won't you join me now, baby's looking torn and frayed
I think it was mostly shock and exhaustion, but my head cleared as soon as I hit the pillow. I thought I was going to stay up, staring at the ceiling and thinking all night long, but I was out. For all of four hours. Didn't even dream
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"Yeah, it sounds like it would be pretty lonely. Spending all that time alone... but were you? Alone?"
I frown slightly.
"Wouldn't say I was lonely exactly, pet. Alone, yes. But I don't mind my own company. But I did miss... caring." Cigarette ash drops from the end of my fag onto the formica. I smear it away with my finger. "And yes, I was alone," I say. I know what she's edging around. Did I have a woman? And of course, I did. I'd had women, but only in the briefest sense. None of them made a bloody difference to my day. And why does Dawn care?
"Do you still love her?"
And there, another surprise question. I stare at her for a minute. She seems to be almost holding her breath. What is it she wants me to say? I dunno, so I can only tell her the truth.
"Buffy, you mean?" I rest my cigarette on the ash tray and fold my fingers together on the table. "Yes. Always will. One of the funny things about immortality is that your memory stretches longer. Dunno why. But I loved long even when I was a man, and when it was hopeless." I don't know why I'm telling her this. Insight into the soul of Spike and all that bollocks. "But it doesn't hurt now, not really. I still love Dru too, you know, though I wouldn't go back to her - even if she'd have me." I offer the last with a lopsided smile. "Just the way I am."
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One corner of my mouth curls up into a smirk. Guess not.
And I know he's lying about being alone. He's not the type to wall himself into a cave for three years. Several months, yeah, but not three years. I suppose it all depends on your definition of 'alone'. It feels oddly satisfactory, that he's been lonely, not for company, because there was plenty of that, I'm sure, but for a connection, since he left. Like, hah, that's what you get for leaving.
"Of course," I say softly. I have nothing to say on that subject, so I rewind mentally to the Carnivale part. "If you think I hadn't figured it out, about the light and dark sides, you must think I'm really slow." I look at the smoke curling up from his cigarette, the embers burning in my eyes. "Everything has a shadow."
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Her eyes glitter.
"Guess you think you know a lot about the dark, pet," I say coolly. "Cos you stake vampires and you go clubbing and probably sleep with boys your mum wouldn't have liked." The hard, brittle shell around Dawn is making me angry. She thinks she knows what darkness is, but she hasn't even begun. But her attitude means that she's more likely to fall, cos she reckons she's seen it all. Probably thinks she knows my darkness. But she doesn't. None of the Scoobies ever really saw it, cos even before I had the chip I was hampered by my disability and my hatred of Angel. None of them ever saw me at my best - or I could call it my worst.
I stub out the cigarette hard.
"We should go," I say abruptly, tossing some notes onto the table for the waitress to pick up. My blood was up again. I felt on edge. I wanted to hunt. No, that wasn't right. I wanted to kill. Preferably something that would fight back, even give me a black eye or two, so I'd stop doing this sodding self-analysis and feel like myself again.
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The way Spike talks, the way he looks at me, it pisses me off. I don't think I know everything, but I know a lot more than fourteen year-old Dawnie knew when her vampire babysitter took off. And then he comes back and acts like everything I've been through is so fuckin' insignificant. Yeah, you're hot shit now, little girl, keep fooling yourself.
"Yeah, okay," I say, and the words come out angry and clipped. I know more than you think you do. And not because I 'go clubbing' and 'sleep with boys'. No matter how much shit I go through, it'll never be enough, will it? I'm never going to be anything other than a little girl with delusions of grandeur in anyone's eyes. In Spike's eyes.
I push away from the table and step out of the booth, brushing past Spike. "Off to do Big Bad Vampire Things?" I call out over my shoulder. I don't care. Watch me not care.
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"Yeah, something like that." My voice is hard. She still thinks I'm the Spike who babysat her. But a lot has happened to me. To think, I could hurt her now if I wanted to. And it's tempting, to show her what danger is really like. I can see the vein in her throat pulse.
Bloody hell. Bloody sodding hell. I can't be thinking like this. This is Dawn.
But why shouldn't I think like this? That's what I'm supposed to think. I'm a vampire, for fuck's sake. I'm meant to want to kill girls. But Dawn managed to worm her way into my heart years ago and I can't bear the thought of hurting her. But at the same time I sort of like it.
"I'm going to do a bit of slaying," I say coldly. "Reckon the town could do with a clean up." That's cruel, and deliberately so, and when I say it I regret it. Dawn shouldn't have to feel bad because she's not slaying enough. She should feel bad because she does it at all.
"Look, I'm sorry," I say stiffly. "I just... I'll see you later, alright?"
I pull on my duster and leave the restaurant without looking back.
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