FIC: Seen, HP/BtVS, Spike & Snape/Black, R

[kleio_the_muse]

This is it, my one and only crossover. I've never done this before and it's highly doubtful I'll try anything like this again. My only excuse is that it seemed like a good idea at the time:)

Title: Seen
Author: Kleio (kleio_the_muse)
Rating: R
Fandoms: HP/BtVS
Characters: Spike, Severus Snape/Sirius Black
Summary: Spike, the recently deceased vampire, is convinced that hate is just love with its back turned and that humans are bloody stupid.
A/N: Originally written for sirius_loving's "Why Sirius hates Snape" challenge. Thank you, musigneus, for the fantastic beta and trobadora for all her help and advice and just for being her amazing self:)

When a fellow's asked if he would care to be cooped up in some bloody trinket for the time being, while waiting to spend the rest of eternity in the flames of hell, "Bugger this!" is not the correct reply.

Spike knew that now (whenever now was) but back then he had been too full of redemption and heroism to pay much attention to what he was saying. After all, he had given his life saving the world, real champion-like, and he certainly wasn't about to take orders from some sodding Powers That May Or May Not Be. And so, with those two badly chosen words, Spike had ended up here (wherever here was).

In a way, it wasn't all that bad, really. A bit confusing, yeah, what with his having no body to speak of, and no mouth to speak with. At least he didn't crave blood, which was certainly a first in all his years of vampirism. He had no doubt he would end up paying dearly for what he had done, because that was pretty much given in the twisted and, frankly, quite unfair nature of life. Then again, what could possibly be worse than hell? As he figured it, the fire and torment weren't going anywhere in a hurry, whereas he was. Not so much going, though, as being - neither time nor space seemed to play a huge part in his current existence, and Spike had rather a pleasant feeling of being everywhere, all the time.

He had seen the gaping hole that was all that was left of the town he had blasted off the map and the yellow school bus that had carried the love of his unlife into a new life. He had tried his best to listen to the countless toasts made in the honour of the champion of the people, the epic poems composed to celebrate the most devilishly handsome hero, and the quiet tears shed in memory of the world's greatest lover.

The silence had been disquieting, to say the least. Not a drop of liqueur of even the cheapest kind, not a single verse, not a sodding sob. It had really made a fellow wonder whether it had all been worth it.

However, Spike had shortly found that stalking Buffy in the present (or possibly in the future, he couldn't quite tell) without being able to touch her or even talk to her (to be honest, he did talk to her, quite a lot actually; it was the bit about replying that didn't seem to work) was nothing more than a huge step backwards, only considerably more painful than most steps tended to be, unless one happened to be standing with one's back turned to a great roaring fire. And after a while a thought had occurred to him, which was always a bit of a shock in itself.

He was everywhere, right? And he was everywhen as well, right? Well, then there was no reason why he should settle for looking at the world from the outside when he had the whole of the Past, Present and Future at his feet (or roughly around the area where his feet should have been).

He only needed a small amount of concentration to see the Buffy of Christmas Past, all nice and cuffed in his crypt, before all that rubbish about it being 'wrong' and blah-bloody-blah. But after watching even that immensely delicious sight for the umpteenth time in slow motion, Spike had begun to feel the need for some variety, something a little less frustrating and knob-throbbing.

After spending aeons (or instants) surfing in the infinity of the time-space continuum, Spike found himself returning time and time again to one particular house (or maybe never leaving it at all - such a tricky little bugger, time).

The funny thing about this house was that it didn't quite seem to be there, which made Spike, rather incorporeal as he was, develop an instant liking to it. Everything looked perfectly normal around it, just another suburb on the outskirts of London, nothing to write home about. The scenery did look somewhat familiar, and Spike was fairly sure he had slaughtered a village that once stood upon that hill, but there was nothing out of the ordinary about that; if anything, it made the place even more normal by his standards.

What was odd, though, was the way the neighbours on each side of the house tended to chat with each other right over their fences - right across the whole width of that peculiar house. Now, unless these people were of the unbelievably lazy sort and equipped with extraordinary pair of ears, not to mention lungs fit enough to impress the operatic sort, they really didn't see the house and its front yard spreading itself between them.

There was no doubt in Spike's mind that house number 12 on Grimmauld Place was his kind of a house.

