ChainBy Irfikos
Part IV: Blood, Love and Rhetoric
4.5: Dread
The day goes by, I nod at it, another comes again.
I'm asking you for guidance now, I hope my ways to mend.
In the secret history of time we're all alone and dead
And only suffering is sure is what the best book said.There's something knocking in my mind I'm trying to recall.
I think if I could remember it I could regain it all.
But maybe it wasn't even me who had that memory
But someone gone if ever here like a river to the sea.I'd like to say I'm sorry if I've disappointed you
But everyone expects the world and then they get it too.
The night is coming on and time it won't stand still.
The end is near they say and yes it always will.The night is coming on and I'm feeling scared.
There are things I've left undone and the deadline's here.
The night is coming on and the dread is sheer.–The Night Is Coming On
Dim Stars/Richard Hell, 1992
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Oh… this is so not good. She’s not sure what kind of “present” Willow has in mind for Spike if he decides to let Warren live, but it doesn’t sound any less nasty than whatever Warren had promised him if he were to die. There’s some hope in the fact that Spike hasn’t answered yet. But come on, giving Spike the choice? Ooh, hey, let’s leave it all up to the guy without a conscience! Pretty twisted even for creepy, bad dye-job Willow. Of course Spike wants Warren dead. Hell, she’s the Slayer, Miss I-Don’t-Hurt-Humans, and even she’s gotta admit that dead Warren isn’t exactly the worst idea in the history of the world.And Spike just sits there, staring at the floor between his feet as if the answer to this little multiple choice test has been inscribed in the concrete. He’s panting as though he’d been running hard and needs breath.
Ladies and gentlemen, Buffy thinks to herself, Spike has left the building.
Willow gives an exaggerated yawn, unaffected by Spike’s zombieness. “C’mon Spike. I can’t wait all day y’know. I’ve got places to go, people to kill.”
Buffy continues to push against the funky, sludgey air bubble that Bitchy-Willow has trapped her in. Bracing her feet on the floor and pushing forward with her hands, she leans her whole body into it. God, she feels like a freaking mime. No one should ever have to feel like that. There’s more give now. She’s able to move forward by a fraction of an inch. At this rate, she’ll be close enough to – well, still not stop Willow – in about two months. Wonderful.
“Willow!” she keeps trying with the words, although they traditionally aren’t exactly her most powerful of weapons. “Please! You really don’t want to do this. You can’t kill Warren. He’ll pay for what he did… but if you kill him you’ll be just like him! Will, you’re not like that. Not really.”
Another inch. Good. Better. It’s getting easier. She keeps trying to reach her friend. “Willow, you’re not a monster. You’re not a killer.”
But Willow ignores her. Her attention is fixed on Spike. She’s talking to him in a low, soothing voice, as if comforting a frightened child.
“…thing is, see, Warren didn’t tell you everything. The fact is, eventually, maybe in a year or two, that chip in your head is gonna end up burning itself out. And even before that could happen, it would probably just fry the pain receptors in your brain enough that eventually you’d stop feeling anything. So hey, not so permanent with the shocking after all, right? And who knows? You might even recover in a decade or two! Plus, Warren’ll be nice and dead and I’ll be happy – so, y’know, warm fuzzies all around!”
Although he appears to be zoned out, catatonia guy, Buffy can tell that Spike’s listening very carefully to what Willow is saying. Gotta give him credit, this is probably the first time he’s taken more than a split-second to make a decision in his life. Or his death. But hey, not kidding herself here. She has to break free so she can fight somehow. Unless she can stop it, Warren’s a dead man.
---
He’s a dead man.When he was a kid and he was scared, he used to run through the multiplication tables in his mind. Usually, by the time he got to twelves, everything would be okay. His dad always used to say that there was no problem that couldn’t be solved with the proper application of math and physics. As a physicist he’d been biased of course. Luckily, he’d managed to die before they’d moved to the Hellmouth. He would have had an aneurysm trying to explain the stuff that goes on here.
