FIC: "Parallax" Giles/Spike, Dark Angst, Unhappy, rated R for emmessann
Title: Parallax
Author: Phen-Dog
Rating: R
Pairing: Giles/Spike
Disclaim: Not mine. No money made. All hail lord Joss.
Warning: Not happy fic. Dark. Angst. No joy.
Summary: When a vampire and a human become lovers, there will always be, in the end, an inevitable choice to be made…
This is for emmessann who has been more patient than I deserve by a long shot. This was to be a fic for the_fund and was due months ago. Unfortunately, my muse died and now, many months later is just now crawling from her grave. In repentance I crawl to emmessann’s temple on bloody knees, and lay prostrate before her shrine with this humble offering, hoping that it might please. I promise the fulfillment of the other two requests (smutty G/W and a special alternate ending to FtB) will follow and beg forgiveness! In the meantime, here is the first, G/S darkfic. (And don’t worry about the word count. You’re more than due any over writing I might manage.)
Also, a very special thank you to lawyergirl15 for a great and speedy beta job! There are a lot more commas and "t"s than before she started ;^)
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He hates the rain - hates the way it obscures even vampiric senses, hates the way it hides the trail of those he hunts, and even hates the negative effects he is sure it must be having on the leather in his coat and on his hair, which he can feel plastered in a quite undignified manner against his skull. The last, however, is just a fleeting thought until worry sets in again, and he moves doggedly forward, past the cemetery where he last saw signs, into the woods beyond, hoping desperately he’s still going in the right way.
*****
"Shouldn’t let myself get involved like this, Watcher," Spike commented in a moment of post-coital vulnerability. The detachment implied by the use of the title conflicted with his words as he lay in the man’s arms. "It’s not right. Makes me feel like bloody Belan."
Rupert cuffed him lightly on the shoulder. "I don’t appreciate being cast as Nalika. If it should ever get as melodramatic as all that, I’d prefer to just off myself now and be done with it, thank you."
Spike gave a soft laugh. "Actually, come to that, I’d help. I just mean…" he started to say, but then realized he didn’t know how the sentence ended. "Don’t know what I mean. Just that when it comes to mortals, I don’t usually keep them around. Easier just to shag, eat or vamp, and move on. But this..."
He didn’t finish, and he didn’t have to. Neither knew what it was that lay between them, only that they’d been carnally involved for over a year now. It was a relationship of some sort all right, but not one that was easy to define.
"Don’t worry, though," Spike continued after a brief pause. "When you die, I promise I’ll dispense with the hundred year rampage and limit myself to just sending some flowers and maybe giving a eulogy about your lovely cock and how much you liked to fuck. Bet Xander’ll turn a lovely shade of green," he said, savoring the thought with a smile. "Anya’ll probably like it, though. Too bad you’ll miss it."
"Yes, what a pity," came the dry response.
That was as much as they’d ever said about the issue of…whatever their relationship to one another was since the occasion a few weeks after their first time when Rupert declared it "Simple lust and nothing more." The rest of the time it was far easier just to rut and leave the rest in the dark, unsaid and unexamined.
*****
Jogging through the trees, the conversation flits through Spike’s mind now, for some reason.
In a way, he’d been mildly surprised that Rupert knew the legend of Belan and Nalika, for as much as the Council has made it their duty to exterminate vampires, they generally don’t have much interest in those parts of vampiric history and lore they don’t consider to be useful. Then again, Spike supposes that was part of what makes Rupert Giles different from the rest.
Belan and Nalika was one of the ancient tales circulated among the clans. Admittedly, most vampires sneered at the weakness that would lead one of their own to love a human - mortals were primarily for eating, and only secondarily for purposes such as sex - but few doubted its validity. Vampire myth is different than that of the humans, consisting of stories, that, although hundreds of years old, have been told by those who have roamed the earth long enough to have potentially lived them or to have known those who had.
One thing that had happened in the story that comes back to him with chilling recollection is that Belan had been ostracized by his clan and many times thereafter the other vampires had tried to attack Nalika, trying to take revenge on her for so warping one of their kind.
How ironic. Rupert’s been taken, by a nest of vamps who want to mock Spike, a former Master of their race, for consorting more than they felt he ought to with a human. They wish to show him to be weak and to prove the relationship to have been obscene. If he were the vampire they thought he ought to be, he would have killed Rupert long ago, and if he were the vampire he ought to be, he would not mind losing him now, save as a matter of pride for having been bested. They told him as much when they had burst in on them and taken the man with them.
A good many of them were still in Rupert’s flat, occupying it now as so many piles of dust, but in the end there were too many. Now Spike garners hope only from the fact that he has not yet found a body. He’s not even sure how he feels about what happened, his mind still flailing to process it. He knows only that he must stop the worst from happening. He tells himself that it was, after all, entirely his fault that this whole thing started in the first place.
