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The Cost of Butterfly Kisses
The Cost of Butterfly Kisses, Part 28Fandom/Pairing: BtVS, Spike/Xander
Rated: ADULT
SPURTING AHEAD SPURTING AHEAD ((THIRD CHAPTER OF THE DAY HERE, FOLKS!!))
Summary: God I'm tired... tired, tired, tired, but I got the taming prompt into it's place. So, how is Spike going to deal with the aftermath of his little bout of crazy, and how is his relationship with Xander going to continue to change?
(Chapter One... ) ( Chapter Two... ) ( Chapter Three... ) ( Chapter Four... ) ( Chapter Five ) ( Chapter Six ) ( Chapter 7 ) ( Chapter 8 ) ( Chapter Nine ) ( Chapter Ten ) ( Chapter Eleven ) ( Chapter Twelve ) ( Chapter Thirteen ) ( Chapter 14 . ) ( Chapter 15 ) ( Chapter 16 ) ( Chapter 17 ) ( Chapter 18 ) ( Chapter 19 ) ( Chapter 20 ) ( Chapter 21 ) ( Chapter 22 ) ( Chapter 23 ) ( Chapter 24 ) ( Chapter 25 ) ( Chapter 26 ) ( Chapter 27 )
Chapter 28
"You need to take the slack out of the chain, mate. Give a prisoner enough slack, and they can use the freedom to break the chair apart," Spike offered. Xander was kneeling beside his chair, and he looked up at Buffy, but she didn't comment, and Xander pulled the vampire-proofed chains tighter so that Spike was pressed tight to the chair.
"How many countless others have you buried around town?" Dawn asked, her voice sharp, just as it had been ever since she'd found out that Spike had tried to rape Buffy. His soul reveled in the pain. What he didn't like was the confusion on Bonnie's face as she stood clinging to Tara's leg.
"Don't think there are any other burial grounds, but if I get free, someone's going to die," Spike agreed with her. Instead of fueling Dawn's anger, that only seemed to confuse her.
"So Spike's bad?" Bonnie whispered.
Xander finished securing the chains, and then he held his arms open for Bonnie to rush into them. She wrapped her arms around his neck and clung to him with a desperation most demons would have hidden. Hell, Bonnie would have resisted showing that much fear a year ago, but she was acting more and more human with every passing month. "Spike's sort of accidentally evil, honey. Something is getting in his head making him see things and do things. It's sort of like if we had a friend who was a werewolf—we'd have to keep him locked up three days a month or he might hurt us without meaning to."
"Yeah, only with a werewolf, you know when he's going to go crazy instead of just the random craziness," Dawn complained. Spike could see Bonnie's little lips press together.
"We stick with our friends because that's what good people do, even if it's really, really hard," Bonnie said defiantly, staring at Dawn. Xander cringed and headed for the couch.
"It will all turn out okay," he promised.
A low voice laughed, and Spike turned his head to see Angelus standing there with his arms crossed over his chest. "Oh, boyo, you really have gotten yourself in a mess. I should just let you rot, but if I did that, you'd never learn any better." Suddenly Spike wasn't in the chair—he was in Sainte-Barbe, France with the smell of the ocean breeze drifting through the curtains and the taste of a peasant girl still in his mouth. Angelus' whip cut across his back, and Spike vamped out, struggling against the bonds that held him.
"Spike! Spike!" A voice called him out of his delusion, and Spike shook his head as he struggled to focus on Xander who knelt between his knees.
"He's sick," Tara said. "His aura is weak."
"It's the blood," Clem offered. "When vampires first go off the human, they get a little crazy. Of course, a lot of people say that they stay a little crazy as long as they're drinking animal blood, and Spike and Angel haven't exactly disproved that."
"So it's withdrawal?" That was Willow, and Spike snarled at the sympathy he could hear in her voice. He didn't need sympathy. He was William the Bloody, a vampire to be feared. A long line of his victims rose like mist around him, and Spike snarled his defiance.
"Xander!" a voice called.
"Tara can heal it."
"Okay, am I the only one who things this is a monumentally bad idea?"
"Nope, I'm thinking it too. I'm thinking it really, really loudly. Xander, you're going to give Spike a taste for your blood."
