I should also mention buffyworld.com. The episode transcripts I found there are an incredible resource for fanfic writers, but it's also just fun to reread all those old episodes.
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Sunnydale
It was Buffy, and this was real. She had just held up a bag of pig's blood so he could feed from it, and she had listened to him. Not like the other Buffy he sometimes saw, who did nothing but mock him, hurt him with her words, but who never touched him, not even to tighten the ropes that bound him. This Buffy had done that when he asked.
It was hard to distinguish what was real, and what wasn't. If he let them, all the voices of the people he killed would echo in his mind, but even when he didn't allow those, there were others. A strange dark man with a cheery voice who seldom did anything other than laugh at his problems, the Slayer in a far crueler, far less caring incarnation than even the one whose abuse he had endured in the name of love for almost a year and...
There was noise coming out of the other room. Buffy left to check on it. As she closed the door behind her, another Spike appeared in the room. The Spike that was the final Other, one of the three ghosts he couldn't exorcise. With the long leather duster, hair immaculately bleached and combed back and wearing a familiar sardonic grin, here was the Spike that had gone forever when his soul had returned.
Or not. There were dark places in his mind, times he remembered nothing of. And then there were flashes of memories. Voices of people he killed that he didn't remember killing. Images of himself feeding off a young girl in front of the new Sunnydale High. Siring a host of vampires to kill the Slayer.
Oh yes. That he remembered. The taste of her blood had woken him up from whatever trance he was in. Then he had wanted her to kill him, so he wouldn't be a danger to her anymore. He couldn't ever help her properly, so it was best if he were gone. But she hadn't killed him. She had taken him to her home and tied him up in a chair. What use was that?
The Other was walking toward him. "Well, we've got ourselves a problem." He walked around the chair that Spike was still sitting in. "We were this close, and then you go and mess it up again. The Slayer's still alive, you're..." The Other looked at the ropes that held Spike in the chair and snorted. "...tied up, and my ace in the hole is still in that hole. Strictly you had nothing to do with it not coming out, but as long as I'm laying blame, I might as well blame it all on you. Because you failed, and what do I do, job half done? Never send a boy to do a man's job." He walked around the chair again until he was facing Spike. Then, for some reason, he chuckled and started singing. The song went straight into Spike's brain, though he tried to fight it.
He was tied up. Ridiculous. The ropes might be strong enough, but this chair would be splinters in half a second. There were people in the other room; he could hear their heartbeats through the thin wall. He had to get one of them, the shortest. There was also someone coming into this room, a woman. Good. She'd be dead as soon as she walked through the door. The woman did walk through the door. He knew her. Buffy. He could not kill Buffy. So she had to be distracted so he could get the other one and get out.
He pretended to be hungry, and she headed for the pig's blood on the table. Oh, he was hungry, but not for that swill. As soon as she looked away, he broke the chair. Ah, freedom. Of course, that brought Buffy back his way, spoiling for a fight. He pushed her aside, and went for the shortest route to his target: through the wall. He had his teeth in the young boy before Buffy got to him and knocked him out.
-
Paris
Methos stopped running long enough to look behind him. He had already put quite a distance between himself and Le Blues, but before he went any further he had to be sure all of the assassins were following him. It wasn't too late yet to circle back to get Joe and the girl out of trouble.
Oh damn. Only three of them were still on his trail. Okay, three he could deal with, if he could create the right circumstances. Then he could go and find the others. He scanned the scene around him. These back alleys weren't really rife with easy hiding places. Here would not be a good place to make a stand. He wouldn't have surprise to aid him, and three to one odds were not good in such a case. Even if the three were stupid. He turned and started running again.
For one accusing his pursuit of lack of intelligence, he was not demonstrating the ability to make such judgements. He had turned into a cul- de-sac. At least here he had walls on three sides of him, so he wouldn't be as easily surrounded. He drew his sword and faced the three cloaked figures coming up the alley. That was when something heavy came down on his shoulders and knocked him nose first into the dirt.
So that was where the others had gone. Maybe they weren't so stupid after all.
He was down. He wasn't out yet. He still had an advantage, because his sword had a reach their daggers couldn't match. He could stab upwards, but they would have to bend over to stab him. Unfortunately, his blade was under him.
Methos rolled over, trying to keep hold of the hilt of the sword. As soon as it came free, he swung it at the three sets of legs he could see. Then he stabbed one of his attackers in the stomach. He rolled back, using his Ivanhoe for support to get up. This made his back a very nice target, but that couldn't be helped. He ignored the various stabs and cuts. They would heal. The gut-wound kept the one robed figure doubled up in the ideal position for decapitation. The upward sweep of the blade took the head clean off.
One down, six to go.
He had to draw his blade in close now, because the remaining monks had circled him while he was getting up. He wouldn't be able to defend himself with the sword alone. He was also running out of time. He'd been stabbed in the lung, and the dagger had remained there. Soon he would drown in his own blood. He was already running out of breath.
