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~Oh, you know you're gettin' really hard to be with
For the first time, I almost felt sorry for him. He had lost the most important thing in his world. Almost crying, half-insane, incredibly drunk... altogether, extremely pitiful. If I hadn’t been so worried about Xander, so desperate to get him help, maybe I would have tried more to comfort Spike. Maybe not. Not that it mattered. He took what he needed.
One minute he was laying his head on my shoulder, the next . . . I have never felt pain like that. Never. But there was something else too. My entire body felt as though it were consumed in flames but not burning. Then it got colder. And a little colder. Spike was crushing me against him. I don’t think I’ve even been held like that before by anyone--not even Oz. It was intensely passionate, wholly possessive. I was too weak to move, or I would have embraced him as well. So much pain and so much pleasure all at once. My mind went numb and my body went limp.
He pulled back so suddenly it took several minutes for me to realize he wasn’t feeding anymore. I think I reached for him . . . but it’s all so hazy. I do know that he bit his own wrist. He mumbled something about being ‘bloody stupid,’ then the blood flowed into my mouth. I remember its taste on my tongue. I always thought blood tasted as it tastes when you get a paper cut and suck the wound, but it doesn’t. There is much more to it. I could taste his life! Not see it. Taste it. Everything, every emotion or thought that made Spike who he was went into me... along with the demon.
~Oh, my crazy baby
Try to hold on tight
Oh, my crazy baby
Don't put out the light...~
I suppose Spike knew exactly what would happen, knew the urges that suddenly began to
swell inside me. He must have known. But he left anyway. “Enjoy the afterlife, pet. Stay
here.” And he left. I never thought I would actually
For a few minutes, I just sat there. There was nothing else to do. My mind refused to
work the way I knew it should. I should have been worrying about whether Oz would
come and save me or if that bloody gash on Xander’s head meant he might never wake up
or if Buffy had told Angel she still loved him. None of it mattered to me suddenly. It
seemed so small, so insignificant! What are things like that when you have all eternity?
It’s not that I didn’t try to fight it. I forced myself to look at Xander, to study his
condition. I couldn’t force myself to care. My best friend--not to mention the man I’d
been having secret little trysts with for how long?--was lying there bleeding and I DIDN’T
CARE.
No. I cared.
I cared that he was vulnerable. And bleeding. Blood looks different through those creepy
yellow eyes. Like . . . something like what chocolate looks like to normal people.
Irresistible.
Before I knew what was happening, I had leaned over, licking the drying blood from the
wound on his forehead. It felt completely different than feeding from Spike--not just
because of how different Xander was but because the blood belonged to a human. It was
sweeter, more pure. The blood was free from centuries of pain. What happened next was
inevitable. Spike must have known. I think I did as well.
Willow died that night. I live, but Willow is dead. I don’t know who I am.
The minute I let the hunger overrule my last pangs of conscience and sank my fangs into
Xander’s throat, that was when Willow died, that exact moment. Because once his blood
was inside me, I would never have considered stopping. No turning back.
Oz and Cordellia rushed in to save us then, of course. She always did have horrible
timing. Cordy ran. Oz just stood there staring at what had been Willow. If there had
been a shred of humanity left in me, I think the tears in his eyes would have made it shine
through. Nothing happened. I didn’t care about him any more than I cared about the
corpse lying on the bed. I feigned an attack, forcing him from the steps and fled into the
night. The darkness took over.
~And they look at you like they don't speak your language
I walked to the Bronze first. No real reason. It was just somewhere I could hide in the
crowd. The smell of so many young, nubile, blood-filled people crammed into such a small
space intoxicated me. But instead of making me feel better, it created some kind of
gnawing pain in my gut. I looked at all the people around me having fun, living normal
lives and it killed me. A few nights before, I might have been one of them.
I suppose I was wrong about losing all my humanity. Maybe I lost compassion and love
and grief, but pain . . . pain stayed with me. So did anger. And loneliness. And boredom.
Something in me wanted to reach out to one of them, to talk like I would have talked to
Buffy before. I knew I couldn’t. I couldn’t tell a single one of them about the wonderful,
horrible thing that happened to me. I couldn’t tell them that I had just left the drained
body of my best friend and my heartbroken boyfriend in an empty warehouse on the edge
of town. Then again, maybe I didn’t want to talk.
~Oh, you know you ought to get yourself together
I finally gave up trying to act normal around all those happy, living people and went
into the bathroom. It was predictably disgusting. I realized that I had always managed to
avoid going to the bathroom at the Bronze before. Funny the things that strike you
sometimes. The graffiti was abundant if not original. I had seen most of the dirty
limericks and scrawled confessions of love a thousand times before. I crossed to the
nearest sink and, heedless of the unidentifiable filth caked on it, turned on the tap and
splashed water on my already-chilled face.
When I raised my head to look in the mirror, it came as a shock to see nothing but the
stalls behind me. Not even the mirror knew my anymore.
There wasn’t really anything left to do. I couldn’t hide in the bathroom forever. I
watched an obviously-intoxicated young girl in a low-cut blouse stumble into the
bathroom giggling. Disgusted, I grabbed her and fed.
By the time her foggy brain realized what I was doing, she was already near death. I
dropped the body to the floor. The thud it made upon hitting the scummy tile was
surprisingly quiet. I wanted the sound to be resounding, the sound of a jail cell slamming
shut, not a stiffled murmur. The girl’s contact-blue eyes stared up at me, wide with shock,
her red-stained mouth slack. She certainly picked the wrong night to go dancing.
~And your hands are really shakin' somethin' awful
I ended up back at the warehouse. I don’t know what I expected when I arrived. Maybe
ambulances and police. Certainly, I expected Buffy and Giles and Oz and Cordellia to be
there.
But it was quiet. I shoved open the door, almost angry at the lack of activity around the
murder site. Spike sat on the edge of the bed where Xander’s body had been. “They
already left, luv. They took the boy.”
I nodded. I couldn’t think of any good reason to say anything to Spike. I still hadn’t
decided whether he had destroyed everything or given me a gift. Somehow, all alone in
the warehouse with no one to impress, he looked like a lost little boy pretending to be all
grown up. He held his hands clasped in his lap, toes turned in slightly, feet apart, head
staring at the dusty floor. The leather duster and bleached hair did nothing to dispel the
sudden impression that the bad-ass vampire was little more than a homeless orphan.
“What ya gonna do now?”
I almost laughed. It wasn’t funny. Being lost and scared and alone is never funny. But
the question felt something like being asked when I was five what I wanted to be when I
grew up. I didn’t even know if I should stay indoors when the sun came up, if I was
worth the precious gift of life. I still don’t know if I deserve it. Instead of replying, I sat
down beside him. It was then that I saw why his hands were clasped. They were shaking.
For perhaps the first time in his unlife, Spike had done something that... that what? Scared
him? Made him feel regret?
I covered his hands in mine, more to stop the shaking than to comfort him. I’d comforted
him already. “I guess I’m going to live.”
He nodded and tried to look calmer, more collected and without meeting my eyes replied,
“Yeah, you’ll live. Forever.”
And you're living at the bottom of a well
And you've swallowed all the awful bloody secrets
But you can't tell...~
But you cannot bear to walk outside your door
No, you cannot bear to look into the mirror
Anymore...~
As your worries climb around inside your clothes
Oh, how long will you be sittin' in the darkness
Heaven knows...~