Voices swirled around Spike like the heavy smoke of burning bodies.
"I think he already has a taste for blood. I don't think mine is particularly special." A cup was held up to Spike's nose, and under the cloyingly sweet scent of pig's blood, he could smell the fresh human blood. He opened his mouth and a hand raised the cup to him, helping him drink.
The power and warmth in human blood helped Spike push back the hallucinations that plagued him. With a sadistic chuckle, Angelus faded into memory and Spike was left looking at the gathering in front of him. His instincts labeled it clan, even if his soul fought the term and wanted to focus on the fact that they weren't clan because they were vampires driven by instincts that Spike couldn't control or explain. These were mostly humans with rules that Spike hadn't understood even when he'd been human.
"Better?" Buffy asked.
Dawn crossed her arms.
Spike nodded. "Yeah, but I don't suppose I'm going to be right any time soon."
"Hallucinations?" Xander put his hands on Spike's knees and pushed himself back up onto his feet.
"Yeah. This time it was the great bog-trotting mick back to get some digs in."
"Angel?" Buffy sat up.
"Only without the soul," Spike agreed.
"Okay, that is sounding vaguely ominous. Maybe I should call L.A. and make sure everything is still tacked on. Hey, I could offer to pin Angel's soul on him using a big, wooden push-pin," Xander said with a goofy grin that made it clear that he wasn't entirely joking.
"At least Angel never tried to kill us all," Dawn muttered. Everyone in the room except Bonnie gave her an incredulous look at that, and she had the grace to blush. "Well, except for the one time," she hurried to say, her blush deepening. Spike figured that Dawn had gotten over her Spike-crush a lot faster than she'd recovered from her crush on Angel.
"When did your chip stop working?" Buffy asked, moving the conversation back to Spike and his recent habit of killing the innocent. If vampires were physically capable of being ill, Spike would be.
"I wasn't aware that it had, you know. Not 'til now."
"And the losing time? How long has that been going on?"
Spike didn't answer right away only because he couldn't quite figure out when that had started.
"If something is haunting him, we could do a spell," Tara suggested. There are some protection and warding spells far more powerful than the traditional ones, but they're dangerous.
"Too dangerous," Willow added.
Tara looked at Willow, and Spike could smell the desire like the scent of roses on the wind. "For me by myself, yes," Tara agreed. "I would need your help, and that would mean using your magic only for white, protective magic." The room went silent, and Spike was surprised that Red didn't jump on that offer. She'd been chafing at her friends' ultimatums ever since they'd told her she couldn't touch magic.
"I'm not sure I can do that," Willow said softly.
Tara reached out and took her hand. "If you slip, I'll knock you unconscious so you don't endanger the spell."
Willow laughed. "True love is willing to knock someone out?" she asked.
Tara ducked her head. "True love is willing to do anything to keep your lover from making the same mistake again."
It took Willow a long time to answer. "Deal," she whispered.
Xander cleared his throat as the two witched leaned closer. "So, can you promise us that we won't have any more memory-wiping fun because with a big-bad on the horizon, any more magical hijinx, and I get the feeling we're all going to be vampire kibble."
Tara stood up a little straighter. "I won't let things slide. There are spells I can use to counter any harmful influence."
"And if I get out of hand, you have my permission to whammy me into unconsciousness," Willow said just as firmly.
Buffy looked worried, but she gave a nod. "Okay, maybe you two can go work on the protective spell, and we'll try and find out about our new big bad." She turned back to Spike. "So, how long have you been blacking out?"
Spike tried to shrug, but Xander had chained him tight. The boy had a knack for bondage, and it disturbed Spike a bit that this was the second time he'd had cause to find that out. "Oh, things have been wonky since I got back, ever since—" Spike let his words trail off.
"Since the soul," Xander guessed. Spike didn't deny it.
"Figured that's what it was like, it'd been so long since I had one. I thought maybe when the soul had enough of remembering all the pain and guilt, it just sort of faded out."
"So, what did you think you were doing when the soul faded out?" Xander asked.
Sucking some air between his teeth, Spike thought about that. He'd always been one to just live in the present and not worry about what he couldn't control, but he knew they weren't going to like his answer. "I figured I was just standing somewhere like an overgrown paperweight."
