Postcards From The EdgePostcards from the Edge
Bending forward, Spike smelled strawberries. He kissed the rise of Willow's neck. With his hands firmly on her shoulders, he willed his demon face forward. He rested his demon lips on her neck, and with slow deliberation, punctured her flesh and slipped his fangs in.
Willow gasped at the prick, and moaned as the two needles of ice slipped through muscle and tissue. She imagined if she had been tense, it would have hurt more. And the coldness around her suddenly became colder. She could no longer feel her feet or her hands, yet she knew she clutched Spike's leather duster.
As the pull of blood, the tingle of her magic, spilt over his tongue, Spike at last heard the pull of heart, desperately trying to replace the loss of blood. Willow went limp in his arms, but he held her firm, made sure she did not fall against him or away from him. When at last, the thud of her heart was slow and faint, he gently pulled his fangs from her flesh and returned to his human guise.
Carefully, he lifted her and placed her down on the bed. But it wouldn't do. Books and glass and ceramic bits littered her bed. Loathe to do it, he placed Willow gently on the floor. He cleaned up the bed, tidied the sheets, folded the blankets, and fluffed her pillows. Then he placed her back on the bed.
Lying on her back, he propped her head upward with a pillow, and arranged the fire of her hair to frame her pale face. Her lips were the same shade as her complexion, and that wouldn't do. He placed a drop of blood from her neck wound on his finger. As he smeared the blood onto her lips, he heard from her lips a final long breath, like a deep sigh.
He remarked at how peaceful she looked. He was delighted to see his care in feeding had yielded no bruises. This would be his masterpiece. He would be remembered for his violence no doubt, but of all his rampages and tirades, this would be the one death where he exhibited control. All this time, he'd been using violence as his expression, and it only created messes. But anger that is controlled, stills the heart and the mind. And Willow held no evidence of his violence. He'd become a master tonight, but he wasn't yet finished.
Leisurely, Spike folded Willows hands above her abdomen and straightened her gown so that the folds and creases lay just right. He laid her legs close together, the skirt of the dress, twirled tightly about her thighs and calves as though she were partly wrapped in a shroud. Then he scoured the house, plucking flowers from vases, and laid them across Willow's feet. And lastly, he opened her eyes--lifeless green eyes. She was perfect.
From the floor, he picked up a pen. From his jacket, he pulled a postcard. He looked at the front. It was of Sunnydale Beach, a brilliant sun bearing down on the cobalt blue of water lapping at the sandy shore. He flipped it over and wrote:
Buffy--From me to you; Willow's become a work of art. She's my finest uncreation. A work of art from the edge of a vampire's controlled rage. I don' t expect you'll understand. Try as you might, you'll never find me.--S
He placed the postcard on Willow's flat stomach, the sun of Sunnydale beaming upward. He stood there for what seemed like hours, rapt in the wonder of Willow. At some point he heard the phone ring and an answering machine picked it up.
"Willow, honey, it's mum," a woman's voice spoke, slightly slurred. "Your dad and I had a bit too much to drink, so the Robinson's have insisted we sleep it off. We'll see your first thing in the morning. Night."
And Spike sat in the darkness, watching, knowing that he would not be able to do any better. There was nowhere else to turn his anger now. He turned it outwards, and he was violent. He controlled it and created art. Now, he felt it turn inwards as he reread Willow's letter to him. And he sat in the darkness, until the dawn began to spread on the horizon.
He folded Willow's letter and placed it in his shirt pocket, over his heart. Then he sat on the balcony, legs crossed, eyes squinting against the rising light. When the first direct rays of light burst into the sky, Spike inhaled the smell of his own smoking flesh and groaned with the agony of a white light searing through his flesh.
In his final ashen breath, he had found his own peace, knowing that by killing himself, he'd wound his love Drusilla and provide the Slayer no means of vindicating the murder of her best friend, someone who had listened to him once in a warehouse, someone who tried to respond to his postcards and who smelled like strawberries.
And when his ashes slowly drifted away, caught in little flurries of air, he remembered the strawberries most of all.
~Fin~