Death. Now there’s one for ya, Dad. Try solving that motherfucker with a tidy formula.
Now, even the multiplication tables have failed him. He’s stuck at stupid six times seven and he’ll be damned if he can remember what it means anymore. He just keeps looping: Six times seven equals I’m gonna die… Six times seven equals this isn’t fair… Six times seven equals I wasn’t finished yet. I was supposed to be something great, powerful…
See, now, that’s panic. He gets that. Unproductive thoughts like when he killed Trina. No. When Trina fell. The accident. That’s right. Panic is the cue to think of something else. New plan. Find a way out of this. Show this witch bitch who’s in charge. His mind races. Nothing. He’s got nothing. What’s the use of being the smartest person in the room if your brain won’t work?
His throat hurts too much to keep screaming. He can’t open his mouth anyway. What has she done to him? Does he even have a mouth? Does he look like that chick from Twilight Zone: The Movie? He can’t move and it hurts! God, it hurts! That psycho chick put a bullet in him. He knows that. He saw it go in. Felt it. It doesn’t feel like he would have imagined it. It burns. Like a flame licking at his insides, radiating heat throughout his body. He’d thought he was gonna die right then, but she’d stopped. Started talking about Trina. And then he thought he’d seen her, seen Trina, but it wasn’t her of course. Some stupid fucked up spell to make him feel bad. But he won’t because he won’t let himself be manipulated by crazy Wicca bitch. No way. No fucking way.
He can see her down there. Just sitting there talking to Spike. He hadn’t been paying any attention to whatever it is she’s going on about. Probably just the usual, I’m gonna kill you, blah blah blah. Villains are so predictable. That’s like, the number one villain mistake, right there. Talking too much. He’d never do that. He’s not stupid.
And Spike, who should be helping him – hadn’t they been a team? hadn’t he given Spike everything he needed? let him work side by side with him? – Spike, just sitting there feeling sorry for himself.
Spike betrayed him. He’d set him free, let him kill again. He’d actually kinda started liking the guy. And he’d betrayed him. Warren should have known better than to trust a vampire. Spike wouldn’t kill the witch and now they both get to die because of it. Stupid fucking Spike. He’d been a mistake. He should have removed the chip and dusted him, then gone directly to the Slayer. No messing around with prototypes and making duplicate chips. He’d captured her easily enough. He could have captured her alone. With his eyes closed and one hand tied behind his back, probably. When he thinks about it, this is really all Spike’s fault.
Just then Spike glances up at him. And okay, yeah, he starts trying to scream again. Just a little. Spike, you fucking worthless vampire, help me! Or maybe it’s something more like Spike, please… do something! Help me! I’m sorry! I don’t want to die! Please! Whatever. No one will ever know. No words come out, of course. And then, okay, sure, he maybe starts crying again. So what? It doesn’t make him a pussy or anything. It’s perfectly okay to cry when you’re about to be killed in some horrible way by a pissed-off lesbo witch.
Then the Slayer, who’s just standing there doing stretches or something, not helping at all – selfish bitch – yells at the vampire and Spike looks away. Looks at the Slayer.
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“Spike!” Okay. She’s not going to bust free in time. She knows this. It really is in Spike’s hands now. If she can only reason with him. Appeal to the part of him that fought to protect Dawn. The weird loyalty or whatever it is that makes him keep stumbling somehow into doing the right thing. If she can just convince him…But no other words come out. He looks at her and language, as usual, fails her. His eyes lock on hers, searching, and she stops struggling. Just gazes back at him. Steady.
Then he turns away, to Willow who leans in close. With Willow so close in front of him, Buffy can’t see his face. Exhausted, too quiet for Buffy to hear, he gives his answer.
“Oh, hey – I knew that’s what you were gonna say!” Willow smiles, rubbing her hands together.
The lights go out.