*****
Living with another person day in and day out can be difficult. Particularly when you don’t like that person much to begin with, and that person also has the annoyingly anti-social habit of chaining you up in the bathtub.
Not to mention that the conversation between them in those early days had consisted entirely of a contemptuous, contentious mockery that at sometimes degenerated so far as to call parental linage into question.
At first it had been like Spike’s own private version of hell - albeit possibly a less drugs in the blood and involuntary guinea pig type of hell than that which the Initiative had so generously offered. Though there was just about as much white tile.
But the taunting became familiar somehow, falling into a routine of quarrelsome snark such that on days they did not fight, Spike felt something was lacking. It was almost inevitable that he would eventually take it too far, and indeed, that day came when he mentioned Rupert’s weakness in the same sentence as Jenny’s death and found himself knowing it was a bad idea even as the words left his mouth.
Giles took no mercy then when biting back, mentioning Angel and the topic of Angelus, questioning what, exactly, he and Spike had done together during all those years. Spike’s primary response had been to say wouldn’t he like to know.
Spike didn’t remember the rest of what was said, only what was done. He reached out a hand and caught his fingers in the band of the other man’s jeans, yanking him close. The zipper came down easily and by the time Rupert recovered from the shock enough to bring up his hands and push him away, Spike was crushing him against the wall, mouth hard and firm against the Watcher’s.
With one hand his own jeans slid to his knees just as easily, revealing he wore nothing beneath. In one fluid motion he sank to his knees and twisted around, reaching out behind him to catch a fistful of shirt and pull Rupert down as well, his intentions unmistakable.
For a breathless instant he hadn’t been sure what would happen. Anything was a possibility at that point, really, but then he felt the firm grip of a hand on his hip and another behind, parting him. The sex was dry and rough, but he’d had that before and didn’t mind. It fulfilled an aching need in him that he’d barely known he had, and when at last Rupert slumped against him, Spike had been fully sated as well.
Afterward, Rupert pulled up his jeans, but Spike didn’t bother, and they both lay on their backs, on the floor, not touching and not speaking. That was the easiest choice, really.
When he woke in the morning, he was still on the floor and Rupert had gone, but Rupert must have at least thought he’d earned the right to be covered with a blanket for that’s how he found himself.
The next time it happened they made it all the way to the bed, at least, and the time after that. At some point Rupert must have bought a tube of lubricant to keep in the nightstand because it started appearing.
For the first few weeks, it was always hard and rough, a fiery contest of wills displayed in the act, sometimes with the prelude of a fight and sometimes not, always initiated by an unspoken agreement. But then, after a while, as Spike continued to sleep in the bed following such confrontations, Rupert began to reach for him, and a second type of sexual encounter began to occur, one which was more tender and gentle for both of them, involving passionate kisses and warm caresses. For a long time, the later type of lovemaking happened only in silence and only in the dark.
*****
He smells blood, the scent strong enough to cut through the rain, and even though he has yet to see a body, he knows. The only question is how bad it will be. He doesn’t have long to wait to find out.
As soon as he drops to his knees next to where Rupert’s body is slumped against a tree, Spike knows it’s bad. He can hear the rattling breath and see the purpling beneath the bare skin of the Watcher’s abdomen and the grey of his face. Considering the vampires went this far, he is surprised he found the man alive at all.
Spike’s first and immediate reaction is to slam his fist into the tree so hard the bark tears the skin from his knuckles and he feels the aching burn of the abrasion as it begins to bleed. The pain is good. It helps him think.
“Rupert,” he manages. “I’m sorry.”
“No more than I,” comes the raspy reply, an attempt at dark humor.
Spike moves from his crouch to sit next to him, running his hands over the body, having to convince himself of the horror. There is some blood on the surface, looking black in the night, though not much as the rain is doing an excellent job of washing it away. Spike knows, however, there is far more bleeding inside, where it can’t be as easily seen. Rupert is dying and he is in pain. Instinctively, Spike pulls Rupert against him, bare skin against the fabric of his shirt and leather of his jacket, regretting he has no body heat, no way to share warmth.
Rupert tries again to speak. “I thought…” he cuts off in a cough but continues, “I thought I would be afraid.” A few ragged breaths. “But I’m not.”
He knows then. And he’s accepted it. Spike has a sudden and inexplicable urge to hit him for that, because he hasn’t accepted it in the slightest…can’t accept it, but of course he refrains, and he overcomes the following urges to shout, to hit the earth, do violence to the trees…anything to avoid feeling helpless. There’s one thing he can offer, he knows. Two things really, and the second is something he almost wants to do without asking, but he knows that it has to be a choice.
