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Spectacle
by Shrift
Summary: They looked at him like he was a disappointing myth.
Author Notes: Thanks to Nestra and Minim Calibre for fly-by-midnight beta.
Story Notes: Season 7 Buffy spoilers through "Showtime".
Disclaimer: One day my Evil Cabal will buy the show off eBay!
He should have known right away that it was her.
Upwind or down, the First had no scent at all. No scent, no weight
crunching gravel, couldn't see it unless it wanted you to. A predator of
the highest order, if only it could touch.
But her -- she smelled of drying blood, sweat, deodorant, dust, and
fading perfume. The brand Joyce favored, if he recalled correctly. He
breathed her in and opened his eyes, and thought about dying.
He wished he knew why the First wanted him. Wished he knew whether he was
convenient bait, convenient blood, or if his stupid sodding soul had
earned him a name-drop in a relevant prophecy somewhere.
Yes, should have left the soul-having to Peaches. Hindsight only worked
if you learned from your mistakes, and while Spike taught and taught, he
did so in spite of his learning disability. But his sight had always been
flawed, and his corrective spectacles hadn't allowed William to see
Drusilla for what she truly was, anyway.
No, that wasn't the right kind of sight at all.
The skin between his shoulder blades itched as he stumbled forward, up
and out, her hard shoulder digging into his side. "Up," she insisted, and
he climbed blindly, opening cuts on hands that seemed disconnected from
his body. The intricate tracery of scabs on his chest and abdomen pulled
loose, trickling blood down onto the waistband of his trousers. They
reached the top, and he saw sky, dark and velvet, and poked through with
holes.
She guided him across the empty lot, a turn, down the street. He was
weak, stumbling. He hadn't fed -- he couldn't remember the last meal, last
plastic bag, last person. He had been bleeding for days.
"The vampire," he said suddenly, remembering. "Buffy --"
"What, that Uruk-Hai guy?" she asked lightly.
"Turok-Han," he mumbled, memory drifting back to days past, days of
Darla's sneer, the back of Angelus's hand, and sweet Drusilla wearing a
crown of dead daisies. Days of grand plans when the Master still lived.
The vampire the First had brought forth reminded him of the Master he'd
seen in Angelus's drawings, all bat-nosed and ugly.
"Yeah, him," she said. "He's in the great dust-buster in the sky."
"You--" He halted and looked at her, looked at her with so much awe it
weighted her head. She looked down and still he stared. He didn't have
enough pride in her; no one did. No one could. She was amazing. "You
killed him."
"Yep," she said. "Just had to stop being afraid and remember that I
could."
It couldn't have been that simple, he knew. Or, looking at her again,
perhaps it had been. Violence was straight-forward, and Buffy always had
been magnificent at killing things.
Oh, but the First would be angry that both its toys were gone. Perhaps
Buffy should put him back?
"Spike!" she snapped, pushing into him with the sharp ball of her
shoulder.
He didn't know what he had done. He assumed he'd leaned too hard and
pulled back, tottering on his bare feet. She yanked him back to her side,
her arm slipping around his waist. "No," he said. "No, you shouldn't."
She shouldn't touch him, he remembered now. It caused her pain, and she
shouldn't.
"Get over it, Spike," Buffy snapped, tugging him forward. "We need to
hurry. The others will worry."
He said nothing and simply walked as best as he could, trusting Buffy to
lead him. His left eye was swollen shut and the right constantly drawn to
the gash on Buffy's cheek that was held closed with plasters. Only the
constant prodding of his vast store of guilt kept his face from changing,
his teeth from lengthening. Saliva pooled in his mouth, thick and tacky
with his own blood.
Downtown Sunnydale was dark and deserted, demons and humans alike hiding
in their homes. Usually the arrival of a new Big Bad in town brought about
a giddy revival of night-time festivities in the demon community, even
when Angelus had promised the end of everything by awakening Acathla.
But the First wasn't of them, wasn't one of them, and it had them all
terrified.
He must have lost some time, because suddenly the familiar house was in
front of him. The grass wanted clipping, and the living room window was
still boarded over with plywood. It looked a wreck.
Buffy led him up the sidewalk and opened the door that sat crooked on its
hinges. It wasn't locked, and he found it amusing that they didn't worry
about garden-variety burglars on the mouth of hell. The really dangerous
creatures either needed an invitation to get inside, or were so strong
that a metal lock wouldn't give them a moment's pause.
She eased them inside, and Spike propped himself against the wall while
she shut the door behind them. He was so tired that it didn't register for
a moment, that there were too many smells, too many people breathing,
gasping now, the rush and pump of blood filling his ears.
He turned his head slowly to look into the living room with his good eye,
and then he froze. Strange girls looked back at him, five in all,
wide-eyed and awkwardly clutching swords and crossbows. "Bloody hell?" he
whispered, whipping his head around to stare at Buffy.
She shrugged. "Potential slayers, meet Spike. Spike, meet a bunch of
potential slayers."
The blond boy whose name he could never remember screamed and dove behind
the brown couch, kicking his feet as he worked his body into the small
space between the couch and the wall.
"Oh," Spike said weakly. "Right."
Xander came around the corner, flinching back when he saw Spike standing
by the door. "Whoa," Xander said. "I see the First Evil's been playing pin
the knife on the vampire."
