knew exactly. There was no room for doubt.
Angelus. Angelus and the whole miserable family. They weren’t hiding anymore. Their scent hung in the air, tackling him for his lack of foresight—like a name he’d thought he’d forgotten, only to have it resurface when least expected.
He knew what this was. His grandsire had seen how the Slayer dealt with outrage. He’d experienced it; seen that glorious waver of control just inches away from breaking altogether. He knew how protective she was over those she cared about. He knew what killing her best friend would do to her.
Would do to them.
He’s drivin’ us apart.
Angelus wanted Buffy to hate vampires. He wanted her violent and careless. He wanted her in the open where the protection of her mate could not guard her. Slayer or not, he wanted her in her element.
He wanted to use them against each other.
Willow’s blood tainted the cool night air. It was all around him, tickling his tastebuds, warring with his conscience. There was a glimmer of hope in Buffy’s eyes—hope that had not completely lost to anguish. As though light was slowly draining out of her body, and there would be nothing left but darkness. She didn’t ask him if he knew what happened, because she knew he did. And he didn’t say anything, because there was nothing to say. As long as they didn’t discuss it, it seemed that false hope could stay in place.
Perhaps there was a way he could prolong time to make this moment last. To extend that false hope before his mate was crushed with ultimate despair.
Spike wasn’t foolish. The night was compressed with trepidation—with fury waiting to be unleashed. Waiting for a spark to incite explosion.
Oz understood. Spike knew he understood by simply looking at him. There was no false hope in his eyes.
“Oh God,” Buffy gasped, subconsciously seizing his hand. She squeezed tight enough to make his bones crack, but he didn’t wince. He wouldn’t pull away from her for anything now. Not for the whole bloody world. “Oh my God.”
The flashing of squad cars was growing brighter. Spike saw where they were headed. Back to the graveyard, in the courtyard of a church.
Spoken like a true Protestant.
“Oh God. Oh God!”
The next few seconds were a blur. One beat she was beside him, the next she wasn’t. Buffy released his hand as though scathed and bounded across the cemetery lawn. And he saw it. He saw it just as she did. Just as the pained sound choked from Oz’s throat, and he caught the unfamiliar glimmer of tears in the young man’s eyes.
God, it was too real. It was too fucking real.
“Buffy!”
But she was gone. She’d fallen to her knees before the church. The crowd was thick, but not so that he didn’t see where she’d collapsed.
No, no. He didn’t want her to see this. This wasn’t monstrosity—monstrosity she knew. Monstrosity she battled.
This was something else. This was darkness without hope.
“Buffy!”
She didn’t turn. He saw her, but she didn’t turn. She remained on her knees, her hands fisting the blades of the earth as she wept.
At that moment, she was a thousand miles away.
*~*~*
It was going to rain. She knew it was going to rain. The air felt thick and the skies were heavy. It was going to rain. The heavens would open and tomorrow, no one would know that the ground she sat on was saturated in blood. No one would know tomorrow. Tomorrow, the blood would be gone. It would be as though this moment, this brief stretch of existence, had never been.
The rain couldn’t wash away a memory.
“No!” she screamed. “No, no, no!”
But it didn’t matter how loudly she protested; the scene before her remained the same. A girl was nailed to the front doors of a church, stripped off all clothing; her familiar red hair looked almost black under the moonlight. Her pale, alabaster skin was marred with black bruises and teeth marks, ribbons of blood trailing down her right side. Her arms were outstretched, her body crudely posed in a mocking rendition of Christ. Above her head, written in red against the church wall, were the words: For Your Sins.
“Buffy!”
He was there suddenly. His hands were on her, and he was trying to shake her back to herself. Spike. Spike. Spike was there.
Instinct raged against sorrow. Not the stirring of an unclaimed mate, rather the Slayer surfaced and she saw him truly, looking at him as though for the first time. As though her rose-colored glasses had been ripped away, and the human guise he so enjoyed could no longer hide the demon that resided within. And in that second—that blink of an instant—she was filled with such self-disgust that her body quivered, and she thought she might be sick.
“No!” she screamed, this time at her pained lover, jerking her arm away from his touch. “Leave me alone!”