The people in it were interesting enough, to be sure. Most of them drifted in and out, treating the place like a big revolving door, but there was one who stayed and one who visited more often than the rest. Deprived of his beloved telly, Spike had found a new passion in his non-existence.

The two men stood in the middle of the kitchen, their noses nearly touching each other.

"I've warned you, Snivellus," said the one who stayed, a ruggedly handsome man with black hair. "I don't care if Dumbledore thinks you've reformed, I know better - "

"Oh, but why don't you tell him so?" said the one who visited, a hook-nosed man with greasy black hair. "Or are you afraid he might not take very seriously the advice of a man who has been hiding inside his mother's house for six months?"

"Oh, touché," Spike couldn't help adding. He had been meaning to confront the ruggedly handsome bloke ages ago over the issues he so clearly had with his dear departed mother. Spike had felt he might have been able to help, but then it had occurred to him that nobody would be daft enough to take advice from a ghostie (half the time even he wasn't all that sure of himself).

He concentrated on the scene again and found the two men with their wooden sticks out, pointing straight at each other.

To clarify, they tended to do this quite a lot, waving those things about in an evidently threatening manner. Both of the sticks were always quivering slightly, as if they were on the brink of locating the place for a new well. They never did seem to find it, though, and the sticks continued their fruitless throbbing. Spike knew how they must have felt.

When the sticks had made their first appearance, Spike's initial thought had been that the people of the house had seen him after all and were about to stake him. After the first fright had passed, however, he had stopped being startled by the sticks and moved on to mocking the pathetic size of those things, all length and no girth, only to remember that he was already dead and that size really didn't matter.

It appeared that they enjoyed doing it, these weirdoes who lived here, and every so often they would whip out the sticks and start pointing them at various things. With these two, they seemed to prefer each other above all else.

"Are you calling me a coward?"

"Why, yes, I suppose I am."

Ruggedly-Handsome had just raised his stick, evidently in an attempt to whack Hook-Nosed over the head with it, when a young boy with glasses suddenly sprang up from nowhere and squeezed himself between them, shouting something nobody seemed too keen on listening to, including Spike.

"Oh, please," Spike sighed. "Can't you two just drop the act and the sticks? I mean, it's so obvious even to the barely-existent fellow here that those aren't the kind of sticks you'd like to be rubbing together. Not hardly healthy, all that suppressed sexual tension. Just put the timber down and have at it already!"

The brat got shoved aside almost instantly, and Spike was already smiling to himself, certain that something was finally going to happen, when the kitchen door suddenly flew open and a whole army of red-heads came swarming in.

Needless to say, all was ruined. Sticks were lowered and Hook-Nosed was out of the house within minutes. The door actually hit him on his way out, but Spike wasn't impressed by the trick; he could clearly see Ruggedly-Handsome's lips moving.

Spike wasn't at all sure why this particular couple interested him so much. It simply made him so frustrated, watching them bicker like that over and over again, when he knew there was something at the bottom of it all that neither one of them was prepared to admit. Stupid, stubborn bloody humans.

Seeing no hope in hell for them in the present, Spike turned to watching the past lives of those two, determined to find more evidence there to support his case.

Next thing he knew, the two men were standing in what appeared to be a pretty poor kind of hospital with hardly any beeping devices whatsoever. Not much else seemed to be as it should, either. For instance, Ruggedly-Handsome was apparently in the habit of turning into a hefty-looking dog on occasion, which didn't surprise Spike, much. One minute there was a big black dog, the next quite a handsome black-haired man. It was rather like magic, really.

Also, in the bed in front of them was the same little nuisance who had just ruined the beginning of a beautiful shag. How he had found his way there, Spike didn't even want to know, but he'd be damned if he let some snotty-nosed brat bollocks this up for him again.

However, the boy was soon forgotten, as the old fuddy-duddy, who seemed to be in charge, urged them to shake each other's hand. The touch was very brief, each man pulling his hand away like pulling a pistol out of a holster, only in reverse and with apparent disgust, but it was more than enough for Spike to nearly stumble onto his backside.

"What the hell are you people on?!" Spike cried out, seeing that nobody else had made any attempt to shield themselves from the swarm of sparks those two had set loose in the room. "Didn't you see that flame, feel the heat? Duck and cover, people! Don't they teach you anything in school these days?"

But, not surprisingly, nobody paid any attention to him. The conversation had already taken a turn to something that held no interest for Spike, and so he moved on (or rather, back).

