Spike’s Problem 

 

by Lizerrrbeathan

* 

Spikes’s problem began with a ping and ended in pandemonium.

It began like a blinking light on the dashboard of an old car.

Spike being the old car in the scenario.

Buffy being the blinkin’ beacon–

–That blipped, blipped, blipped, but it was an old car, and the warning light was more wrong than right and so Spike ignored the way he had to squint at the little light he saw in the Slayer these days. It was just a sharp little poke to his senses whenever he saw her and so he would lower his lids slightly or squint maybe the way one does when looking into a sun that was not high enough to hurt, but hot enough to ping and send out the small caution to stifle, stifle, stifle the light.

But as a moth is drawn to light.

A vampire is drawn to pain...

And so the small problem that began with not being able to look at the Slayer accelerated into not being able to look away.

Spike’s problem began with hating her hair, the shine and bounce and whip crack the spark that caught his eye and hurt his heart...that was the problem.

Or maybe it was how she danced...how she was able to fight, but not with him.

Oh yeah, that was the problem.

Or maybe it was the scent of her. Her scent that was cast like flowers before her singing out; oh lookee something’s growing underfoot and he wanted to stomp it before it tangled his feet and pulled him down and into something like suffocation.

Or maybe it was how she dominated the space, every space she walked into and all eyes went off him and on her.

Maybe it was that, maybe it was this terrible feeling of disappearing inside her, of how she was becoming more important to himself than himself and what would happen to him if he wasn’t the center the world? Of course a man should be the center of the world...of course he is and when a woman walked in and filled the space that was his right, wasn’t that same as stealing?

Wasn’t that the call to smack the girl down?

So maybe that was Spike’s problem. He wanted his old job back, he wanted his calling to call out the girl. The girl. He wanted to put a stop to her being the center of the world for a while, just a while...just until the next one...

 

So maybe the shine and sparkle of her was his problem, catching his eye, hurting his head, swelling his nether regions, invading every aspect of his senses, creeping into dark places and lighting a match and hollering out in that little light perky voice; ‘hey, is there a gas leak in here?’

She felt like chaos and an accident waiting to happen and while that was his natural habitat–it was HIS terrain and home team terror colors.

And so maybe his problem was because she was there, always there, glinting and winking at him and always, always, just out of reach and so maybe this was a case of old fashioned frustration.

  

The natural order of things had been disrupted and so maybe--

--Maybe his problem had begun before this recent thing, before this blink against her light thing--maybe his problem was the chip maybe; the chip and him in a cage and going half mad half the time and shall we name it?

The terror.

No one knew and he barely acknowledged it to himself because it was a terrible truth that some wild things went mad behind bars. Pacing back and forth and never, never, never out...never free...

He had been in danger of going mad those first months after being chipped, the terror of the chain and only his deep seated need for survival, his adaptability and...loathing of the Slayer had focused him to the thought, to the probability, that things changed...if you made them. So he paced...like a primal thing sometimes, like a crazed thing most times–he paced the city streets, looking, looking at the pretties, at the nubile blessings of blood that walked upright all around him and always, always he thought: ‘there must be some way out.’ There must be.

And so like a half mad thing caged and panting and pacing behind bars and bored beyond

imagining, he considered the small things passing his cage to catch his attention and entertain him as benediction and salvation.

The dust motes molting and catching the late afternoon light. That was a bloody frolic.

The fly and the spider in the corner of the crypt and will it? Won’t it? And watching one insect fly away and never know just how close it had been to being entangled forever in long spidey arms and then watching another fly, zoom in to lose itself in the fascination of the vortex of her web and too close now and–snag! And then of course, it was just a matter of the spider closing quarters and biting the poison in and then cocooning the wee beloved with a tea cozy for a later snog and sip.

And why one bug and not the other?

From behind the bars of boredom and chipdom and nowhere to go, no one to kill, Spike watched the web in the corner of his crypt and wondered deeply about this. The way the prisoner of Zenda might consider the cracks in the brick wall better than a back to back late night telecast of old Bela Lagosi flicks–Spike studied his new friends in the corner and asked in the genuine flabbergast of the recently gob smacked.