“I’ll take your pain,” he says, whispering fiercely against Rupert’s cheek to be heard over the rain, “bring the darkness for you. The way you’re feeling…these last few minutes aren’t ones you want.”
Rupert merely sighs and seems to sink further against him, an action Spike takes as acceptance.
“But I need you to do one last thing for me. I need you decide. I’ll sire you as a proper childe. You’d make a hell of a vampire, Rupert, and I’d treat you well. An equal. Do you understand? I’m offering eternity. A chance to wake up again after this and continue on.”
“No!” The word comes out stronger than Spike had thought him capable of and there is a high note of panic in it. “Promise me, Spike,” he manages again pained, quieter, but demanding.
Spike sighs, but accepts the response. They’ve spoke of it before, after all. How the person who was is still there in bits in pieces, but is never whole again once the demon takes residence. What remains is a new entity, tied to the darkness. Rupert has always feared losing himself to that, so his answer does not surprise Spike, though it does sadden him terribly. He had thought maybe in this moment, with death at hand, perhaps it would be different. But it is not. “I swear it.”
His response is met only with silence, and Spike knows then that it is time. It seems in the present breathless moment as if the world in his mind has gone still, and in a way it is a relief, the decision made, the thinking over, which is good, because thinking is the one thing Spike can not afford at this moment.
Rupert’s head leans against his shoulder, the neck already exposed so invitingly close. It is a simple thing for Spike to lower his own head and brush his lips against the skin over the vein. The first sensation is one of clammy chill, an effect of the still pouring rain, but then the touch blossoms into one of feverish heat. Hungry, the demon emerges in a rush and brings forth with it the incredible sense of power and the ever-acute lust for blood. Giving in, Spike surrenders to that part of himself, letting his demonic aspect take over the task, for he knows that the more human part of him might falter.
Teeth part the skin easily, and though he worries about the chip, it seems to realize his intent is to soothe and give rather than to feast and take, and mercifully does not hinder him. Instead, Spike feels the life spilling forth, hot and eager over his tongue, sliding down his throat. He’s tasted the man’s blood before, but never like this. The demon rejoices, and in his despair, the rush of joy repulses him so much that he almost gags, but at last he regains control.
A vampire’s bite is not only anesthetic, but euphoric and Spike feels the initial tenseness in Rupert’s body give way as the muscles relax. Eventually, it is as if Rupert is pushing into him, begging him to drink more, faster.
When he reaches a specific point, Spike knows. He always knows; he is blessed with the rare gift to know the perfect moment for turning-the moment when the victim is still alive but has lost all will of his own. If he were to offer his blood to the Watcher now, the man would unquestioningly drink.
It is as if someone else is inhabiting his mind as he draws away, lifting fangs from Rupert’s flesh and putting them to his own, biting deep into the palm of his hand. The dark blood wells quickly, fast enough that the few drops of rain that hit it do nothing to dilute its color. Lightening flashes, and he sees the black show red for an instant while he stares.
Would the vampire Rupert curse him for breaking his promise? Spike knows he would not. His childe would thank him, worship him for giving the gift of eternity, the best gift that a vampire can give. And to have Rupert, to be able to keep him - Spike is just now realizing how much he wants that. How deep the relationship truly went. Maybe some parts would be lost in the transformation, but not that. That would only grow.
Spike had had no intention of doing this, but now that he’d tasted the blood, felt the life slipping between his lips so that the situation became so very, very real…It would be easy, so very easy….
*****
Spike used a black varnished nail to trace the outline of old black ink, stark against the pale flesh. The demon mark.
“Darkness to darkness calls,” he murmured. He’d not known which demon until Rupert had told him, but he understood the significance even before hearing Eyghon’s name. “You and I are not so different, really. Yours is on the skin, but you hide it. Mine is beneath the skin until I bring it forth, but we both have it, shining in us. Can you feel it?”
Rupert snatched his arm away, affronted. “That was a long time ago.”
Spike just stared at him, challenging, from where he lay, head propped up on his hand. “Are you saying there isn’t any of that person left in you? I can’t believe that.”
“Believe it,” Rupert growled, getting off the bed and throwing on a shirt. Spike didn’t fail to notice that the mark was now covered once again, though he didn’t know whether Rupert had done this consciously or not.
“You haven’t been a council innocent for a long time, if ever. Not since I’ve known you anyway. You embrace your inner coldness and hate and use it. It makes you a better fighter for your side, you know. If you had to do something…say sacrifice one of your innocents to save others…save that Slayer of yours for instance, could you?”
There was no answer, but Spike knew it without hearing the words.