"Give me a reason," Hook-Nosed was whispering, once again pointing his stick at Ruggedly-Handsome. "Give me a reason to do it, and I swear I will."

"Well, it's about time!" Spike exclaimed. "Go on, mate, give him his reason and we'll all be the better for it."

The shabby house looked faintly familiar, and Spike was just wondering whether he had once had a taste of the people who used to live there, when he realised his boys weren't the only ones there. A man dressed like a rag collector stood a little too close to Ruggedly-Handsome than Spike cared for, and three little bits were huddled in the corner, all terribly upset and acting very childishly.

And Spike could've sworn one of them was no other than that little four-eyed boy that seemed to be following him everywhere he went, ruining any hope of ever hooking up these two.

Luckily, Hook-Nosed didn't seem to enjoy their presence any more than Spike did, and the unwanted ones were soon silenced.

"Vengeance is very sweet," Hook-Nosed breathed to Ruggedly-Handsome. "How I hoped I would be the one to catch you..."

"The joke's on you again, Severus," Ruggedly-Handsome snarled back. Then he said something about a rat that made Spike think of the days he had spent crazy in the school basement, living off those nasty little buggers, and he felt nauseous. "I'll come quietly..."

"No, you'll come screaming, you will," Spike added, repelling the memory of rat's blood from his mind and replacing it with something infinitely more exciting.

"Up to the castle?" said Hook-Nosed. "I don't think we need to go that far..."

"Damn right you don't! Just get these kiddies with their rat out of here, along with that grey pile of rags standing there, and you can shag this shack down. " Spike stopped to smile at the sudden memory. "Believe me, mate, that's definitely one to remember."

But again that same messy-haired boy stepped up, pulled out his stick and, with a little mumbo-jumbo, managed to bugger it all up. Just like that. Honestly, what was it with that brat?

Spike simply couldn't stay to watch the rest of the charade and in the next instant (or in the very same) he was already watching something completely different.

Dungeons, dungeons, and yet more dungeons. Ruggedly-Handsome appeared to have spent a good deal of time in the nick, and for murder, no less.

Spike had always known there was something quite appealing in that bloke.

As for Hook-Nosed, he just seemed to like it in the dungeons, spending most of the year in the basement of one heavily over-crowded castle, playing with wonky smelling juices and... Oh, the man had a thing for bondage fun!

Again, Spike had a nice tingling sensation in his invisible stomach, telling him that these were his kind of people.

Anxious to get to the point, Spike jumped further backwards, stopping only when some scene took his fancy.

This particular one was taking place under a tree - and as it was these two weirdoes he was stalking, it was literally under a tree.

The black-haired blokes were hardly blokes any more (or rather, yet - bugger the tenses). It appeared the now not so much rugged but still something of a pretty boy had lured the other one, who was still just as greasy and hook-nosed as ever, to take a little nigh-time excursion to said tree.

Spike watched Hook-Nosed disappear into a hole between the massive roots, while Pretty-Boy giggled round the corner, apparently extremely pleased with himself. Not long after a third boy followed Hook-Nosed under the tree, and Spike could've sworn it was that same nosy brat with the glasses that had come between the men in the funny house and destroyed any hope he had had of those two ending up buggering against the wall. How he still managed to look the same age, Spike would never know.

By now very much interested in finding out what was going on, Spike took a peek at the other end of the tunnel everyone seemed so fascinated by and was only mildly surprised to find a very big and very nasty case of werewolf, roaming inside a house that looked all roamed out already.

It had become evident that as unusual and messed up as Spike had thought his life to be, it really was nothing compared to theirs.

"I knew it! I knew there was more to this!" he hissed to himself, as there was no one else to whom he could've hissed. "You don't just go round killing people with werewolves. Takes more, that does."

He might be dead, or between levels of existence, but Spike damn well knew lust when he saw it. There was definitely something there, something strong enough to have those two hate each other's knotted guts and wave pointy sticks at one another for the best part of their lives. Hate like that didn't come from nowhere, that much Spike was certain of.

"They'll tell you how much they hate you," he continued his soliloquy, "how much you disgust them, how there'll never be anything between you and her... them. But come nightfall and there she... he is, ready to do all kinds of nasties with me..."

Spike had to stop to get his pronouns as straight as he was. They came close, which was good enough.

"Pretty-Boy wants you, all right?" he shouted at the quickly retreating back of the greasy haired lad, who was now running for his dear life. "He tried to off you! My god, what more does it take to make it grab you by the bollards?!"

