Author: Trepkos
Pairing: Spike/Riley
Rating: NC17 overall
Standard disclaimer: no profit made, no copyright infringement intended.
Feedback: It’s what I live for
Previous parts:
Reflections 1: Down the Rabbit-hole
1/4 2/4 3/4 4/4Reflections 2: Through the Looking Glass
1/5 2/5 3/5 4/5 5/5Reflections 3: Sentence First! Verdict afterwards!
1/4 2/4 3/4 4/4Reflections 4: Where do we go from here?
1/4 2/4 3/4 4/4Reflections 5: On the Road to Los Angeles
1/4 2/4 3/4 4/4Reflections 6: The Players Assemble
1/4 2/4 3/4 4/4Reflections 7: Reunion
1/4 2/4 3/4 4/4Reflections 8: Things Fall Apart
1/4 2/4 3/4 4/4Reflections 9: Caritas
1/5 2/5 3/5 4/5 5/5Reflections 10: Trials
1/6 2/6 3/6 4/6 5/6 6/6Reflections 11: Promises
1/3 2/3 3/3Reflections 12: Compensations
1/3 2/3 3/3Reflections 13: Leave-taking
1/2 2/2Reflections 14: The Way Home
1/4 2/4 Reflections 14: The Way Home 3/4
They’d stopped for the night, just one more drive from home. Spike had dropped his bag, glanced briefly at the mini-bar prices, snorted and gone out again.
‘Just be a minute’, he’d said; but it had been well over an hour.
As Riley paced their hotel room, wondering whether to go looking for him, he couldn’t for the life of him stop Gene Pitney’s mournful falsetto from wailing ‘Twenty-four hours from Tulsa’ in his head.
He was just scribbling a note to leave for Spike so he could risk taking a turn around the block, when a jolt from the ring warned him Spike was back in range, and in a highly agitated state. Riley flung the door open and Spike hurtled along the deserted passageway towards him.
He was wired and vamped, and that wasn’t in any way reassuring.
“Shit, Spike, where d’you get to?” He dragged Spike inside the room and shut the door. “I was getting worried. What have you been up to? Growing the hops and brewing the damn beer yourself?”
But Spike was too tense to laugh at the anxious quip.
“Sorry; didn’t get the stuff: beer, potato chips, papers; nothing.” He looked around him wildly. “Riley: I think I’ve fucked up. Really fucked up.”
Spike’s air of desperation was chilling. Riley had to take hold of him just to stop his frantic and random pacing, and get Spike to look him in the eye, even for a second.
“Cool it, Spike; tell me what happened. What did you do?”
“There was this girl. She was in trouble.” Spike’s eyes darted around the room as though looking for someone to blame. “I couldn’t stand to hear it. Had to stop it -”
“Spike, what did you do?”
He shook Spike to snap him out of his funk, and Spike looked at him steadily at last, yellow slotted eyes wide.
“Not tellin’ you.”
Disturbed to see such heart-shrinking despair so clearly expressed, even on Spike’s changed countenance, Riley felt the blood drain from his face. “You didn’t kill her?”
“No! Not her.”
“But … you killed somebody?”
“You don’t wanna know.”
“Spike, please, I have to know.”
Riley didn’t like the edge of hysteria - honed by Spike’s obstinate silence - in his own voice. He took a couple of deep breaths, trying to get a grip. At least one of them had to stay calm. Slowly and patiently, he explained - “If someone’s been killed the police will be involved, and if they link it to us … well, I have to know what I’m to say: what I need to lie about.”
Spike shook himself and frowned, processing, then - looking a little reassured - he pulled his shoulders back.
“Okay, so … truth is? I … don’t know.”
~~
He hadn’t been looking for trouble; he’d been looking for beer: nothing wrong with that. The mini-bar prices at this new place? - Now they were criminal, so he’d gone out to find a store and pick up a few flip-tops and whatever else they might fancy.
Hadn’t meant to take too long about it, but a spanking new Beamer caught his eye, and when he stopped to admire it, the battery of smells overlaying one another hit him like a succession of slaps in the face with a wet fish. Mingled with ‘new-car’ aroma and the anodyne ‘Forest Glade’ deodorizer was the pungency of strong disinfectant, which entirely failed to mask the unmistakable stench of day-old blood, from a lethal injury: most likely a gut wound, judging by the distinctive emanation.
It was coming from the trunk of the car.