“Do you honestly think we’d ever have ended up…” he paused for impact to make his meaning clear, “like this if there wasn’t a bit of a bad boy in you? It doesn’t make you weak…it makes you stronger. Balance in all things, after all.”
Rupert was against the dresser now, arms folded. His mouth was grim, but when he spoke, he was still not giving into Spike’s claims, but he was allowing them. “So if I have this ‘darkness’ as you call it, what do you suggest I do with it?”
“Give in to it a little; but that’s something you already do.”
“And if I lose myself in it? Go too far?”
“That’s always a risk.” Then he let his features grow sly, adopting the expression of the snake in the garden. “But I wouldn’t mind.”
*****
One of the upsides of being dead is that your body isn’t able to react as much to being nervous. The heart which never beats doesn’t begin to race, and the unneeded breath doesn’t come faster. But Spike is on the precipice of something big and he knows it.
As he raises his palm to bring it to the lips of the man who he will turn and claim, it is as if his hands are moving through water-slow, hazy, far away.
Again, the legend comes to mind. Hadn’t Belan also been faced with this choice in the end? When he found Nalika naked and nailed to the oak tree? In the version Spike knows, Belan had been too late to offer the choice, but had already vowed long before never to turn his love because in turning her, he knew he would change her and that as much as she might mimic her former self, she would be only a mockery, a perversion of the human he’d known. Not only that, but Belan was a believer in another myth…one as old as vampires themselves, and one which, through Angel’s experience, Spike also believes. The price for immortality is, ironically enough, condemnation in the afterlife, loss of whatever ultimate eternal reward one has earned.
A moment of clarity hits, and he jerks his hand back and clenches his fist. The wound is deep, and the accumulated blood squelches between his fingers and begins to make rivulets down his wrist.
This was why the vampires who took Rupert Giles had not killed him, but merely left him dying. They knew Spike would face the choice.
The thought that they had done it out of cruelty was sickening. The thought that they had done it as a test was moreso. Which decision would they consider passing and which would be failure? Were they trying to prove that he was a perversion, a traitor to his kind? Or did they believe they were giving him the chance to make it right, make his relationship as they believed it should be?
The demon roars and his bite this time is savage, tearing the flesh of Giles’ neck as he seeks to finish what he has started. He had given Rupert the choice and the man had made it. No matter how much Spike wants to sire him into the next life, he knoes he will never forgive himself if he does. His last gift can’t be a lie.
Spike feels the rush of blood growing sluggish; between the blood he is taking and the bleeding on the inside, the heart is slowing, giving way. He feeds slower now, almost in awe of his role, wanting this last experience to be tender and meaningful. Rupert shudders against him, and Spike knows it is his last breath. Tense muscles relax, and the weight against him grows heavier, more awkward.
Spike closes his eyes and put his hand to Rupert’s head, cupping it closer. The flow is slower now, but he continues to drink, wanting to take all that he can. Something irrational tells him it isn’t real yet; the moment won’t end until he withdraws. He regrets now the words that have never been said, the conversations that have never been had. In his own mind, the definition of what Rupert has been to him is not yet clear, but he knows now it was a lot more than he’d ever admitted. He knows he has lost something very precious.
He has no idea how long it has been when the exsanguinated flesh begins to pull at his fangs, protesting, but he can feel the rain winning, taking what heat the body possesses. And when he shoves the weight away from him, letting it flop to the ground, that’s all it is-a body.
Too long has he been chained from violence. Too long has the chip kept him tame. But it will not stop him now. There is vengeance to be had from this; his kind has punished him because they felt he was not one of them, but now he will show them just how much of a vampire he truly is.
The demon is fully present and dominant as he steps out from beneath the tree. Whirling in the direction he thinks they have gone, his coat flares behind him, and when the lightening flashes, he is caught for a moment in light brighter than day, bloody fist held forth. The demon roars and Spike roars with it, the sound primal, and thirsty.
They will pay.
*****
And Belan came to learn the greatest irony of all-it is those who are already dead who shall always be fated to outlive the living, for life is fleeting, but death eternal.
The Gods had frowned on the union of Belan and Nalika, and though Belan defied them, it was they who prevailed in the end, taking Nalika from his world into theirs, where she would be lost to him forever.
And so he remained on the Earth having lost his soul a second time, left to seek retribution in the only way he could-not against the Gods themselves, but against us who had been their instruments.
Madness overtook him, and he was as a plague on our race, making the night ring with our screams and blotting the moon with our ash, but in the end the price was never paid and he always remembered, for no matter how many he killed, he remained as he was: alone.
~~Excerpt from the Legend of Belan and Nalika as written and translated in English from Roma Vampirica from the scroll located in the archives of Council Headquarters, London, England, East Wing, 2nd Floor, Row 12A, Stack 341, Call Number DX203.2.B64, last checked out by Giles, Rupert E. May, 1987.