"He's a real vampire?" one of them whispered. She had a mop of dark hair
and looked too young, younger than Dawn. Too young to know that he could
hear her as clearly as if she'd shouted. These girls made him hungry, damn
them all. Weren't two dead slayers on his conscience enough?
"Well," Xander said, coming close enough for Spike to see that although
his eyes weren't welcoming, they weren't as cold and angry as they had
been before Spike had begun leaving wet towels on Xander's bathroom floor.
"I have to say I'm disappointed," Xander continued. "I mean, Glory was
just a hellgod, and you looked like she'd put you through a full-body meat
tenderizer when she was done. Right now it just looks like somebody
cross-stitched 'The First Was Here' on your chest."
Spike laughed, and it rattled around in his chest like loose marbles.
"Not the First. Can't touch. Was the other one."
"Our friendly neighborhood Ubervamp," Buffy supplied, taking his elbow.
She was leading him toward the stairs.
"No!" he said, ripping his elbow from her grasp and stepping back so
quickly he slammed back into the wall. "No," he repeated.
"What?" Buffy asked. She looked tired, hair fraying out of her ponytail
and bruises beginning to darken under her skin.
"The First," he said. "Not safe."
Buffy took a step forward. "We need to get you cleaned up, Spike."
He shook his head. "Chains first."
She sighed and pushed back a lock of hair. "Spike --"
"Buffy, please."
She looked at him for a long moment before she nodded her head. "Okay."
He followed her down the steps into the basement, and it was like dj vu
all over again as she fastened the cold metal cuffs around his bloody
wrists. "I'll be right back," she told him, walking back up the stairs.
Spike slid down the wall until he was sitting with his arms wrapped around
his knees, and then lowered his head. The chains were cold at his temples.
It was only a matter of moments before he heard the others creep down the
stairs, whispering and shoving at each other. He peered at them over his
knees, watching the one with the striking dark eyebrows step forward, her
crossbow pointing at the ground. An amateur's mistake, one that any decent
Watcher should have corrected long ago. Then again, Spike doubted there
were many like Giles in that particular organization.
"He doesn't look like much," she boasted, prodding him with her crossbow.
He let his body shift and absorb the motion, watching them all warily.
They looked at him like he was a disappointing myth.
"He looks like a normal person," the black one said, her arms folded
tightly across her chest. She was no Nikki, that one. None of them were.
No fire, no joy in the fight. "Well," she amended, "except for the hair."
"In the picture I saw, the vampire's face was all bumpy," one of the
girls said. She wore a knit cap in rainbow colors. Too skinny. A bit
gawky, like she hadn't yet finished growing.
The girl with the crossbow narrowed her eyes. "Show us your demon face,"
she said. When he didn't move, she poked him again. "What, are you
afraid?"
He was on them before they could move, chains looped around two of their
throats and the crossbow shattering against the basement wall. He had the
oldest girl by the throat while the rest stared dumbly, unable to react.
He could smell their fear like this with his fangs extended, their blood
pumping ever faster.
It would be so easy to sink his teeth into her flesh; he'd been doing it
for weeks and Buffy hadn't known. He could pretend to forget feeding from
her, pretend the First had already seized control. It would be so very
easy. He didn't even know their names.
She made a strangled noise when he pressed his fangs against her neck,
not quite breaking the skin. She was smart enough not to struggle and make
the decision to kill her even easier. He could hear one of them crying,
the two with chains wrapped around their necks gasping for air. The pain
of the chip seemed muted against his current injuries, a sickening pulse
in his brain competing with the ravening desire to feed.
"Girls, if I might make a helpful suggestion," Xander said, coming down
the stairs. "It's never a good idea to taunt a hungry vampire."
Spike released the girl and stepped back, loosening the chains on the two
girls in danger of asphyxiating.
"Yes, he is chained to the wall," Xander continued, pausing to toss Spike
several bags of blood, "but would you walk up to a chained, starving bear
and poke it with a summer sausage?"
"Buffy would," Spike mumbled, hungrily sucking blood from two holes in
the plastic.
"No," Xander said, turning slightly. "Buffy makes bears."
Spike rolled his eyes and hunched back down against the wall, already
working on his second bag.
"What's going on?" Buffy voice cracked out across the basement. She
carried a basin and some cloths, and her expression reminded him so much
of Joyce that he nearly apologized out of hand.
"Just a little Introduction to Vampires 101," Xander said. He gestured
toward the staircase with his arm. "Shall we?"
One by one, the girls edged forward, not coming any closer to him than
physically possible. Buffy watched them as they passed her, her expression
blank and measuring. Xander was last in the line, and he did his 'what are
you gonna do?' open-handed shrug and head-tilt before closing the basement
door.
Spike waited to speak until he heard Buffy put down the basin on the
floor next to him. "I almost killed them."
"I know," she said, squeezing the excess water from a cloth.
"I wanted to kill them all."
She didn't say anything for a moment, gently forcing him to uncurl so she
could clean the marks on his chest. "Good. They have to get used to it."
"I would have blamed it on the First," Spike pushed, watching her
closely.
Buffy's expression didn't change. She wasn't fragile anymore, prey to the
right combination of his hands and words. She dunked the cloth in the
basin of water and wrung it out again. It stained the water pink.
"You'll have to get used to that, too," she said.
End
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