To Spike's disappointment, the back showed no sign of hearing him. People could be so amazingly self-involved at times.

"Maybe he should, you know, grab you by your wrinklies and squeeze 'til you bloody well scream!"

But since Spike had always thought there was no use crying over unspilled semen, he moved on.

It was dark and empty in the halls of the overcrowded castle, with only two sets of footsteps echoing softly from the walls. The black-haired lads, looking roughly the same age as before, walked back and forth in the hall, evidently bickering, as before.

"Sneaking after us again, were you, Snivellus?"

"As if I cared in the least what you and your pathetic little gang were up to."

"Got lost on the trip to the loo, then? Five years in Slytherin and you still can't find your way to the potty. Honestly, it's a disgrace."

"Fortunately you Gryffindors don't even have to bother with bathrooms. I hear it starts to get rather foul up there in the tower by this time of the year."

"Why, Snape, you seem to have forgotten to shut your gob. Maybe I could help you with that?"

"You are more than welcome to try."

The sticks came flying out simultaneously; evidently both boys had been clutching them inside their funny-looking robes all the while. The air was quickly filled with a string of Latinish gibberish, followed by multi-coloured flashes of light that seemed to bounce from one boy to the other and back again. Obviously one of them managed to land, and with a wry smile, Pretty-Boy lowered his wand.

"Now, what sort of punishment does a sneaky little prat like you deserve?"

Hook-Nosed just stood there like a statue, his hand still raised and his stick still pointed at the sniggering lad. Spike thought he looked rather like an action figure gone horribly stupid.

But the smile soon died on Pretty-Boy's lips as a dark figure appeared at the other end of the hall. Panicking, he swung around, searching the walls around him for somewhere to hide.

The existence of the door seemed to take him as much by surprise as it did Spike. There had most definitely not been anything but solid stone where there now stood a rather large and oakish looking door. The lad wasted no time pushing it open, but then he hesitated.

"I'm not nearly done with you yet!" he whispered, grabbing the still stiff boy by the arm and pulling him through the doorway. The heavy oak slid shut silently, and when Spike looked at it again, he saw only solid stone wall.

"The lives these people lead," Spike sighed and moved through the wall.

On the other side of the door that wasn't there was a room that wasn't a room. It looked more like they had never left the hall at all: the stone floor, the high ceiling, the torches on the walls - apart from having any windows or doorways or dark figures at the other end, it looked exactly like the hall outside.

The hocus-pocus appeared to be wearing off, and Hook-Nosed was starting to return to life, moving very unsteadily, as if stuck in slow-motion. Nevertheless, as soon as he was mobile again, it was stick time.

"You will pay for that!"

"Why don't we settle this once and for all?" Pretty-Boy said, grinning nastily. "The honourable way."

Spike couldn't help but laugh as he took a good look at the two. The lads couldn't be more than sixteen, both rather pale and scrawny, and judging by the way their sticks trembled in their hands, more full of empty threats than any real magics. Spike was not expecting much of a show.

"I wouldn't have thought you even capable of grasping the notion of honour, Black."

With each word, the two sticks moved closer together as if being pulled by invisible strings. Finally the boys were standing not more than a couple of inches from each other, their sticks crossed right in front of their faces. Spike could see the bolts of lightning shooting from their eyes, could hear their teeth grinding, and for a moment it sounded like they were sharpening their fangs, preparing to attack one another, which made Spike lose his concentration for a moment.

"Snape."

"Black."

With a jerk Spike snapped back from his nice and bloody trip down memory lane and found the two sticks lying on the floor, their owners now beating the life out of one another with their bare hands. Inexperienced fists smacking onto skin, sharp fingernails tearing at the robes, and a steady stream of groans echoing from the empty walls. Spike felt so very proud.

"Well, finally!" he exclaimed with relief. "There's my lads!"

After a good while of rather pathetic punching, the boys ended up wrestling on the floor. Spike had already placed a considerable amount of imaginary money on Pretty-Boy, when the other one suddenly managed to fling himself on top of his opponent, pinning his hands above his head.

"Get off me, you twat! You're dripping grease all over me!"

Spike waited for an answer, as did the other boy, but Hook-Nosed made no attempt either to talk back or to move, and instead simply stared determinately down at Pretty-Boy's face. It was only a fraction of a second ahead of Pretty-Boy that Spike realised it was not the eyes the lad was looking at.

