Submitted for Feedback -- "Aftermath"
May 24, 2002. Somewhere in Africa.

I could never trust you enough for it to be love.

Slowly, Spike’s eyes opened. He’d been out a while … all night, possibly even a day or two. It couldn’t have been much longer than that, because Spike could still feel his last meal coursing through his veins. It was dark, which meant it was either night or Spike was inside somewhere.

Eyes adjusted and Spike found himself in a cave. A cave … the same cave he’d spent who knew how long in. Fighting. Enduring. Surviving. Muscleheads with flaming fists. Hordes of bugs crawling into his skin.

The trials. The demon trials. Spike remembered them, remembered how much they’d hurt, how much they took out of him. But more than anything, the vampire remembered why he’d gone through them.

And his ultimate reward.

Spike, please stop this.

Buffy.

He’d come all this way for Buffy. To get rid of the sodding chip in his head, to make him what he once was, to give the Slayer what she deserved. Spike was nothing more than a monster when he washed up in this tiny African village, a shell of a vampire looking for something -- anything -- to get him away from the harsh reality of Sunnydale.

Away from the harsh reality of what he’d done. Spike closed his eyes at the throbbing in his head, immediately hearing the screams. Her screams. Every time Buffy screamed, the pounding in Spike’s head intensified. He sighed, sucked in his cheeks. Hands turned into fists, rage building within the vampire until he lashed out, giving a bloody scream as his fist drove into the rock beside him.

The scream died, giving way to a pained grunt, warm blood trickling down Spike’s fingers. He removed his hand from the rock, staring at the dark red coating his dead flesh. He watched the vitae run down his fingers, shaking his head. This was the hand of a demon, a heartless monster incapable of anything but death and pain.

Spike inhaled sharply, steeling himself against tears he felt building in his eyes. The screams wouldn’t stop, everywhere he looked, every sound he tried to focus in on … the screams were still there.

He could feel them.

Let yourself feel it.

He’d given her no choice in the matter. So bleeding convinced she loved him somewhere deep down, he pressed the issue. He loved her, that much had been true, but he never once took her feelings into account. He knew Buffy was using him, accepted it the whole way though, somehow convinced she’d wake up beside him one night and look upon him the way she never had before.

The way she once looked at Angel. The way she once looked at Riley.

Spike was neither Angel nor Riley, and he felt as if he’d been punished for that. Sure, Angel had a soul and Riley was actually human, but Spike had more than proven his worth to the Slayer and her little band of sidekicks over the past couple years. And it wasn’t because of the chip – he’d done some real good. Protected Dawn from Glory, helped Giles and the gang fight off the nasties while Buffy was dead.

Spike wasn’t the Big Bad anymore. He’d tried to be, but it … it just wasn’t there for him. It might’ve been the chip, but Spike knew better. It was Buffy; or more specifically, his feelings for her.

Spike never understood it; how he could feel so deeply for someone without a soul. How he could possibly love his sworn enemy, the very entity he once spent decades hunting down and killing. He’d never fallen in love with that Chinese girl in the Boxer Rebellion, and he sure as hell never fell in love with Nikki Wood … so why had Buffy been so different?

What was it about this Slayer that even Drusilla saw before him?

You love me.

Buffy didn’t love Spike. She was in no position to love anybody. Girl had sacrificed herself to save the world, got her one-way to the Great Beyond. But her friends, in their infinite wisdom, plucked her out of heaven and stuffed her back into her body. Spike was no genius, but he knew that sort of thing had to do something to someone.

Clawing out of your own grave wasn’t much fun, either.

Spike’s chest still burned. He grimaced at the feeling, sitting with his back against the rock wall he’d just punched. The vampire could barely move, much of his skin charred or bruised. The demon trials nearly killed him – several times, really. But he fought through them all, refused to give up. He was determined to give Buffy what she deserved, what Spike thought she wanted.

And his reward? This gnawing at his very core that hurt more than anything he’d endured in his unlife.

Ow! No, stop it!

