All Good Things
by TJ
Glorious.
That's what it was, bloody glorious.
The whole thing. Even shed an effing tear at how beautiful it
was. I don't think that I can remember anything so perfect as
what I had the privilege of witnessing only a few hours ago.
After all that has happened in the last few months, I finally
feel whole again. I've completed my inner journey to the final
destination; I'm in control of my own life once again. I don't
feel so fucking miserable any more. Hell, I don't even feel
the need to be sarcastic and put people down all the time. Why?
Quite simply because I realised that I was using my 'Spike'
persona to hide behind. Putting other people off and
unbalancing them first before they had the opportunity for them
to do it to me. Gave myself the upper hand at each turn.
It's nice to be unshackled from the public face that I've been
showing the world since I've been turned. Well... okay, I'm not
quite the nancy boy I was before Dru got to me that night in the
stables but in reality, I'm not really as harsh as 'Spike' is.
Just a nice blend of both William and Spike. I no longer feel
the need to boast and brag about all that I have done and said.
I'm now content to just let people take me the way they see me.
It's taken me a while to be able to feel like this. I've had
help with it all as well. It was just a few simple tapes that
enabled me to change both my life and my whole way of thinking.
When I first got the tapes, I threw them out. I sneered,
derided and laughed at any mention of them from the Whelp.
Stupid brat got them out of the bin and decided to keep them as
a bit of a joke at first. He would lie in bed at night and play
them just as he was going to sleep. Not really a good idea as
both he and I were too busy pissing ourselves stupid to even try
and go to sleep.
Yeah, I was living with the boy a year and a half ago. Still
am.
A few drunken stopovers on the way back to my crypt from the
local bar and one night I didn't leave after a quick feed from
the stash he had in the fridge. That one night led to another
overnight stay the next week and that led to yet more. After a
while, I stopped going back to the crypt altogether.
I'm living with him but not *with* him. Just sort of as a
permanent 'friend' who stays over a lot. Used to the couch now
anyway and its a hell of a lot more comfortable than a concrete
slab. Not as if anyone really gave a shit about me stayin' on
at his place anyway.
So, night after night, both me and the whelp would listen to
this stupid bint go on and on about how to change your life.
How you could turn your life around and actually use your
mistakes to enhance your future. Night after night, the walls
almost shook with our laughter. We used to compete with each
other as to who could do the best imitation of her voice. I
used to win the most but after a few bourbons, the boy used to
come real close to being spot on.
One night, when the boy was out shagging his demon chit at her
place, I was laying out on the sofa pissing myself laughing at
this bloody tape when it suddenly made sense. I can't say just
why it was that night, nearly twelve months ago, that I first
started to really *listen* to the tapes. I mean, listen to what
she was saying and not *how* she was saying it.
I spent the rest of the night playing those tapes over and over.
Listening to what was being said. The next morning, I was a
true convert and I believed every word that was being said. I
took a long look around and started to make changes in how I had
been living. More importantly, I started making changes in how
I treated other people.
At first, the Watcher and rest of the Scraggy Gang were
suspicious every time that I voluntarily showed up for one of
them research parties they were always having. I was
embarrassed when the boy laughed at how seriously I was taking
the tapes that we had once both laughed over but over a few
months, they all eased up and started to treat me with new
respect. I hate to admit it but with Buffy gone, I guess it was
a little easier for them to dismiss the instant worry that I was
planning something each time I was being nice. It didn't hurt
that I had also stood with them against that Uberbitch, Glory,
something that had already helped my case even before I had
started trying.
I liked it and I have to admit that it was nice to be trusted.
I got invited into their lives as a friend and as much as I
could, I made sure to do the same. We all fell into a
comfortable routine. Meetings at the Magic Box every week and
dinner at the Watchers every second Tuesday while the Whelp made
the dinner every second Sunday. Video nights at the witches'
place; bit of late night shopping here and there, you know, that
sort of thing. They all got used to me being around them all the
time. Hell, that Tara twat even called me up a few times to
just bloody chat, all friendly like.
Eventually, their trust led to what I'm doing now.
Watching the charred ruins of the Watcher's house still smoking.
He had come over to see how I was going with knocking down the
inner walls of the house he wanted to renovate. Tried to do it
himself at first but he kept pulling muscles and hurting
himself, so I offered to help. And because he trusted me, he
didn't think anything of it. Together, we pulled out the
kitchen and totally ripped out both bathrooms. During that
time, both the boy and me had to keep cleaning up the mess that
local kids kept making in the empty house. Yesterday, we had to
board up the windows and put deadlocks on the doors so that the
new fittings weren't stolen or destroyed after we put them in.
This evening, Old Dusty had come over to see how it was going
with the wall between the two bedrooms upstairs. He didn't see
the extra deadlock I had put on the door to the upper hallway
and he certainly didn't hear me lock it from the outside. The
stupid bastard did, however, hear me start ripping up the few
remaining boards to the staircase. Good thing with vamp
strength, I got the steps demolished in only under half an hour,
all the while I could hear him yelling to be let out from the
hallway. Heard him trying to smash the door down a few times,
no use even if he had been able to get through. With no stairs,
there was no way he would have been able to get down and I
really couldn't see him jumping from the top step. Then again,
the prick might have been so bloody angry a broken leg probably
wouldn't have slowed him down too much in his effort to kill me.
Threw a couple of the new paint cans up onto the narrow balcony
upstairs before splashing what was left around the downstairs
quarters - looked like one of those modern art murals. I threw
the paint-stripper and paint thinners over the boarded-up
windows and doors before ripping up the numerous drop sheets
that protected the friggin' floorboards that the Watcher had
fallen in love with so much. Each long strip was shoved into a
beer bottle filled halfway with mentholated spirits.
With a flick of my lighter, I lit each strip and threw the
bottles through the back door and listened to each whoosh of
flames as they raced their way along the splashes of paint.
Back door shut and locked from the outside, I stood on the back
porch and listened to his fucking Highness scream and try to rip
the boards off the upstairs window when he realised what was
happening.
It was beautiful.
I think its one of the most exciting things I've ever seen.
I've done it. I've taken the final step and I've been able to
think *around* the chip. Listening to those tapes has opened up
a whole new world for me. It's been a bloody hard long slog and
at times I've been tempted to give up and just wreak havoc but
tonight, I've been shown just how rewarding perseverance can be.
That and patience. I've done the right thing and gotten in
touch with the human I once was and I've utilised the emotions
and traits that once governed my body before I was turned.
Fuck! Now I even sound like the bint. Not a bad thing really.
I'm so bloody proud of myself and I know that Harmony is going
to be prouder.
I've got her to thank for this.
If she hadn't started snacking her way through all those life
coaches and therapists, she would never have gotten bored and
actually listened to a few of them and made her own tapes. Tapes
designed for humans so that she could make some money. Got the
idea from some sort of pyramid group thing while she was in LA.
She sent me the bloody things in a 'fuck you' gesture in an
effort to prove to me that she could think. When we were
together, I must have told her every bloody day that she had
shit for brains and that dust mites had a higher IQ than she
did. Guess I must have hit a nerve.
Bloody glad that it did though.
Now I have to calm myself down, put away the hard on and turn on
the sorrow and grief for the rest of the Wanker Gang. I have to
retain my patience and remember that sometimes, passivity is the
best option and it doesn't matter how long you wait, an
opportunity will always present itself.
It's fucking well setting the whole thing up that takes the
time.
Doesn't matter though, as Harm says, being patient will always
lead you the ultimate reward and damn if I don't want to reap my
rewards.
The end.