"So, you thought you were helpless, and you didn't ask for help?" Xander demanded. He was getting a good head of mad going, he was.
"But... that doesn't make any sense," Dawn interrupted.
It was Buffy sad gaze that told Spike that she understood. Right out of heaven, she'd put herself out there, not exactly trying to die, but not trying to keep herself alive, either. The difference was that she'd go to heaven if she finished the job, and Spike had no illusions about where he'd end up.
"How did you do it? How'd you get your soul back?" Buffy asked.
Spike sniffed and tried to make a joke out of it. "Saw a man about a girl." No one was smiling with him, and Spike dropped the act. "I went to seek a legend out. Traveled to the other side of the world, made a deal with a demon.
Leaning forward, Buffy studied him. "Just like that?"
"No, not just like that. There was a price. There were trials, torture, pain and suffering... of sorts."
"Of sorts?" Buffy jumped on the wording.
"Well, it's all relative, isn't it?"
"Meaning?"
Looking Buffy right in the eye, Spike answered. "Meaning I have come to redefine the words pain and suffering since I fell in love with you."
"You know suffering? You tried to rape her," Dawn blurted out, her anger staining every word. "How can you sat that to her?"
"Dawn," Xander said softly. Bonnie was squirming in his arms, too old and too large to be in his lap for any length of time, and—Spike suspected—unwilling to be near Dawn.
"No, I'm not going to be nice about it. He's sitting there saying that she hurt him when he tried to rape my sister and no one wants to talk about it."
"It's not that simple," Buffy started to say, but Dawn was up off the couch in an eyeblink. Spike tensed up, disliking the fact that he couldn't defend himself, but then Xander was up, too, standing between them.
"Rape is rape. Making it sound all complicated—that's just a way to blame the victim, and no one is saying that Spike is evil."
"I am," Spike said. "I'm bloody evil, luv. I never denied it, and I'm not now. I will say that I didn't understand—before the soul I truly didn't understand what it meant to rape Buffy."
"How can you not understand?" Dawn pushed on Xander, trying to get him to move, but Xander wouldn't.
"For the same reason I didn't understand when I had the primal in me and I attacked Buffy, hoping to make her part of my pack," Xander said, catching Dawn by the arms. "For the same reason that Faith didn't understand when she pushed me down and took what she needed. For the same reason Buffy didn't understand when she hurt Spike. All of us had something demonic in us, some power, and when we let that power loose, power doesn't play by the same rules as humans. Raw power is about force, not respect. Not morality." Xander had been nearly shouting, but his voice grew softer until he all but whispered the last words.
"Apparently, I just slaughtered half of Sunnydale, pet. I'm not really worried about being polite anymore, and I'll be honest," Spike offered. "Soul's not all about moonbeams and pennywhistles, luv. It's about self-loathing. I get it. Had to travel 'round the world, but I understand you now. I understand the violence inside. When I was only a demon, violence was pleasure, it was a way to establish rank, it was a way to show favor. Angelus raped me raw, and all I felt was pride that he wanted me. Me. Drusilla and Darla were there, but he chose to leave me bleeding and that felt..." Spike stopped. He hated the pain and the crippling weakness as he crawled out of the bed—he'd hated that Angelus had looked at him with pity after, but he'd loved that he'd commanded all Angelus' attention. Him. For one night, he'd been powerful enough to distract and please and entertain the great Angelus. He'd felt the same sense of power when Buffy had chosen him, and he'd thought she'd feel a similar pleasure if he forced her. "Can't explain it. I can just say that I never truly hated myself back then. Not like I do now."
"So, we stop worrying about the past and figure out why you're going homicidal," Buffy said firmly. "You were humming a song when you were trying to bash in our heads. You're not usually the hum and kill kind, and it was definitely not a murder-worthy song."
"Yeah, it was kind of grandmotherish," Xander agreed. "A trigger!"
"Wot?" Spike looked at Xander seriously hoping he wasn't suggesting that the others use a weapon on Spike. Didn't seem like Xander's style, but Spike couldn't be sure of anything right now.