“Buffy—”
“I hate you!” She collapsed again, though there was nowhere to fall. His arms were around her, his body unmoving, even as she pounded against his chest with closed fists. “I hate you! I hate you!”
Oz was beside her the next minute, placing a calm hand on her shoulder. She could nearly smell his tears.
God, Oz was crying. Oz was behind her, weeping, and she was striking her demon mate with half-hearted swings that weren’t meant so much for pain as they were for release.
“I hate you. I hate you.”
The minute she felt defeat rush through his body, though, the minute she felt he might actually leave her, a pain unlike anything else sliced down her middle. And suddenly, she reached a moment of clarity. A place of reckoning.
Buffy shoved Slayer instinct aside, reaching instead for the warmth of her mate’s embrace. Even as he rose to his feet and started away, the fog surrounding her reality parted, and she remembered again who she was. More importantly, who Spike was. Not just a vampire. Not a demon to kill. Her mate. The man who loved her. He had nothing to do with what had happened here.
She needed him. As the world fell apart, she needed the one she loved.
“Spike…” she cried, her body breaking. “Don’t leave me.”
He didn’t hesitate. The next second, she was in his arms again, sobbing onto his shoulder as local police attempted to get the crowd in order. Attempted to get everyone to back away from the sight. Attempted to conduct Sunnydale police business that seemed so fundamentally out of place. As though this was a crime scene—a real crime scene. As though Willow had been killed by real criminals that manmade law had any hope of stopping.
It was going to rain. God was going to wash the blood away. Hide the world from his crime.
Angelus.
Buffy clutched Spike tighter, her heart blackened.
Angelus killed Willow.
She would tear the town apart. She would bring him close to death a thousand times before granting it. She’d chain him up somewhere and embed a stake in his chest, just inches above his heart. He would know every indignity that Willow had known. He would know the pain of every soul he’d ever destroyed.
But for now, she simply wanted the warm, false assurance of her mate’s embrace. Spike was holding her, murmuring words of empty comfort, but it was what she needed.
If he let go of her, the world would disappear. She was sure of it. The rain would wash her away as well, and there would be nothing left.
Nothing but this black, hollow despair.
*~*~*
Spike knew the wolf was going to do something. He knew resolution when he saw it. And while he could admire the boy’s bravery, there was no way he was going to let Buffy lose two friends in one night.
He’d taken her home. There was intent in every nerve in her body, but she was in no condition to fight anyone tonight. Moreover, she seemed to accept that. She hadn’t protested when he whispered that she needed to go home. Needed the comfort of her bed, and they would discuss the rest tomorrow.
She’d sobbed herself into exhaustion. He was glad. He needed her to rest. Right now, she was too emotionally charged to fight anyone. She’d be careless and sloppy, rather than cunning. And she was too strong to stop, but not too strong to kill. In this state, there was no way he would let any of the Order near his mate.
“I don’t hate you,” she murmured as he turned down her bed. “I don’t, Spike.”
He released a shuddering breath. The words had cut, even if he’d known that she didn’t mean it. The thought that she could ever hate him made his demon yearn for dust. But she didn’t hate him. Not when she said it, and not now. “I know, pet.”
“I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
“I didn’t mean to say it. I don’t know where it came from.”
Spike knew, and he couldn’t blame her. For that second, she’d become wholly Slayer. For that second, she had seen every vampire as an enemy. It had terrified him, not for what she could do to him bodily, rather that everything they had accomplished together could be gone in a blink. He was guilty of many things, and he would never deny it, but the notion that he could ever willfully do anything to harm his mate was against every innate nerve in his body. He’d made a promise to her, and to himself. If keeping her meant going against what he was, it was a sacrifice he was prepared to make.
But even without that resolve, there was no way he would have ever harmed one of Buffy’s friends. She knew it—he knew she knew it. But the screams of her protest would remain with him for a long time. His girl was the Slayer, and her nature could not be pushed aside.
He brushed his lips against her forehead. “Don’ worry about it, sweetheart.”
Buffy frowned, rubbing at raw eyes. “It’s a dream,” she murmured. “It’s all a dream. I saw Willow earlier today. God, she was working on her paper. Her term paper…on Russia. It’s due next week…she’s gonna wig if it’s never done.”