“Why you, mate?”

He walked up to the web and watched the sweet black spider, her long elegant arms, sharp and beautiful too, wrap herself around her new conquest and so the fly was held tight, tight and in that moment was the most important thing in the spiders consideration until the cocoon was complete and the spider crawled back to the top of her web to wait.

Just wait...that’s all she bloody did. The spider luring the fly was all hype and hoopla--she just waited. The fly bollocks it up all by himself by running pell mell into brick.

“But...why you mate? Why you? Why din’t you see it coming? You were hoverin’ long enough looking at the bloody setup...no use denying it, mate, I saw you. Must ‘ave spent a good ten minutes, flying this way and that and all about the bloody bitch and her ways and still you went in.”

But like hollerin’ at the telly or giving advice to the lovelorn in his favorite soaps–it didn’t seem to take; the characters in question weren’t listening and so he was left to his own deep, deep bafflement at the fly who knew the news before him and flew in anyway.

Well, that answered a question of a kind...the wee one got caught in the muck of his own mental density or hubris or maybe it thought it was role playing Ben Hur and the chariot race a mere showcase for it’s bravado and while that could be true, still it didn’t answer the question of why this one and not that?

Or did it?

And so when he reached the brick wall of diminished return of the lab subjects in question; one can only contemplate the crawling things of the world for so long and then want up the evolutionary ladder--he walked out into the larger world and watched the night life and of course, of course, there she was, The Slayer herself.

Fascinated now...he began to watch her and the light and double snap of her wise cracking ways became his new distraction, his new clue to the greater question of ‘why this one and not that?’

And so Spike and Jack Daniels would sit together and hold hands on a picnic like, atop a crypt, say, and stare down into the center of things and watch the action of the night life unfold before them and sure as sure and as soon as the Slayer appeared, vampires, demons and the whatnot walking demonic disaster would appear as if from thin air and hover and hover and then fly into her arms.

Huh.

How about that?

The Slayer didn’t so much as go hunting...as she did, say, go for a walk, a night time stroll and sure as sure...the undead...came to her.

Spike and Jackie D considered that as they shared a drinking pause and belch.

Well...hadn’t he himself, William the Bloody sought her out?

But that was different, wasn’t it? When he had gone looking for the Slayer he had done so with a deadly purpose and a vision of glory.

These vamps, certainly all other vamps ran from the Slayer when they were conscious of her and one would think they would need to put as much distance as they could twixt themselves and her night light–but no.

They came to her.

They came to her, drawn on an invisible bead and almost without knowing. He could see all this from his perch and very clearly, they came to her.

Spike thought about that and watched while Buffy executed a fine double backflip gathering up her chi to triple stomp a seven foot Gorthak demon dead on the chest knocking him flat and then slicing off his head as a clean sweep and clean up crew.

“Oh...aye...that was bloody well done, Slayer...oh aye; Jackie D–did you see that, mate?”

And here Spike applauded and then turned the label of the bottle of whiskey, his best brethren these days to espy the Slayer now staring up at him from where she still stood atop the oozing carcass.

She had that stiff look tied on coupled with her cold eye and buttoned tight little red bow of a mouth and Spike felt himself grow hard looking at the scene but that wasn’t unusual...good fight and good sight did that to a man...nothing to be alarmed about. Nothing that hadn’t happened around her before.

 

“WHAT is your problem, Spike?” Buffy asked coldly.

Oh...oh...OH...the temptation, the NEED to go through the very long list of his growing problems was so, so tempting Spike took another drink instead and said.

“Nuthin’ Slayer....ahhbsoluttley...nuthin’...I’m in the bhest of all possible whrolds...I’m bloody Candide fhuckin his way through the soddin world...plenty of free time and nowt’ to worry me a’tall and then THERE’S YOU. “

He said this last bit with such deadly intensity it sharpened her attention and her hand went to the wooden stake in her waist band...but did not draw it out--it was just Spike after all.

