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To Un-Live and Die in LA
Chapter Two Chapter 1 3 4 5 6 7
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Spike finished the whiskey and leaned back in his chair. “Well, I’m off. See’ya around, Highness.”
“Where are you going?”
“Dunno. For a walk? To my flat? Another bar? Nowhere special to go at the moment. Just around.”
“I will accompany you. I also have nowhere special to go.”
“No offense, luv, but I’d like to be alone for a bit.”
“Then where should I go?”
“You could go . . . Bloody hell! You really don’t have anywhere to go.”
“Drogyn said I had no place in this world. He believed my existence was an anachronism. Perhaps he was right, but I know of no other world to inhabit.”
Spike sighed. “Genie’s out of the bottle now. Can’t put it back. You’re here, Fred’s gone. This’ll have to be your world, but with Wolfram and Hart destroyed and Wes an’ Gunn not exactly brimming over with the warm fuzzies for you right now, guess you’ll have to stay with me for the time being.”
“I think I would like that—to stay with you. Could we play Crash Bandicoot?”
“Till we figure out what to do with you.”
**********
The phone was ringing as Spike unlocked the door of his apartment. Who would be calling him on the phone? The real phone, not the cell. Who, except Lindsey, even knew the number? He supposed he’d find out if he answered it.
“Yeah.”
“Spike? Spike? Is that you?”
“Giles?”
“Dear Lord! Andrew said you had returned, but it’s still a shock to actually be speaking with you. Why didn’t you let us know you were back?”
Spike didn’t know how to answer that. Or, if Rupert even deserved an answer.
“Spike? Are you there?”
“I’m here.”
“What the bloody hell is going on in Los Angeles?”
“We tried to tell you—even came to you for help once. You weren’t interested. You and your damn Scoobies had us convicted and condemned without benefit of a trial, Rupert.”
“Yes, well, what were we supposed to think, with Angel becoming CEO of Wolfram & Hart?”
“Weren’t supposed to think anything. If you had questions, you could have asked ‘stead of sendin’ the Slayer Brigade to snatch Dana—after she had killed people and mutilated me, I might add, and never bothered to give us a head’s up that one of Red’s newbies was on the loose. One that made Dru look like the poster child for sanity, incidentally, and you allowed two vampires to try an’ help her, knowin’ she wouldn’t understand we were on her side. Then, when Fred was taken over by an Old One, and Angel called to ask for Willow’s help—for Fred, mind you, the brightest, sweetest, best girl in the world, who only wanted to help others, but when she needed help, you hung up on Angel, you sod, and let her die. I bloody well don’t care what you were supposed to think, Rupert, and we don’t owe you a damn thing!”
Spike slammed the receiver down and smashed his fist into the cinderblock wall of the apartment. He decided the wall was definitely in need of pulverizing, so he did it again. And again.
With his ear still ringing from the crash of the receiver 6000 miles away, Giles carefully hung up on his end.
Well, that had gone swimmingly. He couldn’t approach Buffy until he had all the relevant information. Checking Andrew and himself off his mental list, he pondered who to try next . . . Willow or Dawn?
**********
“Do you enjoy pain?”
“Yeah, pet. Sometimes I do.”
“Why? Why do you hit the wall when you know it will hurt you? Your hands are a bloody mess.”
Spike let out a harsh laugh that was almost a sob.
“Ah, Blue, my whole life’s a bloody mess!” He began to pace, sodden coat slapping about his legs. “Sometimes the pain inside’s so bad the only way to bear it is to make the outside hurt to take your mind off what’s inside.”
Illyria tilted her head. “The pain is not only from the betrayal of this Rupert. It is compounded by your loss of Angel and Fred . . . and Buffy.”
Spike skewered her with piercing eyes as ice blue as her own. “What do you know about Buffy?”
“I did not know anything. But it seems the Burkle persona knew certain things and now I do also.”
Illyria paused, her body motionless, her eyes blank. She seemed to be accessing data from Fred’s memory banks and it was creeping Spike out.
“I know you loved her and you think she did not love you. You are now afraid to face her because you fear losing the few scraps of affection she gave you.” Illyria looked at him searchingly. “My words are causing you pain. They are negating the catharsis of your attack on the wall. I have no wish to cause you further pain, so will cease this discussion. Do you want to hit me or to play the Crash Bandicoot game?”
