Chain

By Irfikos

Part III: Blood and Love

3.5: Chained

Notes: Later that night...


Hey!
Been trying to meet you.

Hey!
Must be a devil between us…

But hey!
Where have you been?

If you go I will surely die.

We’re chained…

–Hey
Pixies, 1989

---

Electricity lies. Someone told him that once. And sometimes, when everything is all quiet-like and still, when there are no other sounds but the sleep stirrings of his captors and the skittering of rats and night things through the rubbish of the lair, he can almost convince himself of that. Almost.

The night thing that is Spike wraps the chain in his fists and gives a tug. It’s a heavy chain, but rusty. Easy enough to break were he to throw himself into it. With his left hand he traces along each link of the chain, from the base of the column it’s wrapped around up to the link that is likely to snap first. Number seventeen. Fitting. About a half meter up. Nearly rusted through. His inspection of the chain reminds him of Dru’s fascination with rosary beads. How he was forever snatching them away from her, licking at blistered fingers as she cooed and whimpered in his arms. Silly bird always lingered when she reached the cross. He’d been tempted to try it once. Not sure why. Boredom, likely. Perhaps curious to see what she got from it. In truth, he was probably just pissed out of his mind. Nothing better to do. He’d held the cross in his palm and watched the flesh sizzle away – red, white, black. Nothing. He’d dropped the thing and stomped it to splinters under his boot. What had she wanted from it? Absolution? Punishment? Or just the pain?

He gives another halfhearted tug at the chain. Not really trying to break it.

Electricity lies. Right. Got it. Thing about electricity – it can be very convincing. These days, electricity tells him all sorts of things. It tells him, for example, that were he to snap this chain and make a break for it, the chip would drop him in a matter of seconds. The chain itself is meaningless, after all. He recognizes that it only exists as a representation of what truly binds him here. Something they can reassure themselves with late at night when they have only intangible electricity to protect them. He knows that even without a chain, even without a cage, he’d still just sit here like a sorry lump. He’s a coward. And he knows it. And he hates himself for it.

Thing is, he likes the chain. He’s glad for it. At last, he has something to hold onto. Something real. It’s the intangibility of it all that gets to him. Electricity. Fuck. How do you fight that? How do you fight something that’s inside of you? You can’t kill it, can’t tear it to bits. Can’t pretend it’s not there, deep under your skull, burrowing into your brain and telling you lies and lies and lies. Making you crawl and beg like the pathetic wanker you are. Twisting you up inside until one day you wake up and realize you’re not even you anymore. It’s horrible.

He hears the footsteps approaching long before the door opens. He lets go the chain and braces himself. Electricity has taught him to sit like a good boy and mind his manners. It has accomplished something headmasters with canes, big broody vampires with bad hair, and moody little girls with sledgehammer fists have all failed to do. Miracles of technology, eh?

He snickers. Electricity. It’s a funny thing.

---

“Can’t sleep, huh? Hey, I know how you feel.” Warren drops the soldering iron onto the worktable as he enters and draws the chair over to face the vampire. He flops down onto it and rubs at his eyes wearily. This place doesn’t have any mirrors but he’s pretty sure the dark circles under his eyes could give the vamp a run for his money, bruise-wise. He ran out of No-Doz last night but he grabbed a couple Mountain Dews at the gas station so he’ll be good to go for awhile at least. A thought suddenly occurs to him and he looks curiously at Spike.

“Hey, do vamps need to sleep? I mean, I know you can and all that… but hey, you don’t need to breathe but you still do that a lot. Just wondering, y’know?”

Spike runs his hands through his hair and stares at his boots. “Yeah. We sleep.”

His hands are all orange. Rust. He’s been messing with the chain. Stupid vampire. Warren frowns disapprovingly. “You can’t get away, you know.”

Spike pulls his legs up and rests his arms on them, leaning back against the column and looking vaguely in the direction of Warren’s feet. The chain clinks and drags across the floor with the movement. “I know.”

“It’s not so bad, is it? Here? With us? I mean… you had fun tonight, right?”

Spike just shrugs and keeps watching Warren’s feet.

“It’s kind of a rush, isn’t it? Killing? How long has it been for you, anyway? A long time, I’ll bet.”

The vamp turns his hands up and gazes at his rust-stained palms. “Been awhile, yeah.”

“You missed it. I could tell. You liked it, right?”

Spike scowls, “‘Course. Vampire.”

“Yeah. It was pretty cool.” Warren looks at his own hands. Clean. Well, mostly. He could use a bath. Certain parts of the whole supervillain gig kinda suck. No shower in the secret lair being one of them.

“You should be thanking me, really. When you think about it it’s like… like I’m doing you a favor. Letting you kill again.”

Spike wipes his hands on his jeans. “Thank you,” he says quietly, automatically, looking at the floor.