"A trigger. It's a brainwashing term. It's how the military makes sleeper agents. They-they brainwash operatives and condition them with a specific trigger, like a song, that makes 'em drastically change at a moment's notice."
"Freaky," Buffy said slowly, "but not any freakier than Spike randomly going homicidal. This trigger. How do we holster—safety, or—I don't know guns. How do we make it stop?"
"Well, usually the operative completes his task and either blows his head off or steals a submarine."
Spike snorted. "You've been watching too many movies, luv."
"Well, yeah. That's where I learned about triggers," Xander said with a shrug. "Could we be right?"
"Don't know," Spike answered truthfully. He hated the idea that someone had enthralled him, but he couldn't deny the possibility. "Dru could trance people, but she didn't have much luck making them do things they wouldn't normally do."
"No offense, Spike, but killing kind of is what you normally do," Xander said, his voice almost apologetic.
Spike couldn't deny that. "I just thought the soul would change that," Spike admitted.
"Their good deeds are like a mirage in the desert," Bonnie said softly. She was standing near the hall that led to the upstairs bedroom and bathroom as she watched.
"What?" Xander asked her.
"Good memory," Clem said, nodding so that his ears wiggled. "We've been studying human cultures and religions and we're doing Islam right now. It's a quote from An-Nur."
"Verse 39," Bonnie said sadly.
Clem's voice said in a near-chant, "But as for those who are bent on denying the truth, their good deeds are like a mirage in the desert, which the thirsty supposes to be water--until, when he approaches it, he finds that it was nothing: instead, he finds that Allah is with him, and that He will pay him his full account in full--for Allah is swift in reckoning."
Spike didn't answer, but he hoped that his good deed wasn't some mirage. The soul had made him suffer, had reminded him of all the evil he'd committed every second of every day, and he wanted to believe some good could come out of that.
The others had grown silent, and Bonnie was holding the wall so tightly that it looked like she expected it to start bucking.
"We had the spell ready," Willow said cheerfully, her voice cutting through the heavy silence. "Um... if we still want it..." She looked around the room in confusion.
"Yeah, definitely," Xander said, visibly shaking himself free of Clem's words. "So, does this cover us from bedbug and cockroaches and ghosts of all sorts?"
Tara stood beside Willow with a large cauldron in her arms. "It can only be used on a house designed to carry magic. Good thing Xander owns one."
"Score one for team good-magic," Xander agreed. "So, what sort of the magic do we have going?"
"Blood magic," Tara said softly. Each of us puts a drop of blood in the cauldron, and then we pour the potion on the four corners and the magic in the beams will carry it through the house." Tara carefully put the cauldron on the coffee table and then walked over to touch the carving on one of the house beams. "These runes are old, so old that I haven't been able to find them all in the spell books, but they're protective magics. With the potion, we can add our magic to the house and the house will protect those of us within the spell."
"So we can't do this at my place, huh?" Buffy asked.
Tara shook her head.
"Okay, Xander, do you have room for Dawn here?" Buffy asked.
"No!" Dawn sat up. "I'm not staying here unless you are."
"I'm not sleeping three to a bed with you and Bonnie. I can handle myself," Buffy said.
Dawn crossed her arms. "So can I."
Before the sisters could get going, Xander interrupted them both. "I have room for both of you. This place actually has two basements and a dungeon under that if we're desperate. If the magic is limited to this house, it's time for us to pull together." Xander's knife already had fresh blood on it. Spike blinked as he realized that Xander had cut himself to add his own blood to Spike's dinner. "So, is this spell a 'the more blood the merrier kind' or a don't accidentally add more than one drop unless you want it to explode kind?" Xander asked.
Willow answered, holding out a small dish. "Let's put the blood in here and add just the one drop."
"So that's the potentially exploding answer," Xander said, but he cut his finger and held it over the small bowl. A few drops fell, and Willow went to the cauldron and carefully let one drop slide down into the brew before she took the bowl away and wiped it clean. "So, who's next?" Xander asked cheerfully.
The procession went quickly enough, each of them providing a drop of blood until the potion seemed to boil and Spike could feel the power sliding over his skin like oil.
"So, we're down to just Fangless," Xander said, coming up to Spike with the knife. Spike tried to ignore the fear he could feel at having an armed human so near. This was Xander; the man could have dusted him already if he wanted.