Author: Phen-Dog
Rating: R
Pairing: Giles/Spike
Disclaim: Not mine. No money made. All hail lord Joss.
Warning: Not happy fic. Dark. Angst. No joy.
Summary: When a vampire and a human become lovers, there will always be, in the end, an inevitable choice to be made…
This is for emmessann who has been more patient than I deserve by a long shot. This was to be a fic for the_fund and was due months ago. Unfortunately, my muse died and now, many months later is just now crawling from her grave. In repentance I crawl to emmessann’s temple on bloody knees, and lay prostrate before her shrine with this humble offering, hoping that it might please. I promise the fulfillment of the other two requests (smutty G/W and a special alternate ending to FtB) will follow and beg forgiveness! In the meantime, here is the first, G/S darkfic. (And don’t worry about the word count. You’re more than due any over writing I might manage.)
Also, a very special thank you to lawyergirl15 for a great and speedy beta job! There are a lot more commas and "t"s than before she started ;^)
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He hates the rain - hates the way it obscures even vampiric senses, hates the way it hides the trail of those he hunts, and even hates the negative effects he is sure it must be having on the leather in his coat and on his hair, which he can feel plastered in a quite undignified manner against his skull. The last, however, is just a fleeting thought until worry sets in again, and he moves doggedly forward, past the cemetery where he last saw signs, into the woods beyond, hoping desperately he’s still going in the right way.
*****
"Shouldn’t let myself get involved like this, Watcher," Spike commented in a moment of post-coital vulnerability. The detachment implied by the use of the title conflicted with his words as he lay in the man’s arms. "It’s not right. Makes me feel like bloody Belan."
Rupert cuffed him lightly on the shoulder. "I don’t appreciate being cast as Nalika. If it should ever get as melodramatic as all that, I’d prefer to just off myself now and be done with it, thank you."
Spike gave a soft laugh. "Actually, come to that, I’d help. I just mean…" he started to say, but then realized he didn’t know how the sentence ended. "Don’t know what I mean. Just that when it comes to mortals, I don’t usually keep them around. Easier just to shag, eat or vamp, and move on. But this..."
He didn’t finish, and he didn’t have to. Neither knew what it was that lay between them, only that they’d been carnally involved for over a year now. It was a relationship of some sort all right, but not one that was easy to define.
"Don’t worry, though," Spike continued after a brief pause. "When you die, I promise I’ll dispense with the hundred year rampage and limit myself to just sending some flowers and maybe giving a eulogy about your lovely cock and how much you liked to fuck. Bet Xander’ll turn a lovely shade of green," he said, savoring the thought with a smile. "Anya’ll probably like it, though. Too bad you’ll miss it."
"Yes, what a pity," came the dry response.
That was as much as they’d ever said about the issue of…whatever their relationship to one another was since the occasion a few weeks after their first time when Rupert declared it "Simple lust and nothing more." The rest of the time it was far easier just to rut and leave the rest in the dark, unsaid and unexamined.
*****
Jogging through the trees, the conversation flits through Spike’s mind now, for some reason.
In a way, he’d been mildly surprised that Rupert knew the legend of Belan and Nalika, for as much as the Council has made it their duty to exterminate vampires, they generally don’t have much interest in those parts of vampiric history and lore they don’t consider to be useful. Then again, Spike supposes that was part of what makes Rupert Giles different from the rest.
Belan and Nalika was one of the ancient tales circulated among the clans. Admittedly, most vampires sneered at the weakness that would lead one of their own to love a human - mortals were primarily for eating, and only secondarily for purposes such as sex - but few doubted its validity. Vampire myth is different than that of the humans, consisting of stories, that, although hundreds of years old, have been told by those who have roamed the earth long enough to have potentially lived them or to have known those who had.
One thing that had happened in the story that comes back to him with chilling recollection is that Belan had been ostracized by his clan and many times thereafter the other vampires had tried to attack Nalika, trying to take revenge on her for so warping one of their kind.
How ironic. Rupert’s been taken, by a nest of vamps who want to mock Spike, a former Master of their race, for consorting more than they felt he ought to with a human. They wish to show him to be weak and to prove the relationship to have been obscene. If he were the vampire they thought he ought to be, he would have killed Rupert long ago, and if he were the vampire he ought to be, he would not mind losing him now, save as a matter of pride for having been bested. They told him as much when they had burst in on them and taken the man with them.
A good many of them were still in Rupert’s flat, occupying it now as so many piles of dust, but in the end there were too many. Now Spike garners hope only from the fact that he has not yet found a body. He’s not even sure how he feels about what happened, his mind still flailing to process it. He knows only that he must stop the worst from happening. He tells himself that it was, after all, entirely his fault that this whole thing started in the first place.