Feeling inexplicably compelled to investigate, Spike started walking round the vehicle to see if there were any open windows or unlocked doors, and before he got halfway, he heard noises: but not from the car; they were coming from a nearby alley. Someone - a girl - was babbling sobs and pleas, the words tripping over one another in their haste to come to her aid. It was in some southern European tongue, but Spike didn’t have to speak the lingo to know that she was begging for her life. As a universal language, fear left Esperanto in the dust.
There were jeering male voices as well; two - no, three - of them.
Spike slid round the side of the alley and let his demon senses have free rein. Yes, there were three men, none of them facing his way, and he could just make out a girl backed up against the wall.
Her terrified whimpers did strange things to Spike’s insides, and as for the smell of her fear ...
“You first Jack,” one of the men said. There was the sound of a belt buckle being undone and then a zip. The men began to close in around their prey and Spike saw the telltale glint of steel from a knife one of them was holding behind his back where the girl wouldn’t see it.
This was going to be nasty. Make the girl give them whatever they wanted then gut her, same as the last one. They were a piece of work, all three of ‘em.
Someone ought to do something …
Spike took an involuntary step forward: then he stopped himself. This was out of his jurisdiction: human stuff - not a gang of demons on the rampage. Not like he knew the bint, or owed her anything.
Wasn’t his affair: was it?
But there was no one else around, and he knew - from over a century of experience on the other side of the tracks - that blind alleys the world over, just like this one, had learned to turn shuttered eyes and deaf ears to the suffering of anyone unfortunate enough to get into difficulties within their narrow confines.
And such blindness was evidently contagious.
Spike shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts.
What would Riley do? What would Riley want him to do?
Cursing himself for having left his mobile at the hotel, Spike waited, in the faint hope that someone else might come along and pitch in; waited for some flash of insight to help him. In earlier times he’d have pretended to rescue the bird: killed and eaten her attackers and then finished her off - her blood sweet with stillborn relief - for dessert.
But somewhere along the line, something had changed, and now the victim’s terror tasted bitter on his tongue; felt like ice in his guts.
It made him sick.
The girl had fallen or been pushed to her knees, not begging now, but still using her mouth to try and persuade her captors to spare her. Spike felt his stomach turn over at the cat-calls, and the gagging sounds as she sobbed around the man’s dick.
Poor chit was helpless.
It was like a light being switched on in his head. The mission was clear.
He was going to play the white hat: put a stop to it. Riley’d do it, wouldn’t he? He’d wade in; wouldn’t let a person come to harm if he could prevent it. Riley had done it: for him, that night in the cells.
Three to one was okay; with the advantage of surprise he shouldn’t even break a sweat. Just have to pick his moment, and watch out for that blade.
The girl was starting to choke.
“Jeez! You suck!” - one of the men said: “- badly!”
That wasn’t very nice at all.
There was a half-brick lying conveniently in a doorway, and Spike silently collected it.
“The little Philippino we did last night was better than you.”
It’d be satisfying to draw their attention: tell them: ‘Still did ‘er in though, didn’t you?’ - just to see the looks on their faces when they saw what they were dealing with: but that would be stupid, and the girl might pay the price.
No unnecessary risks.
“Didn’t even make a noise when we nailed her ass,” one of them said.
“Well, her mouth was full,” another said, chortling as though it was the wittiest comeback ever.
That did it.
No introductions, no banter: Spike took them from behind.
Maybe he’d forgotten how hard he could hit when he wanted; and maybe he didn’t care too much, but two of them were on the ground within seconds.
The third one yanked his prick out of the girl’s mouth and whipped around to see who had blind-sided his colleagues. As he backed away, pants undone and bow-tie askew, Spike recognized his puffy Frat-boy face. He’d seen that ugly mug before, in Cleveland: leering through the side of the wrought iron elevator cage as the owner of the said face reached through to maul and abuse the only being in that house of pain to show Spike any kindness.
Smouldering anger ignited in a sheet of flame.
“Well, what do you know?” Spike snarled.
The girl scrambled sideways, glancing from her attacker to her monstrous saviour, unsure which she should fear the most. Jaw clenching, Spike cracked the bones in his neck, rolled his shoulders and took a single slow step towards the man.
“I do love meeting old friends.”
“Old fr …?”
The man stared back at him, wide-eyed and confused, but he recognised what Spike was, even if the ‘who’ escaped him. His eyes flicked to the side and he dropped to the ground, reaching towards a bit of a broken wooden packing crate that lay among the overflow from a dumpster.
He wasn’t quick enough.
~~
TBC