Chapter Four

“Isn’t that wonderful, Spike?  Angel says you have your soul.”  Buffy had a smile that stretched across her face from ear to ear, making Spike cringe in horror.

 

“What the bleedin’ hell are you on about Slayer?” Spike nearly screamed at her.  He could hear the desperate panic in his voice as he finally looked around his current surroundings; nowhere to run from her. Then he took in his position.  He kneeled at her feet with his hands placed beside her knees on the sofa.  Her smile had slipped a little at his earlier exclamation, but despite his fear he could feel the heat from her body as it reached from her legs to his fingertips and he felt hard pressed to keep his hands to himself.  And what the hell was that about?  Last week he wanted to rip her throat out and gorge on her blood and now he wanted nothing more-wanted with a desperation in fact- to find out what it would feel like to slip his hands under her skirt and rest on the skin of her thighs, to feel that heat and be overcome. 

 

With a suddenness that was startling he projected himself backwards at force and ploughed into the bookcase behind him, the impact knocking it back and causing a mini avalanche of books to land atop him.  Stunned, he didn’t move, but more terrifying to him was not his lack of grace in movement, but the horror of the image of indeed ripping her throat out and ending her life once and for all.  Oh God, his soul screamed at him, and then he was finally aware.  I think I’m gonna be sick. His stomach muscles clenched in a way they had never done before as a vampire.  He decided not to move just yet.

 

Spike thought closing his eyes might be a good idea, so with a final glance at Buffy, now looking rather concerned, he closed them to the room and tried to not only forget he was there with the slayer, but tried to work out where the hell he was.  Almost immediately the visions assaulted his darkness and he sat confused, trying to understand the message that he felt must be important to relay the meaning behind his current little dilemma.

 

Buffy had mentioned, before the bombshell, that she had had a vision of sorts, and in it he had turned to dust.  He hadn’t seen the same thing as such but he had felt it, the burning pain as his body disintegrated and was no more.  What did it mean?  Why did he not see it like she did?  He only felt and heard some words.  He heard her tell him in the last seconds of his existence that she loved him, and him denying it so she would get her cute arse out of the bloody cave, because couldn’t she tell the whole bleeding place was about to implode?  He felt her hurt, but as for himself he was pretty dumbfounded by what she had said.  Dumbfounded, but stupidly happy.

 

What was going on?  Since when did the Slayer have that kind of a relationship with the Big Bad?  As mystified as he was, he wasn’t confused on his own feeling, and this is where the whole scenario is bloody whacked, he groaned to himself.  When she said those words, it felt like he had been waiting for a lifetime to hear them, and he felt ecstatic.  He felt euphoric.  Some other incarnation of himself had the hots for the slayer, but not him, oh no, she might be shag worthy, but, hey, wasn’t Peaches around here somewhere?  His eyes darted around for his Sire, and then narrowed as he suddenly began to think of him again as competition.  Not again.  He wouldn’t let that ponce win again.

 

A sudden scent pervaded his senses and heat took over his spot by the bookcase and his eyes opened almost of their own will.  He had been so caught up in some kind of memory? vision? past life? That he hadn’t noticed her approach.

 

“Spike?”  Her voice was soft, careful, but what made him wary was the concern.

 

“Yeah?”  He felt incapable of saying anything else to her just yet.  He felt speechless, rendered dumb by a sudden view of holding her in his arms and kissing her till she was breathless and moaning for more of his touch.  And he found that he liked that image.  Looking into her eyes he suddenly realised that he would really like for that one to come true.  Then tried to shake some belated sense into his muddled brain.

 

“Before you woke up you said you could see your soul.  Do you remember anything?”  He felt her eyes on him, pleading with him to remember, but what exactly did she want him to remember?  He couldn’t tell her that he remembered her saying that she loved him, not unless he felt like being sliced and diced, and dusted just for good measure.  But what about this soul garbage?  And just like that the images came to him, of blood and gore, his mouth tearing and destroying the flesh of the young and innocent, even the not so innocent, and those feelings of nausea came rushing back with a vengeance. 

 

“Oh God, Buffy…”he cried out as he fell to his side and cried in a disgusting display of weakness.

 

“Buffy luv, I’m gonna be sick.”  With a desperate lunge and tug she had him off the ground and hurtling toward the bath at what felt like the speed of light, but just in time for him to heave and heave with a violence that was frightening.

