The Morally Ambiguous Samaratin
Spike woke half an hour before sunset with a headache that had nothing to do with the chip in his head. For a moment the time and place were blurred and he reached out for the coolness of Dru next to him. Then his eyes opened to the dark of the crypt and the present.
The whisky bottle was still on the coffin lid upstairs, three quarters empty. He was damned if he was going to start the night that way. Already he could hear yesterday´s voices replaying their parts in his head, just as they had before the whisky and sleep finally brought silence the night before. He was wincing at every slip and stumble that he´d made, hearing her sarcastic remarks over and over, rehearsing again what he should have said, how it should have gone.
Enough. Spike swung over to the fridge for a blood pack; like the whisky and the cash they were near exhausted. At least there were still cigarettes for now.
By the time he walked out into the rising moonlight some of his poise had returned. Tonight would go better, surely. And regardless of how well or badly it went, he´d soon be seeing her again. At the moment that would do.
The gang was closing up the Magic Box as he reached the pavement outside. Sliding into his preferred shadows he watched and listened, the familiar scene both soothing and frustrating. The lights came on upstairs; he could hear Giles and Buffy starting their training session. He glanced wistfully up at the low roof opposite but the whitewashed tiles left no room for concealment. A watcher could easily be seen if Giles, or worse, Buffy, should glance out of the window and he had no trouble in imagining the resulting confrontation. He doubted that any explanation for his presence would be believed and being caught in the act of stalking the Slayer was one humiliation he could do without. With luck she would be out patrolling in an hour or so; on his turf he could appear at her back without risking a challenge. A predator needed patience.
Spike drew back a little further into the dark as Willow, Tara and Dawn emerged from the shop entrance. He still couldn´t decide if the aura surrounding Willow these days was real or in his imagination. He smiled slightly. No wonder it was making the Scoobies twitchy. Good for her. The others would try to destroy her power, smother her, just as the chip had been intended to destroy him. If you let them win, if you turned your back on what you were and became the pawn of others it would break your heart. Willow must know that. Hell, Buffy must know it too, if the stubborn bitch would only admit it to herself. He lit another cigarette and watched the three girls out of sight.
What was left of the smile disappeared as Spike turned back towards the shop. Anya was shouting instructions over her shoulder as she strode down the steps. Spike had nothing against the ex demon but the company she kept was a different matter.
Spike grimaced as her lap dog followed her down the steps. Here was the epitome of all he despised about humans; a whingeing embracer of domesticity, so proud of his conventional job and his aspirational apartment, so unaware of how much he dragged the others down to his own mundane level, how often he put them in danger to save his own worthless skin. Couldn´t they see that he was no use to them, that he held them back? There was also of course the matter of certain snide remarks that rankled; Spike would be the first to admit his own pride was at stake.
There were few people that Spike actively disliked; he seldom felt the need. Angel. And Angelus, come to think of it. That pathetic Initiative sop, although he had screwed up so badly that Spike found it hard to hold a grudge. Giles, often, though hunting with him over the summer had been… interesting. But this one seemed to have settled in at the top of his list and that annoyed him; he liked his enemies to have something at least in the way of style.
Xander kissed Anya noisily and set off on his own, unaware of Spike´s attention. Spike thought he was probably heading towards the 24–hour mart on Anya´s instructions. The noises from upstairs gave no indication of the training session coming to an end. He had time to kill, so to speak. Spike stubbed out the cigarette and started following Xander, effortlessly staying out of sight. As he walked he drifted into one of his favourite non Slayer centred reveries. When this chip was finally out of his head Mr Harris was going to disappear. Not straightaway; Spike could be patient when it was needed, but not too long afterwards. There were a couple of catacombs under the cemetery where he could guarantee that the two of them would be undisturbed. After that, he was still undecided; the scenarios depended on his mood. One drew fairly heavily on what he´d picked up from Angelus, and Glory, with a number of original ideas thrown in. He had even choreographed the first hour or two during one sleepless day pacing the floor of the crypt.
On the other hand Spike had never been one for torture in the past. The fear, the realisation, the death; that was the link between hunter and prey. More, he had decided, was pandering to one´s own sense of insecurity, the need to force a submission that was only worth while when it came naturally. Maybe that would be enough for Xander too. He had an open mind on the issue. Plenty of time to decide.
Momentarily lost in blood dreams, Spike only caught a glimpse of the rather conventionally green and scaly demon coming out of the side alley seconds before Xander did. Xander turned and bolted with astonishing decisiveness in the opposite direction, through the cemetery gate. The demon followed and Spike vaulted the low wall to keep the runners in sight.