"What the...?"

That was all the boy could say before Hook-Nosed let go of him, pulling away as though with sudden disgust mixed with a horrid realisation that it was, in fact, himself he was disgusted with. He did not get far, however, and in an instant the roles were reversed and his greasy hair was spread over the floor as the still extremely surprised looking lad captured him under him.

"Bloody hell, Snivellus. If I didn't know better, I'd say you were about to--"

"Shut it! I was about to give you the trashing of your life!"

"No, you weren't," Pretty-Boy said knowingly. "You were about to snog me, you slimeball."

"Oh, please."

"What do you know, little Severus Snape doesn't like girls."

"Yes, I do! Not that it's any of your business, but I do!"

"Rubbish. I know what I saw. You're nothing but a poof, that's what you are!"

"Oh, not with the semantics!," Spike shouted in frustration. "He fancies you, you fancy him. What more do you want, you nit?"

"Stop that!" Hook-Nosed hissed. "Let me go!"

"Not until you admit that you were about to snog me."

"Stop saying that! If you must know, I was thinking of all kinds of nasty things I could do to..." Hook-Nosed paused when he noticed the other one's grin only widening. "That's not what I meant!" There was rather a theatrical struggle for freedom, which Spike didn't buy for a minute. "Oh, come off it, Black. Kissing somebody in the middle of a fight - that's such a cliché. When have you ever seen somebody do that?"

"Obviously poofs like you don't read Vixen. The girls' fights always end with a snog."

Spike watched the tiniest of smiles grow just below the hooked nose.

"And sometimes they do a bit more than just kiss."

"So, you have read Vixen, have you? Swing both ways, eh, Snape?"

The laughter was cut short as Hook-Nosed finally tore himself free of Pretty-Boy's hold and gave him a good, hard shove that sent him rolling across the corridor.

"No, but I'll be happy to take a swing at you, you dimwit!"

"That's right." Pretty-Boy pushed himself up against the wall, wiping the hair off his face and glaring at the other lad. "You just get all upset, you queen. That's what the girls in those pictures do, too. Next thing you know, you'll be tearing your clothes off for no apparent reason."

"I'll tear your damn head off!" Hook-Nosed shouted and made an attempt to that effect.

"No, Snape," Pretty-Boy said, grinning more evilly than ever. "They just pull each other's hair, that's how it works. See, you haven't been paying enough attention to them."

"Ah, and I suppose then they just suddenly forget why they were fighting in the first place and start kissing each other." Hook-Nosed gave the other lad a push, which was most likely intended as a hostile gesture, but Spike was fairly sure his hands stayed a little too long on the other one's shoulders to result in any actual pushing. "How very realistic."

"Don't you dare bring the real world into this!" Spike cut in. "Who the sodding hell cares about real when this is so much better?!"

"Yeah, like the fact that they're close to one another is enough to make them want to..." Pretty-Boy paused to swallow and gave the other something of a push, as well. Spike noticed his hands enjoyed lingering as much as Hook-Nosed's.

"To stop hitting each other with their fists," the other one continued in turn, "and instead press their lips..."

"Accidentally."

"Of course. Accidentally, they just happen to press their lips..."

"Even though they still hate each other."

"With a fiery passion."

"They hate each other even more, when they..."

"Accidentally..."

"Touch..."

"Mouth..."

"Lips..."

"Such a cliché."

"Yeah, but clichés happen, right?"

"They must. There wouldn't be any if they didn't."

"Accidentally."

"Naturally."

Spike had already lost track of who was supposed to be seducing whom, but honestly he couldn't have given a toss either way. Pretty-Boy grabbed the other by the front of his robes and threw him back against the wall. Without more ado, the lips pressed together harshly, clumsily.

"Bloody hell."

Reaching for the groin he didn't have, Spike thought how long it had been since he'd had a boy that young. In fact, he couldn't even remember what the lad had felt like, writhing under his cold dead body. All he remembered was the taste of warm, fresh blood, running out of the boy's throat and down his. As soon as he had thought of it, it was all there again, or rather, Spike was there again, thrusting himself into a boy that had been more than willing until the teeth came out.

"No!"

Spike pulled himself out of one boy and back to the other two, who he had left snogging safely but who had somehow managed to tear their mouths off each other and were instead standing there face to face, glaring at each other.