And that got him. That alert and then the alarm going off--because it was just poor ole Spike and nothing to worry her pretty head about at’all and that did it.

“You are my problem, Slayer...you are my one and only PROBLEM. ‘Nowt else...jus you my one ‘an only luv...”

Buffy’s eyes narrowed and then she did a neat flip off the dead demon to land square in a flat clearing in the graveyard and looked up at Spike with a little bitty of a tease.

“Come on down, Spikey...cuz I don’t think I’m your problem...I could care less about you, you’re out of the game now cuz poor, sad Spikey can only watch from the sidelines like an old man moaning about his glory days...YOU are your own problem Spike....hey...come on down here, come on Spikey and let’s have a face to face about putting your problems behind you.”

Spike stared at her in silence, his eyes hot and hard in his cold face.

When he said nothing, did nothing, Buffy said simply.

“I don’t wanna kill an...impotent creature, so stay out of my way and don’t think I haven’t seen you watching me--and that one night, last week–did you actually bring a date? Some ditzy idiot blonde? I saw you watching me and necking and am I a drive-in movie? NOT! And I don’t like you hanging out with people so...just remember, Spike, I slay my problems.”

And then Spike shifted suddenly and smiled warmly and said thoughtfully.

“Well, I drink mine...so no worries? Right, pet? Just watching, Slayer, don’t get your knickers up yer crack...what? You were bloody brilliant tonight, luv a fantastic action hero to boot all and sundry and I thought all hero types loved an audience and so think of me as the traveling bard to be...carrying tales of you to future generations...carrying your light into the future without you. Somebody has to tell your tale after you’re...well...gone...that can be me, luv...I’m your ihhmmortality...mhhakes me a best friend of sorts, don’ it? I’m your life alive and shining your light in the world, thas’ my self appointed lot...coz...here’s the real trick, you’re a bloody brilliant light playing background and I’m the only one around who understand jus’ that, coz I’ve seen them all, haven’t I then? An’ you’re best, luv, you are, you are the bloody best I’ve ever seen an’ I’ll let the world know all about it an’ so you should be thankin’ me...not...you know...shakin’ a stick--”

“–Shut up Spike...I swear to god, if you don’t shut up–“

 

“What? I pay you the highest compliment I can and–“

“--I mean it.”

Buffy said in stone and Spike cocked his head and then lit a cigarette and pulled in a puff and then looked at her...she was still staring at him...but he could see that his words had passed through her steel and into her secret place.

Her love of the world included her being in it.

“You got anything else to say?” Buffy finally asked, looking, pleading for a fight.

Spike puffed his cigarette again, considered her and then said kindly but with a growing fever that gave his own feelings away.

“Wish I could fight you pet, I do...wish to god, I could give you what you need...but see, and here’s where we’re the same all over again..I wanna live too...see pet?”

And then he paused and there was a soft strange pang somewhere in there, somewhere in his heart and then he added softly.

  “I know.”

And it was the truth again, but his truth this time...his naked self set next to hers and so she paused. She stayed the hand that could stop his words forever because in the end and always she was Buffy the Vampire Slayer and she would not kill truth.

 

She looked at him with her brave knight light shining out at him and then the bitty blink against the Buffy Summer sky went magna and the air was bright around her and whiting out the night, burning back the black that had blocked his way to the sun for so long and for a moment, just a moment, it was day and he was facing High Noon for the first time in one hundred and twenty seven years and stunned into wonder he opened himself to it.

He blinked, shook his head and then rubbed his eyes with his right hand and when the light dimmed enough he looked back down to where she had been standing.

She was gone.

Huh.

And then without thinking about it, he stood up on the crypt...set the bottle of Jack down, looked around the graveyard and then leapt to the ground to go find her.

*

 

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This story continues in ‘Buffy’s Problem’ with a caviot or two...which is the artistic license I’m taking for the Skein... but this is it for this one...

love,

lizerrr