*****
Living with another person day in and day out can be difficult. Particularly when you don’t like that person much to begin with, and that person also has the annoyingly anti-social habit of chaining you up in the bathtub.
Not to mention that the conversation between them in those early days had consisted entirely of a contemptuous, contentious mockery that at sometimes degenerated so far as to call parental linage into question.
At first it had been like Spike’s own private version of hell - albeit possibly a less drugs in the blood and involuntary guinea pig type of hell than that which the Initiative had so generously offered. Though there was just about as much white tile.
But the taunting became familiar somehow, falling into a routine of quarrelsome snark such that on days they did not fight, Spike felt something was lacking. It was almost inevitable that he would eventually take it too far, and indeed, that day came when he mentioned Rupert’s weakness in the same sentence as Jenny’s death and found himself knowing it was a bad idea even as the words left his mouth.
Giles took no mercy then when biting back, mentioning Angel and the topic of Angelus, questioning what, exactly, he and Spike had done together during all those years. Spike’s primary response had been to say wouldn’t he like to know.
Spike didn’t remember the rest of what was said, only what was done. He reached out a hand and caught his fingers in the band of the other man’s jeans, yanking him close. The zipper came down easily and by the time Rupert recovered from the shock enough to bring up his hands and push him away, Spike was crushing him against the wall, mouth hard and firm against the Watcher’s.
With one hand his own jeans slid to his knees just as easily, revealing he wore nothing beneath. In one fluid motion he sank to his knees and twisted around, reaching out behind him to catch a fistful of shirt and pull Rupert down as well, his intentions unmistakable.
For a breathless instant he hadn’t been sure what would happen. Anything was a possibility at that point, really, but then he felt the firm grip of a hand on his hip and another behind, parting him. The sex was dry and rough, but he’d had that before and didn’t mind. It fulfilled an aching need in him that he’d barely known he had, and when at last Rupert slumped against him, Spike had been fully sated as well.
Afterward, Rupert pulled up his jeans, but Spike didn’t bother, and they both lay on their backs, on the floor, not touching and not speaking. That was the easiest choice, really.
When he woke in the morning, he was still on the floor and Rupert had gone, but Rupert must have at least thought he’d earned the right to be covered with a blanket for that’s how he found himself.
The next time it happened they made it all the way to the bed, at least, and the time after that. At some point Rupert must have bought a tube of lubricant to keep in the nightstand because it started appearing.
For the first few weeks, it was always hard and rough, a fiery contest of wills displayed in the act, sometimes with the prelude of a fight and sometimes not, always initiated by an unspoken agreement. But then, after a while, as Spike continued to sleep in the bed following such confrontations, Rupert began to reach for him, and a second type of sexual encounter began to occur, one which was more tender and gentle for both of them, involving passionate kisses and warm caresses. For a long time, the later type of lovemaking happened only in silence and only in the dark.
*****
He smells blood, the scent strong enough to cut through the rain, and even though he has yet to see a body, he knows. The only question is how bad it will be. He doesn’t have long to wait to find out.
As soon as he drops to his knees next to where Rupert’s body is slumped against a tree, Spike knows it’s bad. He can hear the rattling breath and see the purpling beneath the bare skin of the Watcher’s abdomen and the grey of his face. Considering the vampires went this far, he is surprised he found the man alive at all.
Spike’s first and immediate reaction is to slam his fist into the tree so hard the bark tears the skin from his knuckles and he feels the aching burn of the abrasion as it begins to bleed. The pain is good. It helps him think.
“Rupert,” he manages. “I’m sorry.”
“No more than I,” comes the raspy reply, an attempt at dark humor.
Spike moves from his crouch to sit next to him, running his hands over the body, having to convince himself of the horror. There is some blood on the surface, looking black in the night, though not much as the rain is doing an excellent job of washing it away. Spike knows, however, there is far more bleeding inside, where it can’t be as easily seen. Rupert is dying and he is in pain. Instinctively, Spike pulls Rupert against him, bare skin against the fabric of his shirt and leather of his jacket, regretting he has no body heat, no way to share warmth.
Rupert tries again to speak. “I thought…” he cuts off in a cough but continues, “I thought I would be afraid.” A few ragged breaths. “But I’m not.”
He knows then. And he’s accepted it. Spike has a sudden and inexplicable urge to hit him for that, because he hasn’t accepted it in the slightest…can’t accept it, but of course he refrains, and he overcomes the following urges to shout, to hit the earth, do violence to the trees…anything to avoid feeling helpless. There’s one thing he can offer, he knows. Two things really, and the second is something he almost wants to do without asking, but he knows that it has to be a choice.