 

His body shook uncontrollably when he at last fell away from the tub. Standing and swaying on shaky legs he allowed the Slayer to lead him back out to the sofa where he collapsed in exhaustion.  He had never experienced anything like that in all his unlife, and now that he had his fear reached new heights.  He didn’t understand what was going on.

 

“Spike,” her voice broke through his haze and he felt a wet cloth clean his face.  It brought him relief and he turned watery eyes to her in gratitude.  “When did you last have any blood?  All that upchucking and you had nothing to show for it.”

 

He tried to think; was it days, or weeks? 

 

“When was it that I last saw you luv?”

 

“Just over a week ago.”  Her eyebrows knit together in worry, almost suspecting but not quite believing his answer.

 

“Then before then.  Those soldier boys nabbed me that night and their bagged blood was drugged.  Did something to my head so I can’t feed anymore, bloody hurts whatever it is, get a shock, like, every time I go grrr at anyone. The pain, it's blinding.  So I thought finally to come to you, thought you lot might take pity on the neutered vamp and help keep the soldiers away from me.”  There had been a quiet control about his story, a sense of awe at what was done to him, rendering him toothless, and taking my favourite happy meals off the sodding menu, and he froze at the thought and felt like hurling again at the thought of any more of his aimless killing.

 

He turned pleading eyes on the Slayer as he silently begged her to do something, to understand what was going on and explain it to him.

 

“I don’t know about the soul, Slayer.  Is it like Peaches?  Will I lose it?  Why aren’t I crawling around trawlin’ for rats?  I mean, it hurts, I feel bad for all that I’ve done, and bloody odd feelin’ that is too I tell you, but I don’t think it feels like it should if I just got it, you know?”   He was rewarded again with her smile and he breathed a sigh of relief.  She hadn’t cracked him in the nose, and he wasn’t dust.  In fact…

 

“Oi, Slayer, what’s with the gooey looks you’re sendin’ me?”  His voice was croaky and weak and maybe that was why he still had an unbroken nose, and why her smile hadn’t slipped during his insert foot here moment.  Instead, she seemed to beam at him.

 

“Hell if I know, Spike.” And she giggled adorably.  His own smile seemed to disappear as that thought came to light, he wasn’t ready for adorable.  He wasn’t ready to understand a soul.  He wasn’t ready to be in Giles’ home, as he finally figured from all the cursing drifting in from the kitchen.  And he really wasn’t ready to understand why the hell he would ever have warm fuzzies for the Slayer.  Let alone be in a position where she would tell him she loved him.  To tell the truth he was well and truly freaked and he needed to get off the topic now, before anything stranger happened.

 

“So Slayer, do you have my Gem around handy.  Wouldn’ mind that back at all,” and his devious grin battled weakly.

 

She returned his grin with beaming amusement.

 

“I was going to give it to Angel,” she all but teased and then laughed at his growl, knowing it was good-natured.  “I thought I might keep it for now though, probably not the best thing for Angel to have in case Angelus ever comes back out to play.”  Then her smile and sunny disposition evaporated like rain on a steaming footpath.

 

“We need to know what happened to you with this soul thing Spike.  It could be really important.  And, well, I get weird vibes from the whole situation.”

 

Spike tilted his head to the side, studying her.

 

“Yeah Slayer, I guess it would be good to know.”

 

“Why do you do that?”  He raised an eyebrow in question.

 

“Why are you calling me Slayer again?  When I found you, you called me Buffy, and again when you started calling out when you were unconscious.”

 

“I don’t know.” He looked away confused, tiredly trying to work out this mystery on his own.

 

“It almost feels like there are two Spike’s inside me.”  He looked again to her and she smiled encouragment.  “You said before that you had a vision of me turning to dust?  It’s like I have a memory of it, but I don’t think its really happened.  Do you get what I mean?”  He wanted her to get it because he didn’t know what else to do, how else to explain it.

 

“I guess we need to research then.  Try and work out what happened and where the soul came from.  Find out if it has any affect and whether you are likely to ever go Spikelus.”  She giggled again and he felt a flash of pure and familiar lust in his groin.  His eyes shot wide as saucers as they focused on her lips.  And without thought of who they were or who was in the flat, they drifted toward each other and burned as their lips finally touched.  Spike knew without a doubt that something about that other Spike, the one to burn and dust for his love, was really a little part of him too.  And her lips brought him finally home to rest.