The demon caught up with Xander near Spike´s crypt. It slashed at the man´s retreating back. Xander turned to face it, a metal bar from the building site held in front of him with both hands. He was mouthing something that Spike couldn´t catch; Spike guessed obscenities rather than incantations. The demon contemptuously brushed the bar aside and a talon scraped down Xander´s chest. Xander cringed back as the demon stepped forward.
Spike felt the familiar stir of delight. His head was clear again. This was what the night was meant for. If the demon wanted a fight it could have one. Spike was in the mood for giving the pathetic mortal a demonstration of who he really was.
He stepped between the demon and its victim. He was aware of everything; the demon´s double take and grunt of annoyance, Xander flinching back even further (from him this time, and that was sweet),the iron bar lying on the grass a yard to his left. He swung easily under the demon´s frantic lunge and was around with the cold metal in his hand in one smooth motion.
Spike could feel his face shifting, the weight of the last few days lifting. He was ready to dance with this new and rather unappealing green partner, and anyone else it cared to bring along.
The demon had clearly not come expecting to dance however. Its talons were sharp enough but it was disappointingly slow and it seemed to Spike that the fight had barely begun before he was looking down on the monster, neck broken, outstretched beneath the nearby ash.
For the first time he consciously noticed the smell of blood. Xander was crumpled against a grave, eyes open. A black stain in the moonlight was starting to cover his ripped shirt.
Spike stood for a moment looking at his enemy. He judged that the human was in a bad way. For a few seconds he considered leaving him there, then recalled that Buffy was likely to be along soon. The presence of a dead or dying Xander and an undoubtedly dead demon so close to his front door was unlikely to be overlooked and he imagined that protestations of ignorance on his part were likely to be futile.
For once, Spike noted, Xander had nothing to say to him. Xander´s eyes were dull with pain and shock but he continued to watch Spike as if that was all holding him to consciousness.
Spike opened the heavy crypt door and tossed his coat over one of the sarcophagi. He returned for Xander, cradling the bleeding man to his chest. He could feel the warm blood seeping through his own black t– shirt and Xander´s heart racing. Without effort he carried the body down the steps and onto the smooth white marble of a coffin lid exposed to the strong moonlight. Xander was still conscious, still silent. Spike remembered the whisky bottle and pushed it into Xander´s shaking hands. Xander took a couple of breathless gulps and shuddered. "Thanks" he muttered. Spike stepped back and regarded him with disgust.
"No need for the manners; you´re paying for it." He flipped open the wallet he´d eased out of Xander´s pocket and extracted the satisfactorily thick wad of notes; it must have been pay day at the site.
Xander almost choked on the liquor. "Hey" he started, then subsided as Spike stared him down. Spike realised, with pleasure, that the smell of sweat and fear was growing stronger. He might be an object of amusement to this domesticated fool when Xander was surrounded by his girlfriends under the streetlights, but here, in Spike´s crypt, with the darkness only accentuated by the moonlight and with his own blood staining the marble, Xander would not forget that he was facing a vampire, a demon more dangerous than any he would encounter outside. Whatever the Initiative might have done to him, Spike thought, he was still a nightmare to his enemies and his prey. Tonight this human was both and he knew it.
Spike thrust the money into his back pocket and tossed the wallet back to land next to the hand still clutching the whisky bottle. He became aware of the bloody state of his own t–shirt and stripped it off, walking half naked through the crypt to the wooden chest by the door. As he turned in the moonlight coming through the entrance with a fresh black shirt in his hand he saw, momentarily, a different expression on Xander´s face. The whisky was obviously taking effect.
Spike felt a brief stir of amusement. He had occasionally watched Xander at the construction site, as he watched all of them, the silent observer of their little dramas and trivial secrets. He had seen Xander watching some of the other workers with that expression. Probably the fool didn´t know it himself. And if he did, he´d bury it deep, another guilty little secret to hide from his friends. Spike knew all their secrets.
He pulled the t–shirt on, deliberately stretching slowly. Yes, the boy had that look again. He was a cobra to Xander´s mouse.
The mouse was still bleeding. Spike took a bottle of water from the fridge. "Better clean up those scratches." Xander pulled back, clearly fighting to keep some semblance of control over his fear, as Spike ripped the remains of the shirt off him and pushed him back onto the sarcophagus. A little too roughly; a familiar shooting pain through his head made him wince. Fortunately Xander was too far out of it to notice. Slightly more gently Spike rinsed the blood off Xander´s chest. This side´s wound was really no more than a scratch and had stopped bleeding already. He seized the rapidly emptying whisky bottle from Xander and trickled the contents into the narrow mark. Xander cursed him and made a weak grab for the bottle but Spike held it out of reach. "Do you want to find out what demons keep under their fingernails? Turn over."
Xander was well past that sort of activity. Sighing, Spike reached out and rolled him over onto his front by his left shoulder. Xander flopped chest down on the coffin lid, hips dangling over the side.
