Ficlet - Convergence

[clawofcat.livejournal.com]

The fic that I've been working on for this round is still in development, but I didn't want to leave you all hanging without content, so here's a small offering. I hope to have my other fic finished for the Free For All.

Title: Convergence
Author: ClawofCat
Timing: S7
Rating: PG-13
Words: 603
Summary: Set during "Lessons," we learn more about Spike, the soul, and his perceptions about Buffy when sanity was slippery at best.

A/N: Thanks to only_passenger for being my last minute sounding board on this ficlet. You're my hero.

 

“I dreamed of killing you. I think they were dreams. So weak. You make me weak. Thinking of you, holding myself and spilling useless buckets of salt over your… ending.” ~ Spike in "Beneath You."

 ***

 

Within the fever dreams he sees a girl. Slight and proud, her knowing smile and grace is as natural as the killing blows she delivers. He sees himself, too, serrated teeth on cocksure display when they circle each other for their formal introduction. His victory was always to hold her heart in his hands, a literal desire turned figurative. It was never his to have until now though. Her blows connect, but are ineffective; her puns a sad cover for her inexperience. He crows when the stumble comes and she sinks into his embrace, a tragic mimic of the lovesick Bot, except there is no steel and silicone when he steals the prize that was never his for the taking. The stem of her neck wilts with the force of the tear as he bites and sucks and drains. Her body slumps, hits the ruddy school tile and keeps falling, arms spread, flying into the blue matrix of energy where it is dashed and jerked and beaten.

 

The guilt of the jump still hammers loud and clear, hammers like he hammered her in the days weeks when the ambiguity of her no’s and yes’s were clearest. Rejection is all she knows and all she gives.

 

“Beneath him,” the thing cries inside of his head.

 

“Beneath her,” he cries on the alley pavement. He doesn’t hesitate with the gun this time. Big bad, big weapon and he blows a hole through her, the drop of her body on the porch like the crack of her back on the tub. The hole in her chest gurgles when she cries no, pushing at him as he forces himself in. Hand on her heart, teeth in her neck, cock in her cunt, he makes her see the real him. But she shakes her head and casts her heart away, a writhing fish out of water skidding across the floor. Only a soul can have her throat, her heart, her sex. Only a soul, only a man. It’s what she deserves, what he fights for, fights against. His devilish doppelganger won’t let him forget, and taunts taunts taunts.     

 

The nights when the burning rages, he cuts deep into his breast, so both their chests are empty. He looks for the piece that will fit. They don’t match anymore, but he remembers when they did – her hand and his, bloody-knuckled and raw, an homage to the pain of a life returned. The nights when he saved her are washed out and blurred now; all he can see are the nights he kills her, slower faster quicker, when he didn’t feel anything, nothing clean inside, dead. Thing. Soulless.

 

The school basement groans, metal doors ring and her scent breaks through the din of misery. Sin or solace? What will she bring? Nowhere to hide, needs a costume, but there is nothing but the threadbare shirt, the honesty of his mutilated flesh. She took him battered and beaten once, forgave with a kiss, saw and knew his sacrifice. A blue fairy, his Buffy, is needed to declare his actions real.

 

When she stares at him, her shirt white like the day of the jump, he registers the shock and fear. He knows this look, seen it many times. It’s just one of the innumerable faces he dreams of in the dark.

 

“Spike? Are you real?” she whispers with the disbelief he felt when she stood on those stairs, fresh and new and broken.

 

The shard of hope dies and he knows now the futility. His manic laugh shakes him and she flinches.

 

Not real. Just flesh.

 

Flesh to her, solid through.
 

Comments

[clawofcat.livejournal.com]

Thanks, as always, for the kind words, Reb. When I finally accepted that I wouldn't get the longer fic done in time, I focused on something I could do last minute and it was this. Dense, prosy character studies come naturally to me. They're so image rich, that I only have to worry about the signifance of the symbolism and overlapping canonical moments. No "story" necessary. I've always found the particular segment of Spike's speech in "Beneath You" about the dreams very heartbreaking and wanted to do a bit of Crazy!Spike POV so we could see the sort of internal torture he was undergoing.

There's so much going on in just those two lines, about the tenuous grasp he has on his desires (kiss or kill), his memory, and his sanity
Hee, you quoted my two favorite lines! I image newly souled Spike was very much at odds with his vision of himself - who he wanted to be vs. who he had been in the past. The "badness" of his actions coupled with the First (as Spike) taunting him must have made for a particularly conflicted journey. I think his guilt might have been two fold because the soul doesn't erase all your bad desires. Angel's a testament to that and us mere mortals can be pretty darn wicked when we put our minds to it. In Spike's less lucid moments, I imagine his memories and desires probably would have overlapped and been this huge jumble of conflicted feeling. I tried to represent that here.

The reference to Buffy as the Blue Fairy (Are you real?) is wonderful, as well.
Reality is one of those interesting themes that Joss & Co. played with a lot on the show. Buffy's Slayer dreams were one of the earliest examples, followed by episodes where nightmares become reality, Dawn's identity issues, Spike's courage in "Intervention," and of course the perceptions of "crazy" characters like Dru and basement!Spike. After I rewatched "Lessons" to see their first meeting, I thought that it was an essential addition since Spike looks to Buffy for acceptance and approval.