Archive ~ Writing ~ Links ~ Extras ~  Site ~ Home

Spike threw the last corpse into the trench he'd dug beside the crypt. The hardest, dirtiest work of getting a new crypt was emptying out the previous residents. Thank God he didn't sweat anymore. Still, his muscles burned with the exertion of the evening as he picked up the shovel and began to fill the trench. It was thin enough that it wouldn't look too suspicious, and ran the length of the entire crypt so that it would appear to be something akin to foundation repair or work on a sewer line. Whatever. He'd spent many years learning how to make a grave not look like a grave and could have taught some Serbian war criminals quite a bit about hiding bodies from nosy investigators. He hadn't had to do this for years, but some things you never forget.

Finally he tamped down the loose earth, sent the shovel flying dozens of yards across the cemetery, and returned to the front door of his new crypt. Empty it now was, as blank as his feelings. A new crypt for a new life, he thought. Spike had found a smaller cemetery in a better part of town, and he expected to find peace there. It would definitely be patrolled by the Slayer less often, and it was a good half-mile further from a particular house on Revello Drive. He might not bump into her for weeks at a time—if he was lucky.

Ooh. Best not think of words like that: bump. Her. Could lead to “bad” thoughts, and now that she'd kicked him out of her life he had only his right hand to comfort him through such imaginings.

Which was, actually, the usual state of affairs when one spent an unlife in Sunnyhell. But now something was just a bit different. He was a man alone again, not a single possession left except his balls, his brain, and his duster. He'd survived on less. But he'd usually had some kind of companion next to him when that happened. Two years before, in exactly the same circumstances, he'd been grateful to squat in Xander's basement and know that there was at least another mind he could bounce his thoughts against, someone he could gleefully annoy. Having someone around could help him convince himself that he was real, and not some figment of a demon's imagination.

And now he didn't even have that. Burned out of yet another home, alone in this bare crypt that didn't bear the least stamp of humanity, without even a candle to drive away the dusty darkness that engulfed him. The only thing he loved wanted nothing to do with him, and he was left with only himself, who he definitely did not love. His constant vainglorious talk was so obviously a cover for the self-loathing that was wrapped around him tighter than his leather duster.

It didn't take long at all until he was talking to the walls. And only a short time after that he found that he could conjure the image of Drusilla from the faint moonlight that came through a crypt window. That white patch in the marble could be her face, and that sweep of shadow above it her midnight tresses. If he squinted his weary eyes he could make her out, just sitting on the other side of the crypt, ready to listen to him without judgment.

"She called me William, luv," he croaked out, his body splayed on the floor, neck crooked into the stone corner. It was uncomfortable as hell and that was just how he wanted it. "How many years have I known her? And she calls me William for the first time. As if I were a man. Should give me some kind of hope, eh dear? It's the kind of crumb I used to scrabble in the dirt to get, innit?"

Drusilla's face, his alter ego, the only mirror he'd known for a century, didn't answer.

"'Course, you gotta respect it," he continued. "She never gives a disappointing fight, always uses the choicest weapons. As parting shots go it was almost on a par with that 'convenient' crack. Oh, that had the worthies in the audience rocked on their heels, it did. Just starting her second decade and she could give Angelus graduate classes in torture. He'd be jealous if he knew. If she had the guts to tell him. If she had the decency to tell anyone. And now there's nothing to tell, is there?" For a moment Dru's face wavered, as if some strange emotion washed across her still visage. He realized that it wasn't her face changing: his eyes were filling with tears. Dammit, he knew how to change that.

He sat up in fury and roared, "But who am I to call her a coward? Ain't I twice the scared doe she is? Any demon the world over who gave me as much pain as she doles out would have their head hanging on my wall in a fortnight. All the chances I've had to rip her throat out, and I haven't come near it once. I'm useless, broken, neutered, fangless. I had the Gem of Amara—I could have been the Scourge again, could have pounded a road of blood across this planet. I let her take it from me, let her empty me of everything I was. She's plundered my spirit, broken my body, twisted my mind. AND FOR WHAT?" His voice broke on the last word, and even his anger couldn't keep the tears from spilling over. Sobbing, he staggered over to the wall where he imagined Drusilla and dropped to its base, fancying himself dropping into her lap. Her embrace had been a home to him for so long, his one place of solace and understanding when everything else turned upside-down. Her lap was the hearth where he could lay his head and be petted and cooed over. The fact that she wasn't here now, that she couldn't change as he had changed and couldn't remain a loved-one after all they had shared, only made the darkness darker and his emptiness emptier.

"Love?" he whispered when the lump in his throat allowed him to speak. "What is it? Does it even exist in this bastard miscarriage of a world? Am I just insane, pet?" His fingers brushed the stone wall, as if he were running a hand down her leg. "Is there anything real or honest? How can I feel this so strongly and only be punished for it?" He pressed his face against the wall, its surface as cold and unyielding as his own. His tears ran down to the floor for some minutes, collecting in his palm. His voice slurred with exhaustion as he asked Drusilla his last question: "How did it all start, Baby Doll? Just when did I become love's bitch?"