Spike stepped back involuntarily, his head swimming with the sudden smell of fresh blood. It mingled with the sweat and whisky in an intoxicating brew. Blood had pooled where Xander had been lying on his back; his torso was a sticky mass, black in the moonlight. The claw had ripped into his flesh just below his right shoulder blade and left a long chasm, its outlines clear even through the blood, down his back. It had torn straight through his belt and jeans.
Spike shook his head, trying to clear it of the dizziness, and approached the limp form again. Xander´s arms were splayed out at his sides, his head turned to the right. With his shirt removed Spike could see the muscles tense over his back. Even in the colourless light his skin looked golden brown. A sharp line under the blood stains demarcated the start of paler skin at his waist. Spike had always thought tans massively overrated.
As he leaned over to look at the top of the cut Xander groaned and shifted slightly. Another wave of scent hit Spike, harder now, and his forehead drew back as his features shifted. Surreptitiously he wiped the back of his hand across the hollow of Xander´s back and licked the blood off in one swift movement. The sharp taste flooded him with a thousand memories of kills and one, even more vivid, of bleeding knuckles held gently in his own hands. All at once there seemed to be blood everywhere, in his nose, his mouth, his hands; his mind was scarlet with it.
His own blood leaped through his veins in response; he felt enraged, aroused, alive. Xander groaned again plaintively, "Spike?" but he barely heard. He ached all over with the lust to kill and drink. Part of his mind was still thinking clearly, aware of the chip; it enraged him even further but he would not play that game. As he stood over Xander, shaking with the desire to feed, the pain was almost unbearable. Here was his prey, human, bloody, terrified; how could he be denied the release of the kill?
He was up close now, pressed against Xander´s legs as they hung over the side of the stone. His erection was pressing against Xander´s thigh and the boy´s next groan sounded to him like pleading. A cold clarity shot through his mind. He was the master, this was his, body and soul. One hand unbuckled his belt while the other pulled the remnants of Xander´s jeans away. For a moment Spike wondered calmly about the practicalities, but blood and sweat were lubricant enough. As his cock thrust past Xander´s buttocks he felt without surprise that there was no resistance. He remembered Drusilla´s smooth coolness as he eased himself inside and the familiar movement took over.
Then thinking was swept away as the constricting warmth surrounded him. It felt like fire on his skin. Ecstasy shot up his spine and down his thighs. The air seemed thick with blood and tension. His white hands pressed on the marble on either side of Xander´s wet back as he leaned further down to lick at the blood and sweat congealing along the deep wound. His thrusts pulled the gash further open and he tasted fresh blood pulsing over his tongue in time with his own rhythm. What remained of his conscious mind was waiting for the searing pain of the chip but the only throbbing in his head was from blood and desire. His arms straightened and he threw his head back as he climaxed, his stained mouth opening in a soundless scream of release.
After a few long seconds he pulled away, his face smoothing back to almost human. As when he killed his rage and need was vanishing. He looked at Xander, still lying chest down on the marble. Xander´s breathing was shallow and his eyes shut; Spike guessed he was feigning unconsciousness. The quiver of his back gave him away but Spike did not challenge the charade. Let him pretend ignorance and salvage his pride. Spike´s need for dominance had passed, leaving behind the vague feeling of goodwill he usually felt for his victims after the kill. Though normally, he thought wryly, they had little chance of benefiting from it.
The moon was noticeably higher. Spike finished cleaning up Xander´s back without speaking. The wound had been scoured clean to the man´s waist already. Spike noticed with some surprise that it seemed to be healing with unnatural speed. Maybe something to do with the demon, or, ironically and more likely, his own actions. He doubted he´d be thanked for it.
The cut looked clean enough now but he dribbled the final inch of whisky over it anyway. Xander gasped and relaxed into genuine limpness.
Spike inspected his handiwork with some satisfaction. Xander looked awkward lying half off the sarcophagus and he moved him round fully onto the lid, arranging the remnants of the tattered jeans as neatly as he could. Then he went for a blanket to cover the lower half; the tan line still irritated him.
By the time he´d finished cleaning up the rest of the bloodstains and pulled on yet another fresh t–shirt Xander was stirring. As Spike glanced at him he opened his eyes, saw the vampire and closed them again. Spike laughed. For the first time in months he finally felt completely in control. He´d killed the demon, beaten the chip and screwed bloody Xander Harris more literally and satisfyingly than he had imagined possible.
About now the Slayer would be starting to patrol, looking for vampires. She was going to find one all right tonight, Spike exulted, no doubt about that. Time to go tell her that her lost sheep was safe with him. He lit a cigarette, shrugged the leather coat round his shoulders and pulled out the wad of notes from his back pocket, counting them as he walked out into the moonlight for the second time that night.
The End