"Xander," Willow said, "I'm not so sure that's a good idea. This is white magic, and Spike is sort of evil."
"He's family, and he's going to be part of the protection spell," Xander said, his expression turning stubborn.
"It could make the whole spell go kablam," Willow warned.
Xander paused and looked around the room. "Hey Clem, can you show Dawn where the extra rooms are. And maybe Bonnie can show her around the second basement. I don't think she's been down there." Xander's voice had a note of false cheerfulness.
"Not worth it, pet," Spike said. "I can take care of myself, so you'd be best to leave me out of the spell.
"Funny enough, you can't take care of yourself tied to a chair." Xander turned and gave Clem a sharp look.
The demon cleared his throat and got up. "Hey girls, we could check out the dorm rooms on the lower level. We could set up a recreation of the Balish dimensional wars using one-fifth scale models. How's that sound?"
"Like history class," Dawn complained.
"Dawn, go on," Buffy said. Dawn opened her mouth, but Buffy pulled out a glare worthy of Joyce herself, and with a long-suffering sigh, she followed Clem down into the basement. Bonnie didn't make as much of a fuss, but Spike could tell she was just as unhappy. Only after the heavy basement door had closed did Xander reach out to grab Spike's forearm and bring the knife up to it.
"You could blow the whole house to pieces," Spike warned.
"This house has been here longer than any of us have been alive," Xander said, "including you. It'll be fine."
"Xander." Tara stepped forward and rested a hand on Xander's shoulder. "Are you sure? It could weaken the spell to have evil woven into the fabric."
"We don't leave our own vulnerable just because it'd be way easier and a whole lot safer," Xander said firmly. Buffy had a neutral expression, but then Spike figured Buffy's judgment was probably overshadowed by guilt over what she'd done to him. Willow was flat-out against including Spike's blood and Tara was worried at the very least.
"We're not saying to leave him staked outside like a sacrificial goat," Willow said. "We're just saying that this is slightly unsafe the way nuclear bombs are slightly unsafe."
"Forget it, Will. We can throw the whole spell away and try another one or we can add Spike's blood." Xander drew the knife across Spike's forearm so fast that he flashed into game face, but Xander just collected the drops in the little bowl and then pressed his hand against Spike's arms as vampire healing made the cut close again.
"We can try this," Tara said softly.
Willow looked from one of them to the other, he mouth set in an unhappy line, but she didn't comment. For not the first time, Spike considered the fact that he'd done some misjudging. He'd always figured Red set the rules in her relationship with Tara, but now Tara was making it clear that when she put her foot down, she expected others to follow. And Xander—the boy had knackers Spike had never suspected. Truly, though, he should have.
Angelus and Angel both liked complaining about the boy. He'd been there, refusing to back down to Angelus at the hospital, and Spike wasn't ashamed to say that he had trouble facing down Angelus. The boy had tricked Buffy into sending Angel to hell, and even though he'd forced her to do that, he hadn't lost his rank in their group. When Angel had come back and Buffy had refused to kill him, the boy had changed allegiances and turned to the other slayer, Faith. When Spike had come back to town, there were a number of demon gossips nattering on about that. No wonder demons tended to hate the boy—he was weak and all his body language screamed of submission, but when you look at what he'd accomplished, his acts were those of a dominant.
Not waiting for anyone's permission, Xander stepped to the potion and let a single drop of Spike's blood fall into it. The rolling surface started to hiss and steam rose like a plume of smoke from a volcano.
"That's not good, is it?" Xander asked as he stumbled back. He pulled the key to Spike's chains out of his pocket.
Tara was kneeling next to the coffee table, chanting softly, and the smoke thinned and then vanished. "It's okay," Tara said softly. She looked around the room. "The spell held."
"So, now we put the protective spell on the house and figure out how to hit this thing back," Buffy said firmly.
Spike figured he was out of this fight—he'd spend it chained to a chair listening to voices in his head, but at least the others were acting like the group that had managed to kick his arse more than once. He had to believe they'd win again because if they didn't, Spike was going to die, and his soul railed at the thought of eternal damnation, even though Spike knew he deserved it.
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