“I’ll take your pain,” he says, whispering fiercely against Rupert’s cheek to be heard over the rain, “bring the darkness for you. The way you’re feeling…these last few minutes aren’t ones you want.”
Rupert merely sighs and seems to sink further against him, an action Spike takes as acceptance.
“But I need you to do one last thing for me. I need you decide. I’ll sire you as a proper childe. You’d make a hell of a vampire, Rupert, and I’d treat you well. An equal. Do you understand? I’m offering eternity. A chance to wake up again after this and continue on.”
“No!” The word comes out stronger than Spike had thought him capable of and there is a high note of panic in it. “Promise me, Spike,” he manages again pained, quieter, but demanding.
Spike sighs, but accepts the response. They’ve spoke of it before, after all. How the person who was is still there in bits in pieces, but is never whole again once the demon takes residence. What remains is a new entity, tied to the darkness. Rupert has always feared losing himself to that, so his answer does not surprise Spike, though it does sadden him terribly. He had thought maybe in this moment, with death at hand, perhaps it would be different. But it is not. “I swear it.”
His response is met only with silence, and Spike knows then that it is time. It seems in the present breathless moment as if the world in his mind has gone still, and in a way it is a relief, the decision made, the thinking over, which is good, because thinking is the one thing Spike can not afford at this moment.
Rupert’s head leans against his shoulder, the neck already exposed so invitingly close. It is a simple thing for Spike to lower his own head and brush his lips against the skin over the vein. The first sensation is one of clammy chill, an effect of the still pouring rain, but then the touch blossoms into one of feverish heat. Hungry, the demon emerges in a rush and brings forth with it the incredible sense of power and the ever-acute lust for blood. Giving in, Spike surrenders to that part of himself, letting his demonic aspect take over the task, for he knows that the more human part of him might falter.
Teeth part the skin easily, and though he worries about the chip, it seems to realize his intent is to soothe and give rather than to feast and take, and mercifully does not hinder him. Instead, Spike feels the life spilling forth, hot and eager over his tongue, sliding down his throat. He’s tasted the man’s blood before, but never like this. The demon rejoices, and in his despair, the rush of joy repulses him so much that he almost gags, but at last he regains control.
A vampire’s bite is not only anesthetic, but euphoric and Spike feels the initial tenseness in Rupert’s body give way as the muscles relax. Eventually, it is as if Rupert is pushing into him, begging him to drink more, faster.
When he reaches a specific point, Spike knows. He always knows; he is blessed with the rare gift to know the perfect moment for turning-the moment when the victim is still alive but has lost all will of his own. If he were to offer his blood to the Watcher now, the man would unquestioningly drink.
It is as if someone else is inhabiting his mind as he draws away, lifting fangs from Rupert’s flesh and putting them to his own, biting deep into the palm of his hand. The dark blood wells quickly, fast enough that the few drops of rain that hit it do nothing to dilute its color. Lightening flashes, and he sees the black show red for an instant while he stares.
Would the vampire Rupert curse him for breaking his promise? Spike knows he would not. His childe would thank him, worship him for giving the gift of eternity, the best gift that a vampire can give. And to have Rupert, to be able to keep him - Spike is just now realizing how much he wants that. How deep the relationship truly went. Maybe some parts would be lost in the transformation, but not that. That would only grow.
Spike had had no intention of doing this, but now that he’d tasted the blood, felt the life slipping between his lips so that the situation became so very, very real…It would be easy, so very easy….
*****
Spike used a black varnished nail to trace the outline of old black ink, stark against the pale flesh. The demon mark.
“Darkness to darkness calls,” he murmured. He’d not known which demon until Rupert had told him, but he understood the significance even before hearing Eyghon’s name. “You and I are not so different, really. Yours is on the skin, but you hide it. Mine is beneath the skin until I bring it forth, but we both have it, shining in us. Can you feel it?”
Rupert snatched his arm away, affronted. “That was a long time ago.”
Spike just stared at him, challenging, from where he lay, head propped up on his hand. “Are you saying there isn’t any of that person left in you? I can’t believe that.”
“Believe it,” Rupert growled, getting off the bed and throwing on a shirt. Spike didn’t fail to notice that the mark was now covered once again, though he didn’t know whether Rupert had done this consciously or not.
“You haven’t been a council innocent for a long time, if ever. Not since I’ve known you anyway. You embrace your inner coldness and hate and use it. It makes you a better fighter for your side, you know. If you had to do something…say sacrifice one of your innocents to save others…save that Slayer of yours for instance, could you?”
There was no answer, but Spike knew it without hearing the words.
“Do you honestly think we’d ever have ended up…” he paused for impact to make his meaning clear, “like this if there wasn’t a bit of a bad boy in you? It doesn’t make you weak…it makes you stronger. Balance in all things, after all.”