It bothers Warren a little bit that Spike doesn’t mean it. That he’s only saying what he’s expected to in order to avoid a negative response. He’s not sure why it bothers him. It’s not like he cares what Spike thinks of him. It’s not like it matters if Spike enjoys killing people or not.

“You’re welcome,” he responds, troubled. He sits there for several minutes, watching his captive. The vampire fidgets nervously under his gaze. The chain clinks occasionally but otherwise the two of them sit in silence. His eyelids are heavy and he finds himself drifting off. A sudden sensation of falling jerks him back to alertness. The chair scrapes alarmingly with the sudden movement.

Startled, Spike tenses and raises his eyes to meet Warren’s for an instant before dropping them back to the floor. In that moment, Warren sees a lot of things reflected in the vampire’s eyes. Fear, of course… and resentment. A cool, careful anger. And again, that glint of recognition. “I know you,” the vampire’s eyes seem to say. “I know what you are.”

Warren stands up and stretches, cracking his neck a couple times. Needs to stay awake. Work to do. He looks down at his pet monster. His demon.

“Hey, Spike…”

The vampire raises his head, eyes darting cautiously toward his master.

“Vampires. When you sleep… you, uh… ever have nightmares?”

---

“It’s your go.”

“No it’s not. I just went.” That’s a lie. Andrew knows it’s his turn.

“Don’t be stupid.” Warren’s giving him that look like he’s doing something wrong again. Andrew’s showing weakness. He knows it. He hates it. He hates being weak. He just can’t help it. Whenever he does something he screws it all up. It’s so much easier when Warren just tells him what he wants instead of always expecting him to know.

“I’m not– I just… I don’t know what to do next.”

Warren sighs and throws his head back. A drop of rain spatters onto his face and he frowns, blinking it away

“I told you there was gonna be a storm.” Andrew tries for an I-told-you-so singsong but what comes out sounds a lot more like frightened whisper.

“No you didn’t. It’s just rain, anyway, dillhole. Are you gonna go or what?”

“I don’t… want to go.”

Warren rolls his eyes. “You have to do something or it’s not a real game. If you don’t do anything, it’s just two guys sitting around staring at each other like a couple of morons. Go. Make your move.”

“I– I can’t.”

Warren smiles and leans forward. The rain is falling faster, in big wet drops. The map is getting wet. Warren is staring straight into his eyes. It makes Andrew’s body hum with electricity. There’s gonna be lightning soon.

“Are you afraid?”

Andrew squints up at the sky. The rain is pelting them now but it feels warm… nice. Big fat drops that slide down his neck and crawl under the collar of his shirt. The clouds are moving across the sky time-lapse fast.

“Oh, hey!” he stalls, “That cloud looks kinda like a bunny!”

Warren doesn’t look up, just keeps staring at him. The cloud is gone already, anyway.

Warren repeats himself. “Are you afraid?”

Andrew frowns. “The sun’s… it’s not coming back, is it?”

Warren shakes his head. “We don’t need it.”

“Are you sure?”

“Hey, who’s the Dungeon Master, here? Trust me. Now… make your move.”

“Um… ‘kay…” Andrew leans forward until his face is only inches from Warren’s. The proximity is exciting. Andrew’s heart races. Warren’s smile gets bigger. He smells like blood. It scares Andrew to think that he knows what blood smells like now.

The clouds are moving so fast above them that the sky is just a dark, undulating blur. It makes him feel all dizzy. Like he’s on a tilt-a-whirl. His stomach flip-flops accordingly. His hair is drenched now, falling in front of his face. He brushes it away with the back of his hand. It feels too thick… sticky. He looks down at his hand.

There’s blood on it.

Confused, he looks at Warren who is grinning now, showing his teeth. His eyes are the only bright thing in the darkness. Fat drops of rain that aren’t rain but actually blood spatter on his face – splashing down everywhere, turning everything red.

Andrew pulls away. The game map is gone. Instead, lying between them is a girl in a French maid’s uniform, limbs akimbo, skirt hiked up in a way that isn’t sexy at all. Her dead eyes stare up at him and he jumps to his feet. Warren stands up also, steps around the body and grabs onto Andrew’s shoulders. “You know I need you, right? You’re my Number One, here, man. I’d never let anything bad happen to you. You just have to chill, okay?”

“I’m… um, chilly. I just – I don’t think this is the right game. I don’t remember any of this from the manual. And the Monster Manual doesn’t have anything about… about a –”

Warren pulls Andrew closer and Andrew lets him. It feels nice. Safe.

Warren looks down into his eyes. “Are you afraid?”

“No.” Andrew closes his eyes to shut out the gore around them. He focuses on the feeling of Warren’s hands touching him.

“Good.” Warren says, his mouth next to Andrew’s ear. His breath tickles. It feels good. And Andrew isn’t afraid anymore. Not even when he feels the fangs sink into his neck.