"You, you..." Pretty-Boy muttered, wiping his mouth. "What did you do to me?!"

Hook-Nosed merely stared back at him, but Spike could see the fists trembling against his sides, the knuckles turning whiter by the second.

"You stay away from me, Snivellus, or I'll make you regret it! I mean it! I see you sneaking after me one more time and you're history!"

The angriest and most confused laddie Spike had ever seen turned on his heels and stormed straight out of the room.

"Oh, good job. Absolutely bloody brilliant." Had he had a towel, Spike would've thrown it in already, preferably soaked in petrol and attached to a flame. "Why do I even bother? Never gonna get it, are you, you bloody wankers? No, just when something's actually about to happen, one of you panics and tries to feed the other to a sodding werewolf. Pathetic, that's what you are!"

Still cursing to himself, Spike turned to the one left behind, thinking that if he hadn't saved the lot of them from apocalypse, the world might've actually been the better for it.

"No," he said firmly, shaking his imaginary head to boot. "This is not how it goes. You two have something, and believe me when I say you don't really have much of a future ahead of you, either one of you, so you just get on with it right now. Fucking now!"

Some might have simply called it instant replay and left it at that, but to Spike it was a source of an odd sense of accomplishment as he saw the lads snogging against the stone wall again.

This was how it was supposed to be.

Except that the wall had grown a cupboard in it, and a lick of paint, and once redecorating, had decided to get rid of the stones as well. And most importantly, the young men standing in the kitchen formerly known as a hallway weren't all that young any more.

Pretty-Boy was still very handsome, though in a more rugged sort of way. Glancing at the other one, Spike found him to be just as greasy and hook-nosed as he ever was, only a bit taller. Spike was tempted to say the bloke had grown older as well, but actually, he was one of those rare cases who were born old and didn't so much get older as let their bodies catch up with the rest of them.

"I've warned you, Snivellus. I don't care if Dumbledore thinks you've reformed, I know better - "

"Oh, but why don't you tell him so? Or are you afraid he might not take very seriously the advice of a man who has been hiding inside his mother's house for six months?"

"Are you calling me a coward?"

"Why, yes, I suppose I am." Hook-Nosed's lips curved with a nasty grin. "Now, get down on your knees like a good little coward and suck me off."

Spike knew there was something not quite right about this, but he simply couldn't put his finger on it. It might have been possible that he was just seeing things, but Spike hadn't been crazy for months now.

"Make me," whispered Ruggedly-Handsome between his clenched teeth.

"Yeah, make him," Spike couldn't help repeating, in spite of the insanity.

Hook-Nosed shoved the man onto his knees and, holding him down by the hair with one hand, pulled his black robes up with the other.

"I believe I'm about to lose not only my patience but my balance here," he said in a quiet, chillingly matter-of-fact tone, as he reached down to pull out his erect cock and rub it against the kneeling man's tight lips. "And that might result in my flesh accidentally entering your mouth, should it be open at the time."

"You mean, if I was, for example, talking?"

It was the way Ruggedly-Handsome hit the last bit, wording it exaggeratedly carefully and then leaving his mouth just slightly open, that had Spike reaching down for his willie again (at least he liked to think that was what he was doing).

Seeing the rather handsome knob disappear into the equally handsome mouth, Spike wondered for a second whether something that was supposed to happen had not. Something involving red-heads, and possibly one messy-haired brat with specs, who had a habit of bursting in at the most inconvenient times. However, as the only bursting he could find was happening right in front of him, Spike let it go.

It had suddenly occurred to him what all this business about being outside of time and place was truly about. Something could only take place sometime, somewhere, but if neither of those had much say in the matter, anything was possible. And as Ruggedly-Handsome got up after a while, wiping the drops off his lips, and pushed Hook-Nosed face down onto the kitchen table, Spike realised that he was actually enjoying the prospect of these infinite possibilities.

He knew that sooner or later he would be snatched back by the Powers That Appeared To Be and put back into that gut-wrenchingly tacky thingamabob, because that was how these things worked. It wasn't fair but still, there it was. He would probably not even remember any of this when he was roasting in the fires of hell, because it was a tricky little rule of life that nobody ever learned anything that might have actually been in any way useful. But that hardly mattered for the time being, not when Spike had a ruggedly handsome man putting it to a violently screaming hook-nosed man right on the kitchen table.

It was just the way it was supposed to be. Any idiot could've seen it.

The End.