His mind drifted into blankness. And his dreams took him to the Boxer Rebellion. Or rather, the tail end of it, when Angelus had fled and Darla abandoned them in North China. Then is was just Spikey and Dru. Less than a year after his victory over a Slayer, that testament to Dru's brilliance at picking just the right boy to become her partner, and they were near death in the frozen wastes of the Caucasus. They dragged themselves through the mountains of Russia, grabbing a meal when they could but more often huddling together in the shadows, arms wrapped around each other for security rather than warmth. Crossing frozen wastes in the moonlight, even with their gift of night-vision, was tricky and dangerous. More than once they hid in the shadows of rock outcroppings and spent the entire morning watching the sun creep closer like a deadly tide, until the afternoon came and the shadows thickened again. They became each other's anchors there in the darkness and cold of those mountains: Dru was always so near the edge of dropping away from sanity altogether, if she hadn't had Spike's mind to cling to she might never have gotten through.

And as for Spike . . . never had he felt so wanted, so needed, so necessary. The temptation to be pulled into insanity was strong, but he was never the type to give up and he would certainly never leave his Sire defenseless in the wilderness. His mind was the background on which she could stage her little doll plays, each of them drawn from either her life or his. Here was Dru and Miss Emily in the convent. There was William in Cecily's drawing room. Or it would be Spike taking down the Chinese Slayer and then he and Dru making love while he was still high on her blood. He could still hear the last words of that Slayer: "Gaosu wo de muqin—duibuqi." He hadn't understood at the time, but Dru's mental powers allowed access to all languages, and it was much as he expected: "Tell my mother—I’m sorry." Her amazing abilities allowed him to hear the voices of ghosts, to catch the thoughts of people in far-off cities, to look into the future and see himself fighting a black woman on a train. It was before the days of radio, so he had no metaphor to describe what he felt and saw through her. At best, he saw himself as a wireless telephone that caught voices from the air, something he could only accomplish when tied to her mind.

So much of who they would become, who they were now, was forged then. Spike, the city boy, the aesthete who felt wrong if he didn't have pavement beneath his feet, was forced to learn how to survive in the wilderness. He had a genius for improvisation that delighted Dru, who called him "a deadly rose coming to full bloom." He used cast-off antlers and stones to fashion an axe, then built them a portable shelter in the forest in which they found themselves. He learned to hunt and bring back goodies for his lady, stalking through brush and up the side of rock faces more silently than he ever did hunting humans. He returned with whatever he could find: rabbits, foxes, wolves, horses, people, just anything warm, red and sticky that would feed their thirst. He only ever drank half as much as her, knowing that his strength would get him through. And of course each sacrifice he made for her, while not known to his Sire, was yet another badge that he pinned to his heart. He was, after all, the only one who ever appreciated the pain he went through to make others happy. Why should it be any less true in his unlife than it was when he was a boy? After resting and gathering their strength in that forest, they set off again across the inhospitable mountains, now no longer strangers to the harshness awaiting them there.

One evening they stopped by a pool formed from a mountain stream and were pleased to bathe themselves in non-frozen weather. They laughed and played in the water, their hearts lighter than they'd been in weeks because they were finally getting back to a populated area. Spike was the first to exit the pool, making a bee-line for their clothes but not dressing just yet. He turned to look at Drusilla, swimming on her back, laughing in delight at the stars reflected on the black water surrounding her, as if she cavorted in the night sky itself. And without warning his unnecessary breath caught, his still heart gave a tug in his chest, and a long-forgotten feeling shot from the base of his spine to his skull. It was something he knew, but which he thought he'd left behind with the foolishness of living. But it was there, sure enough: love.

It was the last thing he expected. He'd been with Drusilla for twenty years, and while she was his Sire and a great lay, she was by no means his only lover. She was too loony to act as a real Sire, after all, and would sometimes disappear for days while Angelus taught him what it truly meant to be a vampire. While Spike had no need for the cruelties Angelus laid upon his women, he nevertheless didn't mind getting a bit rough with the girls he fancied, living or undead. He especially favored the living girls, the feeling of warmth that he sank into, the sweet vulnerability that he would hug to himself for hours. But eventually Drusilla would always draw him back to her, back to the hearth and home that was her body, back to the necessary foursome that formed the Scourge of Europe. He accepted and appreciated her far more than Angelus, and was deeply pleased that when she was in most dire need she would turn to “her lovely boy” for comfort. But he certainly never felt anything for her or any other woman that he would call love. That was among the weaker emotions that he had left behind with a heartbeat, one of the many useless ideas that had turned him into a victim his whole life. He refused to believe in such things while he was a vampire.