His eyes filled with tears. Her broken voice made his heart shatter.
“Jus’ sleep, kitten,” he whispered. “Things’ll be different tomorrow.”
“Are you gonna sleep, too?” Buffy sat up abruptly. “Don’t leave. I can’t be alone.”
He released a sharp breath. Slayer or not, there was a very real part of her that would always be a little girl. The same little girl that had proudly displayed pajamas with footsies and sobbingly thrust her loved teddy-bear into his arms so that he wouldn’t forget her.
He couldn’t promise her that he wouldn’t leave tonight. He had to leave. His mate had been hurt, and the demon was screaming for retribution.
“I’ll be here when you wake up,” he promised.
“Stay,” she commanded, tugging him down onto the bed. “Stay with me.”
Spike sighed and wrapped his arms around her, resting his cheek against her head. “Always,” he swore, pressing another kiss to her brow. That seemed to satisfy her. The tension she’d been harboring rolled off her body, and she finally relaxed.
It only took minutes for her to find sleep.
What little good it would do, he realized. Sleep would not bring her friend back. Sleep would not make Buffy’s world right again. Nothing could.
He’d walked away from death for so many years. And while he felt nothing more than a twist of pity for Willow, he was devastated in watching his mate grieve. It was this aftermath, this complete ruin of humanity that filled him with shame. Angelus killed to hurt people, always had. Spike had killed for food and, yes, for fun. But never consciously for the intention of being deliberately cruel. Never to watch people sob themselves to sleep. He’d never been comfortable thinking about the family that would weep for those he killed. It had never been enough to make him stop, of course, and even if Buffy gave her blessing, he rather doubted an added insight to humanity would hinder his fun. He was, after all, a demon.
But looking at her, with her red, swollen eyes and dried riverbeds of tears scaling her cheeks, he wanted desperately to be more than what he was. He wanted to be the man she deserved, not just a shadow of goodwill.
He couldn’t bring Willow back, he couldn’t eradicate her pain, but he could bring justice to those that had killed her. He could shed blood in retribution. He could destroy.
It was what he was good at, after all.
Spike waited about ten minutes, holding his sleeping Slayer until he was satisfied that she would not awake. He brushed a parting kiss across her cheek, drew in a deep breath, and slowly extricated himself from her arms. He murmured, “I love you,” into her hair, and forced himself to leave the room without tossing a glance over his shoulder.
He wasn’t surprised to see Oz downstairs, waiting for him.
“Is she asleep?” the wolf asked.
“Yeh.”
“You know what I’m doing, right?”
“You know it’s suicide, right?”
“They killed Willow.”
The agony in Oz’s usually calm voice sent a sharp pang to Spike’s chest. This boy had loved the girl. He couldn’t imagine what he was going through. More of that unwanted association with humans. He was growing softer by the hour.
“Yeh, they did,” he replied. “An’ there are three of them, an’ only one of you.”
There was no point in trying to talk him out of it, though. The boy was determined.
“They killed her,” he repeated. “There’s nothing beyond that.”
“They’ll rip you apart.”
“Probably,” Oz acknowledged. “But I’ll go down taking one of them with me. They killed Willow. I don’t care about anything else.”
Spike understood that. Pain was fresh, and the boy had just lost the one he loved. Vengeance, right now, was the only virtue that offered any comfort.
But he wasn’t going to let the kid get hurt. Not while Willow’s body was still warm. Not with Buffy hugging a tear-drenched pillow. Not with his chest still aching from the fists of her agonized outrage.
She loved him. She trusted him. And he wouldn’t let his family hurt her again.
It didn’t take much. One quick punch and the wolf collapsed.
There would be no more blood tonight. He wouldn’t allow it.
No one knew his family like he did. And strangely, as he left Buffy’s house that night, he wasn’t apprehensive. Wasn’t concerned. There wasn’t even the lingering fear that he would never again know the comfort of her arms.
It ended now. He’d been a bloody fool, and it ended now.
No more blood tonight. Only dust.
To be continued in Chapter Twenty-Four: Into The Deepest Madness…
| | | | | | | |
| |
|