He raised the blade one more time to drive it into the ribcage of the soon- to-be-ex attacker, simultaneously stepping in closer. He relieved the corpse of its curved daggers before letting it fall to the ground. With the left dagger he blocked a stab at his kidneys from one of the remaining attackers, the right he hooked into the guts of another. Bits of viscera came with it when he removed it to plant it firmly into the heart of dead body number three. He fought a cough before he had to twist away from another attack. The assassin overbalanced and fell forward. Methos caught him and dispatched him with a slash across the throat. Then he could stop the coughing no longer. It hurt more with every breath he took, and it didn't take long for the merciful dark to come.
-
Sunnydale
Yet again Buffy had refused to kill him. He had demonstrated again that he was a danger to her and he had begged her, even tried to frighten her into killing him. No such luck. At least now he was shackled to the wall. He wouldn't be able to break loose out of these chains when he lost control again. Or was triggered, or whatever Buffy thought someone had done to his mind. Didn't matter how it happened, when it went quiet in his mind, he was too dangerous. He killed when he was like that, as if he still was the same soulless thing he had been for over a century. That thing deserved to die, if nothing else. Killing him would be the easiest way to accomplish it. Apparently Buffy disagreed. It was nice that she thought that his actions this past time had mattered, but that was only about the past year, and even then only part time.
He tried again. He lunged until the chains wouldn't let him go any further and growled in his most threatening voice. "Window dressing."
"Be easier, wouldn't it, it if were an act, but it's not. You faced the monster inside of you and you fought back. You risked everything to be a better man."
"Buffy..." As Buffy walked closer to him, the Dark Man appeared next to her.
"Kill her, then, if you really believe what you just said." Then he started to hum a tune, but Buffy drowned him out. She got so close that he could do nothing but look at her and listen to her.
"And you can be. You are. You may not see it, but I do. I do. I believe in you, Spike."
She believed in him! Maybe there was hope. Maybe he would be able to love her the way she deserved it after all. The voice of the Dark Man intruded on those thoughts.
"No? Oh well. On to plan B." At just about that time several figures in dark cloaks smashed through the cellar door.
-
Paris
The breath of returning life still hurt. The blood had cleared, but the dagger was still in his lung. The hilt protruded out of his back, where he could barely reach it. His fingers managed to get a hold of it, but when he pulled it out the point cut into his heart. He died again.
-
Sunnydale
Why not? After all the mental torture, physical torture was the logical way to go. But it didn't matter. Buffy believed in him. She'd come for him. He could hold out for her. -
-
Paris
It wasn't like the Old Man to stay away this long. He should not have needed all this time to deal with the men chasing him. Had he been killed? But if Methos was dead, why hadn't the monks –or whatever they were- returned?
Marie had cried herself to sleep. The tears had caused her mascara to run, leaving black streaks on the red sleeves of her shirt. Joe had put a blanket around her to keep her warm. He had sat at the same table all night. There was no way he would have been able to sleep anyway.
Something scratched at the back door. Joe made his way over to it and peeked outside. He couldn't open the door as fast as he liked after what he saw. Methos had come back, drenched in blood, and his clothes were torn to shreds.
"What happened to you?" "Our friends surrounded me. Seven against one. Is the girl alright?" Methos looked at the state of his clothes. "I need a shower."
The Old Man did know how to dump information. Joe hardly knew where to start answering. In reverse order, then.
"I'd agree on the shower. Marie's fine, she's asleep. Seven? How the hell did you do that?" "I didn't. I got five, then they got me. I don't know where the other two went."
Methos left Joe standing in the hall while he headed for the shower.
Joe was back in the club with Marie when the Old Man returned, clean and in fresh clothes. Not only that, but Methos had taken the time to fix breakfast. Was he being thoughtful for Joe or for the girl? The girl, obviously. He gently shook her until she woke up, then put one of the cups of coffee in front of her. Marie, from the way her face lit up, was relieved to see her savior again. She caught him in a hug that the Old Man seemed to have trouble freeing himself out of.
"You're okay! Thank God." "I don't know what He had to do with it, but yes, I'm fine. Are you okay?"
Methos had gone from blood-covered savage to concerned uncle in the space of fifteen minutes. The transformation was astounding even for Joe, who had seen the Old Man pull similar tricks before, but never this extreme. Marie was buying all of it. She was also bombarding him with questions about how he got away from the attackers, but Methos avoided actually answering any of them. He steered the conversation to Marie's side of the story.
"When did they come after you?" "I came home from my piano lessons. My parents...." The poor girl still wasn't completely done crying, but she took strength from the hand Methos placed on her shoulder. "My parents were in the front room. Everything was red, and there was a pool on the floor... I saw something move. I didn't think, I just ran. Three of them almost caught up with me two blocks from my home. Then there was a stranger. An Englishman, from his accent. He stepped between them and me. He told me to keep running, to get away. I ran. I don't know what happened to him." Marie looked up over her shoulder at Methos. "You stepped out of that alley about five minutes later."
The girl's story sounded much like what had happened to Joe a few days ago. Walk in, find a dead body, get attacked yourself. But one thing was different...
"Who was the Englishman?" "I don't know. I'd never seen him before. He seemed to know who I was, though. He called me by my name... Oh! He said something else, too. He said to go to Sunnydale. To find the Slayer..."