Rupert was against the dresser now, arms folded. His mouth was grim, but when he spoke, he was still not giving into Spike’s claims, but he was allowing them. “So if I have this ‘darkness’ as you call it, what do you suggest I do with it?”
“Give in to it a little; but that’s something you already do.”
“And if I lose myself in it? Go too far?”
“That’s always a risk.” Then he let his features grow sly, adopting the expression of the snake in the garden. “But I wouldn’t mind.”
*****
One of the upsides of being dead is that your body isn’t able to react as much to being nervous. The heart which never beats doesn’t begin to race, and the unneeded breath doesn’t come faster. But Spike is on the precipice of something big and he knows it.
As he raises his palm to bring it to the lips of the man who he will turn and claim, it is as if his hands are moving through water-slow, hazy, far away.
Again, the legend comes to mind. Hadn’t Belan also been faced with this choice in the end? When he found Nalika naked and nailed to the oak tree? In the version Spike knows, Belan had been too late to offer the choice, but had already vowed long before never to turn his love because in turning her, he knew he would change her and that as much as she might mimic her former self, she would be only a mockery, a perversion of the human he’d known. Not only that, but Belan was a believer in another myth…one as old as vampires themselves, and one which, through Angel’s experience, Spike also believes. The price for immortality is, ironically enough, condemnation in the afterlife, loss of whatever ultimate eternal reward one has earned.
A moment of clarity hits, and he jerks his hand back and clenches his fist. The wound is deep, and the accumulated blood squelches between his fingers and begins to make rivulets down his wrist.
This was why the vampires who took Rupert Giles had not killed him, but merely left him dying. They knew Spike would face the choice.
The thought that they had done it out of cruelty was sickening. The thought that they had done it as a test was moreso. Which decision would they consider passing and which would be failure? Were they trying to prove that he was a perversion, a traitor to his kind? Or did they believe they were giving him the chance to make it right, make his relationship as they believed it should be?
The demon roars and his bite this time is savage, tearing the flesh of Giles’ neck as he seeks to finish what he has started. He had given Rupert the choice and the man had made it. No matter how much Spike wants to sire him into the next life, he knoes he will never forgive himself if he does. His last gift can’t be a lie.
Spike feels the rush of blood growing sluggish; between the blood he is taking and the bleeding on the inside, the heart is slowing, giving way. He feeds slower now, almost in awe of his role, wanting this last experience to be tender and meaningful. Rupert shudders against him, and Spike knows it is his last breath. Tense muscles relax, and the weight against him grows heavier, more awkward.
Spike closes his eyes and put his hand to Rupert’s head, cupping it closer. The flow is slower now, but he continues to drink, wanting to take all that he can. Something irrational tells him it isn’t real yet; the moment won’t end until he withdraws. He regrets now the words that have never been said, the conversations that have never been had. In his own mind, the definition of what Rupert has been to him is not yet clear, but he knows now it was a lot more than he’d ever admitted. He knows he has lost something very precious.
He has no idea how long it has been when the exsanguinated flesh begins to pull at his fangs, protesting, but he can feel the rain winning, taking what heat the body possesses. And when he shoves the weight away from him, letting it flop to the ground, that’s all it is-a body.
Too long has he been chained from violence. Too long has the chip kept him tame. But it will not stop him now. There is vengeance to be had from this; his kind has punished him because they felt he was not one of them, but now he will show them just how much of a vampire he truly is.
The demon is fully present and dominant as he steps out from beneath the tree. Whirling in the direction he thinks they have gone, his coat flares behind him, and when the lightening flashes, he is caught for a moment in light brighter than day, bloody fist held forth. The demon roars and Spike roars with it, the sound primal, and thirsty.
They will pay.
*****
And Belan came to learn the greatest irony of all-it is those who are already dead who shall always be fated to outlive the living, for life is fleeting, but death eternal.
The Gods had frowned on the union of Belan and Nalika, and though Belan defied them, it was they who prevailed in the end, taking Nalika from his world into theirs, where she would be lost to him forever.
And so he remained on the Earth having lost his soul a second time, left to seek retribution in the only way he could-not against the Gods themselves, but against us who had been their instruments.
Madness overtook him, and he was as a plague on our race, making the night ring with our screams and blotting the moon with our ash, but in the end the price was never paid and he always remembered, for no matter how many he killed, he remained as he was: alone.
~~Excerpt from the Legend of Belan and Nalika as written and translated in English from Roma Vampirica from the scroll located in the archives of Council Headquarters, London, England, East Wing, 2nd Floor, Row 12A, Stack 341, Call Number DX203.2.B64, last checked out by Giles, Rupert E. May, 1987.