But it was no use, he knew that now. He was transfigured as he watched Drusilla rise from the pool and walk toward him. Her slick black hair framed a face of such delicate beauty and knowledgeable menace that surely no hand could approach her without wanting to caress her cheek. Her skin was the essence of pearl, the glowing white perfection of a goddess, unstained by mortal care. Her arms and legs moved like the strong bodies of dolphins cutting the waves. Her breasts, rounded and sharp, invited adoration. And he could become  lost in the thick carpet that hid her sex. He had never seen her more perfect, more lovely, than at that moment. He had never known any woman so striking. And more than all this: she was his. They were linked now, their time in the wilderness having forged a bond stronger than anything he felt for Angelus or Darla. She was still his Sire and he her willing slave—but that didn't seem like such a bad place to be anymore. In fact, he wondered why he ever sought any other woman when this dark princess had been at his side all along.

Spike was still staring at her as she approached. Drusilla put a hand on his shoulder and looked into his deep blue eyes, made all the more mysterious by the moonlight they shared. "There's a look in your eyes that's new, my Spike," she said quietly. "There are birds singing around your head. And the sun is rising in your breast."

Her voice broke him from his spell. He shook her hand off and turned to his clothes. "Ah, it's nothing, pet," he said, trying to hide how much power she now had over him. "Just thinking about the nice bit of human blood we'll soon be drowning in. We've been too long without." His hands were shaking as he picked up his pants.

"No, that's not it," Drusilla stated firmly. Cor, why did she have to pick THIS moment to be so lucid? Spike thought.

He turned to her, fully intending to be stern, to roar out some line about how they needed to get a move-on. It was his usual place, being the voice of authority that made a decision and directed her when she was lost. But when his eyes caught hers, when her moonlit visage swam back into view, his anger flew away. "I'm okay, luv," he said softly, not aware that his voice betrayed his feelings utterly. "Just a bit distracted. Don't know what came over me."

Drusilla's eyes grew wide and she excitedly giggled and clapped her hands together in front of her face. "Oooohhhh!" she squealed. "I know! The stars sing, the rocks dance, the water laughs, and my Spike is in love!" She squealed again as she spun around on one foot, arms spread out, like a porcelain figure on an ornate clock. "You love meeeee!" she sang into the night.

Spike now redoubled his efforts to protect his fragile self. "I— I do not!" he shouted.

His bluster didn't affect Drusilla at all. She pointed at him and said, "You do."

"Do not!"

"You love me, my rough boy, my poet in blood."

"I bloody well do not! I don't love anyone or anything! I don't even know what love is!"

Now Drusilla approached him, letting her slick arms drape over his bare shoulders, bringing her face close to his. "You're my strong, brave boy," she told him. "But you have to be a man. You can't lie to the stars or the wind, my Spike, and you shouldn't lie to your own heart. Be the man I know you are."

Without his knowledge or will, tears began to spill down Spike's cheeks. He looked into the face just inches from his own and felt the first touch of the divine in a life that had been too empty for far too long. She was everything to him—all the fragility and strength, all the kindness and cruelty, all the blood and innocence, all the life and death that the world had to offer. She was the earth mother and the sky goddess, the child of the tides and maiden of the winds. "I love you," he said in a voice choked with emotion, the first prayer he'd ever uttered with conviction. "You're my reason for being. I'd knock down this bloody, rotten world to keep you, pet, and no mistake. You're mine forever, and I'm yours as long as the stars burn."

"Oh, my Spike," Dru murmured, before her lips crushed against his and they fell together onto their clothes. Conveniently still naked, they made love until the sun rose and then retreated to the shadows at the far end of the pool and continued to hold each other until night came once again.

And now it was 2002, a full century since that night, and he woke alone on the floor of his new crypt, his heart still aching for the Slayer. Still love's bitch, as much as he'd ever been. Sunlight streamed in from windows on either side of the main room—something he'd have to fix as soon as he could gather more materials—making sure he was trapped against the wall where he'd slept. He looked up in curiosity. The spot where he'd assigned Drusilla's face was no longer visible; it looked like an ordinary blank wall. By his head, though, there were clear tracks in the dust of where his tears had run down to the floor. Snarling, he wiped away the evidence of his heartbreak and wiped at his own face.

He remembered one of his questions from the night before, from the bitter depths of his misery: Is there anything real or honest? He considered his Slayer and had an answer this morning. "Buffy's death was real," he said aloud, voice echoing from the blank walls. "And they cheapened it. She gave everything she had and they needed to drag more out of her. Bastards. Won't let 'em do the same to me."

Spike stood, straightened his leather duster, and swept some of the dust from himself. He looked into the sunlight and spoke again. "And my love is real. And honest. I won't have her cheapen it, or let her friends tell her it ain't there. If I want this I gotta fight. Gotta show her I mean business. Gotta be man enough to show her."

Unconsciously, his hands sought out a cigarette, stuck one in his mouth, and lit it from his silver lighter. All the while he was staring into space, envisioning the next step he'd take. "Gotta get myself cleaned up," he said, knowing that he'd see Buffy again the next day. "I got a wedding to attend."

THE END