---

Beside him, Andrew stirs in his sleep and Jonathan turns in his sleeping bag to face the opposite wall. In the darkness he can’t see the door with the smashed in EXIT sign above it, but he knows it’s there. He imagines what would happen if he just got up and walked out.

Well, first of all, it’d be a long walk back to town. He’s not good with distances and his inhaler is running low. And then where would he go? The police? No way. He’s seen enough movies to know that he wouldn’t make it ten minutes in the big house. He can’t just go home and pretend nothing happened. “Hi mom. Hi dad. Sorry I dropped out of college and disappeared but I was trying this whole supervillain thing which didn’t really pan out. So hey, what’s for dinner?”

To Buffy then. The Slayer. He could throw himself at her mercy. And Willow would take pity on him because Willow’s nice. She might convince the Slayer to spare him at least. Yeah, Willow would help him. He’d always liked her. She’s no Cordelia Chase or anything but he’d always thought she was kinda cute… in a nerdy sorta way. Not that he has much room to judge, he reminds himself. He could send her an email. Tell her everything. Warn her about what’s gonna happen. He’d have to cover his tracks so Warren wouldn’t find out. And Warren’s way better at the computer stuff than he is, so it’d be tough. He’ll have to figure out how to do it. Reroute the message through a remote server. Set up some firewalls or something.

He’d be a traitor. He'd be betraying his friends. The Trio. Andrew, who practically lived at his house after his grandma got sick. Before he and Tucker went to live with their aunt across town. Andrew, who would cry at night when he slept over, after he thought Jonathan was asleep. Something that Jonathan never brought up no matter how much they fought – even when Andrew spilled Yoo-Hoo all over his Spiderman comics. Because kids know that some things are sacred between friends. Some things you don’t talk about.

And Warren, who stood up for him when that guy at the comic book shop tried to rip him off. Warren, who didn’t even know him then, had pulled him aside before he could slink out in defeat. “Are you gonna let him get away with that?” he’d asked. “You’ve gotta stand up for yourself, Sparky. Get what you deserve. C’mon, I’ll back you up.” Warren had made him feel like he could actually be somebody. Like maybe together they could get some respect.

He doesn’t know what to do. Everything’s all screwed up now. He doesn’t understand any of it. He hears Andrew whimper and turns again to face his friend. It’s too dark to see Andrew either, of course.

In darkness as thick as this, it’s pretty hard to feel anything but alone.

---

Lying silent in the pale moonlight, she watches her lover sleep. Lacy eyelashes on smooth cheek. Perfect kitty-cat nose. Luscious, lickable lips parted as if they were forming a permanent and thoughtful “oh.” As if saying “Oh, it’s good to be back,” or “Oh, I missed you so much,” or “Oh, I love you.” “Oh, oh, oh.” And her bestest, mostest favorite: the little crease between eyebrows. As if even in sleep her sweetie is thinking Very Important Thoughts.

Well, of course she is. Willow smiles.

“You came back to me,” Willow thinks. “You came back to me and everything’s gonna be okay now.”

“Mmm.” Tara smiles too.

For a panicked moment Willow worries that maybe she thought too loudly. Did Tara hear her? Did she screw up already? Lose control in her sleepy-happy, guard down moment? She watches, frozen, waiting for her lover to wake up – at first confused and then angry. And then gone.

She’s tempted – just for an eensy moment, a nanosecond, tops – to slip inside, just to see if her thoughts had disturbed Tara. Find out some of those Very Important Thoughts maybe…

She rolls away and stares at the ceiling, taking deep calming breaths. She’s a monster. That’s what she is. She’s gross and wrong and… naughty.

But no. She won’t be that. She is Amazon Willow. Strong enough to do what’s right. She will never, ever do anything like that to Tara. Nope. Never. Well, not again at least. Never again. Willow Rosenberg is One Tough Chick. Better not mess with her, Buster. So you better just pack your bags, Temptation. Because Willow is strong and smart and… and…

She turns back toward Tara, propping her head up with an elbow on the pillow. She reaches out a careful hand and caresses her lover’s cheek. Just to be sure. Because it still doesn’t seem real yet. Her being back. There. Warm. Soft. Real. She smiles once again.

…and she is loved.

---

In her bed, buried deep under the blankets like a dead thing beneath the earth, the Slayer sleeps. Willow had dug out some T3s to help her with the back pain. Brewed some tea for her.

“To help you sleep,” Willow had said. “You need to rest.”

And echoes from her friends. Friends with worried eyes and warm comforting hands on her shoulders.

“Rest.” “Rest.”

And the Slayer, too tired to fight them off, was at last defeated.

“Rest,” they said.

And so, in her bed, buried deep under the blankets like a little kid afraid of the dark, the Slayer sleeps. She doesn’t dream.

Tomorrow, she goes hunting.

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