Spike smiled. “You’re really something, Illy. Wish you could’ve met Anya. You’d’ve liked each other. And a half hour in a room with both of you? Could’ve sold tickets.”
“I do not understand.”
Spike made a dismissive gesture. “Not important. Just thinkin’ out loud. Let me get out of these wet clothes and then we’ll play video games. Though Tomb Raider’s prob’ly more your style.”
Spike shrugged out of his coat and threw it over the kitchen chair where the weight of the sodden leather caused the chair to tip over. He left both chair and coat lying on the linoleum floor and started for the bathroom. With a sudden thought, he turned back to Illyria.
“D’you need to change your . . .” he gestured toward the leather catsuit, “clothes, or do you just do it mentally . . . like when you changed into Fred?”
In an instant, the catsuit was clean and dry.
“Mentally, then. ‘M gonna take a shower and change the old-fashioned way, since I can’t conjure fresh clothes out of thin air.”
He started toward the bathroom a second time. “Although . . . I did manage to do it once. Conjure clothes, I mean. Handy skill, that. Shocked the hell outta Pavayne.”
**********
“Wow! I mean . . . wow! Wanna run that by me again, Giles? ‘Cause I’m just . . . Spike’s alive? And you talked to him? And Angel’s dead? And you think maybe we were wrong about Angel going dark and you want me to call Spike and get the whole sitch before we say anything to Buffy? Lemme talk to Althenea. It might be better if I just teleport over there instead of calling. I’ll get back to you.”
“Thank you, Willow. I think we’ve all been out of the loop for far too long.”
**********
Spike spent a long time in the shower letting the hot water pound his bruised body, getting out only when he had drained the tank and the water turned cold. His mind skittered around thoughts of Angel, but he wasn’t ready to go there yet.
He was grateful for Illyria’s presence. He had been all alone for weeks after Buffy’s death. He was the outsider and the Scoobies hadn’t given him a second’s thought as they banded together to comfort each other. He had been shut out when Joyce died, too. He knew it would be the same with Wes, Gunn and Lorne.
Humans had funny ideas about vampires and death. Technically dead, and the cause of so many others' deaths, it never occurred to them that a vampire could grieve and maybe be in need of a spot of comfort himself.
He hadn’t been really sure he could live through Buffy’s death, and it was only the thought that Dawn might need him and that he had promised to protect her that kept him going.
And now, Illyria needed him. Spike had no trouble seeing Fred and Illyria as two separate people. It was harder for the others. They still viewed Illyria as Fred’s murderer. It was different for him. He had loved Fred and mourned her death, but she was gone.
Illyria could take on the visage of Fred, but wasn’t her, as the demon that became Spike could take on the visage of William, but wasn’t. He understood Illyria in a way the humans never could.
Spike dried off and wrapped a towel around his waist. Entering his combination bed-sit, he found Illyria standing exactly where he had left her a half hour ago.
“Make yourself at home, pet. Sit down, relax, let me get some clothes on an’ I’ll introduce you to Lara Croft.”
He turned to the dresser to pull out a clean T-shirt when he felt her hand trail down his backbone. He turned, a question in his eyes.
“This body needs . . . no, I have a need for closeness. For touch. For connection. I wish to . . .”
He could see her mind turning over terms, definitions, searching, processing language until she found exactly the word she wanted.
“I wish to fuck.”
Spike laughed. He couldn’t help himself. It was the combination of the expressionless, clinical delivery and the word “fuck” that did him in.
This . . . caught him by surprise. He understood the need behind the words, though.
She continued to stand there, head tilted, waiting for his answer. Spike slid his hand under her hair to the back of her neck and tilted his own head as he leaned in to kiss her. His tongue traced her silvery-blue lips and then parted them as he deepened the kiss. He felt her heart speed up as his tongue explored her mouth and she hesitantly returned the kiss. Her arm slipped around him to rest on the small of his back.
He pulled back to look into her eyes, which were no longer ice blue, but had warmed to the color of his own.
“Right, then. Let’s fuck.”
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Continue to Chapter Three
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