Title: The Spike Experience
Author: Blue Zen
Email: i.love.spike@bloodyhell.co.uk
Distribution: Any archives that want it, take it! I’d love an e-mail with your site address though…
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Willow casts a spell, Spike has to suffer
Notes: Thanks to everyone who’s responded to this fic. Like every fanfic writer, I live off feedback so drop me a line.

Eight:


Giles shook his head. “I’ve never heard of anything like this before,” he looked searchingly at Buffy. “Are you quite sure?”

She raised her eyes to the ceiling. “Look, Giles, I know it sounds crazy but I know what I saw.”

“And… and he was burned because she was in the sunlight?” He had taken up position next to the bookcase, his hands touching the spines of several before coming to rest on an unbound volume of papers. He carefully extracted it from the shelf.

“I do seem to remember an empathy spell being cast on a criminal in the sixteenth century.”

“Did they managed to reverse it?” Buffy asked hopefully.

Giles looked up from his book, “Uh… oh, no, no… they hung him, as I recall.”

“Great,” she murmured. “So what’s next?”

“Hmmm?”

“What happens now? I’d say that they’ve reached whatever cut off point you were talking about and that we should… you know, ‘cut them off’.” She watched him pace with the ragged volume in his hands and his glasses hanging from his mouth.

He stopped, dead in his tracks. “Unfortunately,” he turned back to her, and replaced his eye glasses, “There seems to be one more step before we can try the spell again.”

Buffy looked at him expectantly.

“For complete empathy, they need to ‘know each other’s thoughts’ - or so Devlin quotes here.” Giles sat down next to the slayer, “We’ll have to wait until they become so close that they lose track of where one mind stops and the other begins.”

She shuddered, “Willow’s with him right now, it seems that it’s the safest place for her to be.”

“So you didn’t think I’d notice you clumping around my mind in your bloody great size sevens?” There was a pause where Spike looked expectantly at Willow. “Look, this conversation bit only works if both people talk.”

“I was just thinking about the…” she frowned, unable to find a fitting word. “The ‘zap’ thing.” She made a little movement with her hand, like she’d experienced an electric shock.

He sighed. “Do you want the lecture?”

“What lecture?” she asked, still staring at her hands.

Spike leaned forward. He could feel the burns healing as they spoke. “I’ve seen this spell before. For centuries it’s been abused, especially in vampire circles. Although, come to think of it, most neglected the emotional empathy bit - they were more interested in the physical.” He raised an eyebrow.

Willow’s face was a blank canvas. “I don’t get it.”

He laughed a little, “No, Red, you really don’t get it at all - that’s the problem.”

She could feel a memory forming in her mind, clear and precise. Her mind’s eye saw Drusilla walking down a lavish corridor, its panels and carpets the finest she had ever seen. The vampire had turned to smile at her before opening a door. Inside, a dozen people were milling about, casting no reflection in the mirrored panels which lined the room.

Willow looked into one of the mirrors and saw Spike staring back at her, his eyes wide and his hair a mousy brown.

The music stopped and people rushed over to the new couple, Willow could feel Spike’s fear. She looked around, noticing a couple at the outskirts of the room, the two hardly touching. She saw them gasp as one when the woman moved forward to kiss the man’s cheek… and then she was back in the crypt, facing another Spike.

“That’s all I remember,” he stated.

Willow looked at him, wide eyed. “But you were alive.”

“Dru liked to play with her food,” he said in explanation.

Little wheels spun in her mind. “Surely, if you know the spell then you know a way to reverse it,” she asked, hopefully.

Spike shook his head, “I was never interested enough in it.”

She sighed and sunk back onto the bed.

Another hour passed in silence, each trying to think as little as possible.

Willow stared at the ceiling, her eyes running over every crack in the plaster, memorising each bump and crevice. This soon became the off-white background for Spike’s hands as he contemplated the burns. She could feel him fighting memories as he regarded his fingernails, picking at the chipped black polish with his thumb.

“What is it like?” Willow’s voice sounded so loud and clear in the crypt that it startled both of them.

He looked up from his fingers. “What is what like?”

“Being dead?” she asked, her eyes still fixed on the ceiling. She could see herself lying on the bed.

“I can’t remember dying,” he started, letting his mind wonder as he spoke.

Pictures flashed through Willow’s mind as Spike meandered through his memories, trying to pinpoint a feeling that he could put into words.

“I mean, there was no real transition - no single point between alive and being a vampire where I was truly dead, they just… I was just less alive and more of a vampire until I was completely… you know…” he trailed off, watching as Willow stretched out on his bed.

“You’re making me feel a little naked here,” she looked over, head cocked to one side.

He snapped out of it, “What?”

“You could stop staring at me, I know it’s all my fault but… you know, you’re making me a little nervous.”

“Sorry,” he leaned back in his chair. “I’m not used to house guests. Especially ones that know me so well.”

“I don’t know you,” she said, quickly. “I see what you see, big deal. It’s not like I’m reading your mind.”

Spike laughed. “Red, you should always read the small print.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Willow frowned. The sight of Spike laughing and the waves of bitter humour that washed through her mind unsettled her.

“What do you think ‘complete empathy’ means?” He ran a hand through his hair, watching for any signs of realisation on her part.

They both felt Willow’s guilt and fear rush through them.

“And I really could do without the ‘Willow woes’ thing. It gets old very quickly,” he sighed.

“When do we…” she stopped, reaching for the packet of cigarettes on the nightstand. “When does it happen?” she asked, patting her pockets for her lighter.

Spike stared at her silently.

“No, we would have noticed,” she answered, frowning.

He laughed silently, his chest tightening with panic.




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