“I’m sorry,” the vampire whispered, his chest heaving as a tear trickled down his cheek. The screams continued, only they were louder and now Spike could make out what they were saying. Buffy was in pain, and she was begging him to stop. Stop what he was doing, leave her alone. Walk out of that bathroom, leave the house and head off into the sunrise.

Buffy was done using Spike; she had no need for him anymore. She really should have let Xander stake him after what he did with Anya. Then Spike wouldn’t have tried to rape her … and he wouldn’t have made the incredibly stupid decision to come all the way out here to get his filthy soul.

Having a soul wouldn’t win Buffy’s love. All it would do was make Spike’s remaining days as miserable as ever. He’d tried to deny it all these years, but now? He really was like Angel … all the way down to the namby-pamby soul.

All because he couldn’t grasp the concept of “no.”

OW!!

Spike winced, sniffling away another tear. He buried his head in his hands, shaking as emotion overtook him. So this was what guilt felt like. Hurt so much it was like a stake in the gut. Sharp enough and deep enough to really hurt, but not nearly enough to put him out of his misery and leave him as he should be: a pile of dust blowing in the African wind.

Buffy let him walk out of that bathroom alive. Why? Had she been so shocked by what Spike did she couldn’t react short of pushing him into the wall? Why didn’t she kill him?

He deserved it.

Let it go. Let yourself love me!

Spike was evil; he couldn’t possibly have understood why Buffy never wanted him. Even when she was naked, sitting on top of him and writhing in all the right ways, she didn’t want him. She didn’t want him when she cuffed him and took control, and she didn’t want him when he’d sneak into her room and take her while the others were asleep.

Buffy never wanted him, and he didn’t understand that. He couldn’t.

So many times the Slayer had ended their tryst. Time and again she’d told him it was over, and yet he pressed the issue, telling her how dark it was and how alone she was and how no one understood her the way he did. Spike knew a thing or two about darkness, but he couldn’t understand Buffy because she was a hero and she had a soul.

Spike? Well, he had a soul now, but he was still a monster. Not fit for the flesh on his bones or the sudden spark in his heart.

No, stop it!

“STOP IT!” Spike screamed to no one in particular, cowering among himself as his voice echoed off the cave’s walls. He was alone out here, only his thoughts and fears to keep him company. It was probably better that way; Spike felt on the end of his rope, and he feared if anyone else had been close to him, he would’ve lashed out, done what for so many decades came naturally to William the Bloody.

Spike had enough on his conscience; he didn’t need to add another murder to the list.

The tears wouldn’t stop. Spike’s body shook with each sob, the vampire racked with guilt over what he’d done. Not the murders, not the countless people he’d slaughtered alongside Drusilla in Europe and Asia. For now, he wasn’t worried about the preacher he and Angelus snacked on in Vienna or the Russian schoolhouse he and Darla massacred. A hundred screaming children, begging for their lord as the vampires tore into their throats, and Spike wasn’t the least bit worried about them.

Because he’d hurt the woman he loved.

I know you felt it … when I was inside you.

The only thing Buffy had felt with Spike was momentary peace. For the few fleeting hours she was naked with him, Buffy felt at ease, forgetting where she’d been or how hard her third chance at life had become. But once Spike was finally spent and the aftermath had passed, she was dark and cold again.

Spike, meanwhile, had served his purpose. He understood her like no one else could – not Xander, not Willow, not Dawn, not Anya, not even Giles – but the minute he slipped out of her, Spike was nothing to Buffy all over again.

Buffy used him. And he’d known that. He’d known and he let it happen anyway. Out of nothing more than his own sexual desires and the misguided notion that if he kept at it, stayed with her until she felt better about herself, she would finally look upon him with love.

Because he’d been there for her. He’d been her hero and her salvation. But in reality, Spike had been nothing more than Buffy’s lithium.

Please don’t do this …

She’d locked herself inside, forgot how it felt without Spike inside her. She didn’t love herself anymore, and as many times as she wanted to let it go – God, she wanted to let it go – she never could.

Partially because Spike wouldn’t let her.

Spike wasn’t a lover, he was a drug. That was why Buffy never told anyone about their trysts. That was why she threatened to kill Spike if he ever said anything. Not that he wanted to talk; he hated everyone – aside from Dawn and Anya – so there was no real desire to get all chummy with them and share his intimate details.

And the vampire kept feeding the Slayer her drug. So long as she was willing, Spike was dealing. Whenever, wherever … hell, he’d practically sodomized her at The Bronze one night while she watched her friends frolic and dance. He’d gained a perverse satisfaction from it then, but now?

Now the thought just made the vampire sick.

I’ll make you feel it.

Everything had been so easy with Drusilla. If Spike wanted something, he’d just make it so, because Dru was so deliciously malleable it was easy. It was one of the many beauties of their relationship over the years; if Spike wasn’t hurting Drusilla, they weren’t how they were supposed to be.

Even Harmony was simple in that way. Spike treated the freshly-made vampire like shit. Part of it was unrealized anger at losing Drusilla, the rest of it was Spike’s hatred for his lot in life. Being thwarted by the Slayer yet again, combined with being nabbed and tinkered with by the Initiative, made Spike cranky, and he took it out on Harmony.

Because she took it. Just like Dru.

But Buffy? She never took it. She always stood up for herself, defended her right to be treated like an actual person. Even when she turned to Spike, wanted nothing more than his dick to keep the darkness away for a couple hours, she insisted he not use her in return. And yet, Spike did just that.

Convincing her she loved him, mostly to convince himself there was a chance and that he wasn’t pursuing a hopeless venture. Because if he was? Then there was no more place for him in Sunnydale, and Spike didn’t know where to go from there. For Spike, Buffy was Sunnydale.

If he didn’t have Buffy, what else was there?

STOP!!!

“Please,” Spike sniffled, glancing at the darkness around him through tear-stained eyes. “Please … just stop…”

Half a world away, and still Spike could hear Buffy screaming at him. Begging him to stop, asking him to just stop. But still he pressed the issue; even now, in this cave, he pressed the issue. Alone with his thoughts, adjusting to the fresh soul burning in his core … Spike had nothing to keep him company but his own guilt.

The memories ran in his head like a movie – widescreen, hi-def, the works. He remembered every last detail, things that seemed so insignificant at the moment now carrying a world of meaning. Was this how Angel felt when he first got his soul? Was this what it was like for him every time he remembered someone he’d murdered or tortured?

If so, Spike wasn’t sure how the other vampire had lasted this long. Spike feared if this kept up much longer he’d jump into a tree and pray to the dark gods he landed on a branch.

Ask me again why I could never love you!

The tears stopped. Spike sniffled, blinking to make sure he really could see clearly again. To his right, sunlight began to peek through. The vampire slowly rose to his feet, stumbling toward the light.

Several minutes passed before Spike found the entrance to the cave, and he could smell a fire the local villagers had made the night before. The locals were undoubtedly sleeping at this point, with the day so young. But Spike stood at the cave’s entrance, at the edge of the shadows, staring at the sunrise.

Spike forgot how long it had been since he last saw the sunrise – for so many years he’d tried to avoid it. It was disturbingly beautiful, and the normally poetic William was at a loss for words. He sniffled again, the area under his eyes wet with the tears he’d shed. He still felt that pounding in his chest, the screams still filling his head.

Now, it was the same phrase again and again. Ask me again why I could never love you! Spike closed his eyes when he heard it again, taking another deep breath. He felt a sharp pain in his chest every time Buffy’s voice echoed in his head, like she stuck a knife in his heart every time she said it.

The worst part? Spike knew he deserved it. He thought of running onto the sand, heading toward the sun as it engulfed him and burned him to ash. But that would’ve been the easy way out … and it would’ve rendered the soul he just earned moot.

But considering how much this soul hurt? How much torment Spike had to endure in the first few minutes of being conscious with it? Dying was an attractive option. Spike didn’t know if he could deal with having a soul, let alone show his face again in Sunnydale. He’d done this for Buffy, but now Spike wasn’t so sure if it had been worth it.

Spike didn’t deserve Buffy. Not that he did before, but certainly not now. Soul or no, Spike was a monster. Nothing more, nothing less.

No excursion to Africa was ever going to change that.