Truth Denied

Appropriate Ratings: NC17 overall but this chapter... R
Warnings: Death, not much else
Short Summary: We learn where Spike has been
Beta: Tamakin

Comments keep my muse well fed.

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Sunset fell, and he knew it, even in the dark room. He supposed he’d always feel the sun slip past the horizon; turning human didn’t seem to have changed everything about him. His nose was still sensitive to scents that most humans couldn’t pick up, but he’d lost the aromas of emotions. He missed them. He’d never realized how much he depended on his sense of smell as a vampire. He used to be able to tell if someone was aroused, angry, guilty… a whole miasma of emotional scents that were now lost to him. He felt almost blind, a sense he’d depended on more than he knew had been dulled, it had been a tough transition for him.

He also still had the lithe grace of a hunter, and his muscle tone was superb, but he didn’t have the strength he’d once had. He could run faster than most of the cops he’d run into during the first few years he’d been human and scared. Scared… he snorted in self disgust. The worst part was, he was still scared.

At least as a vampire he’d had a few well defined fears, and the rest just didn’t… matter. He’d feared the sun, crosses, stakes and holy water. He’d had such a blinding fear of fire… He smirked to himself, remembering when he’d taken up smoking as a way to push him past his fear. It had been a weakness Angelus exploited regularly so he’d needed to be strong, strong enough that Angelus didn’t bother trying that anymore or at least so it didn’t bother himself anymore. Flame that close to his face had made him want to scream and hide in a cool dank corner, but he’d fought past it then conquered it until he didn’t even feel the echo. Now? Now… he was afraid of so much more than simple fire.

He remembered his first few months after he’d found out he’d become human. Elation at being able to see his own reflection for the first time in well over a century! Delight that he could finally walk into a church and take the holy sacrament without bursting into flame! Exhilaration at being able to walk into the sun once more after so long without. He’d felt it wash over him, cleanse him as it entered every pore and touched every inch, it was so unlike the sensations when he wore the Gem of Amarra. It had been cold then, the sunlight hadn’t really touched him, slithering off what felt like an oily veneer.

Being a vampire was easy! Make a little grr face, scare the piddly humans enough to tinge their blood with the taste of terror, feast on their blood, and repeat as necessary. Strong enough, fast enough, deadly enough that anything else he wanted he could just take… but as a human… things were so much more complicated.

He remembered the first few weeks. He’d been so hungry, scavenging in rubbish bins outside of restaurants for the leftovers, never ever finding enough to sate him, to leave him comfortably full. He’d gotten sick, at first, before he remembered food spoiled and took better precautions on deciding what he’d eat. He’d never been this hungry as a human, and he didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t exactly just walk up, kick someone out of their crypt and take over the town. He wasn’t the Big Bad anymore, just another human in a sea of mortality.

He remembered getting a cough, and not understanding what that meant. Well, he knew what COUGHING meant, he just didn’t realize how weak his immune system was, how feeble his body had become with the lack of proper food and shelter. The cough swiftly turned to pneumonia and he’d nearly died. Wouldn’t that have been ironic? To go through all of this, to save the world how many times now, only to die a few weeks into his new life because he didn’t know enough to go to a free clinic for antibiotics when he needed them.

He’d woken in a hospital bed, white walls closing in on him. Seven other people had been in his ward, all of them being taken care of by gruff nurses and tired doctors. When the nurse had come in to take a blood sample, he’d freaked out. He panicked, his fevered brain forgetting he was no longer a vampire, the stress of his situation and laughable life just pushed him over the edge. He didn’t remember what happened after the nurse had snapped on her nitrile gloves and pulled out a needle, but the other patients in his new ward filled him in on all the juicy gossip. He’d nearly beaten her to death.

They’d strapped him down to the hospital bed after security piled enough bodies onto him to hold him still and another nurse jabbed the needle none too gently into his arm. They then moved him to another floor in another wing, where all the windows were carefully barred, and the nurse’s station had shatter proof glass around the desk. They’d kept him sedated and on anti-psychotic medication that made thinking impossible. He spent the next three weeks in a drugged haze, drooling out of the corner of his mouth when he forgot to swallow. Nothing was real then, everything distant and fog drenched, memories refused to be stirred. Some part of him rejoiced at their brief release from his demons, but just like his terror, it was muted and distant. Finally they said he was ‘cured’, kicked him out with the address for a homeless shelter and a bottle of pills with a strict admonishment to take them faithfully.

He dropped them in the trash can on his way out, but kept the flyer. He needed a place to stay after all.

Part of him wished he was crazy. That would have saved a lot of problems. No more demons and magic and Slayers and apocalypses. No more demented Sire, no more guilt for the lives that were lost and wasted, just life. Normal, happy, human life. For the first time since he’d been born he was free. He may have been crazy but he was cured now, and those horrors he’d suffered weren’t real, the atrocities he’d commit had never happened, being crazy was so much better than his delusions being true. For a short while, that fantasy lasted.

He met Kieran at the shelter. That first day, signing in and getting the booklet with all the rules and tons of tips and pointers on how to get a job to get out of the shelter, he’d been so embarrassed and ashamed he hadn’t looked up. He’d kept his gaze locked on the floor, unable to meet anyone’s eyes, furiously aware his ability to blush had been given back to him. It made sense for him to be here. They had resources for finding work and a cheap place to live that he didn’t, and they could teach him things he didn’t know about being human in this decade, like computers and résumés. Didn’t mean he liked admitting his weaknesses like this, especially to strangers that he didn’t trust, not that he trusted anyone, really.

His hands had been shaking so hard he’d dropped the pen and flung it across the table. He remembered thinking how foolish he was, how weak, how human, and how much he hated his damned bloody blushing when two of the warmest chocolate brown eyes found his.

“Here, you dropped this,” the stranger had smiled a slow sweet smile that lit up his face. He’d fumbled for the pen again, trying to laugh it off. Kieran had then taken his hand and held it for a brief moment; just enough to still his fingers, and pressed the pen into his palm.

“Happens to all of us, had my first time too ya know,” and again that warm smile. Spike couldn’t remember the last time someone had smiled at him like that; it left him awe struck. He’d mumbled a thank you, tried a shaky smile of his own before filling out the form and grabbing his keys. That had been how it started.

Such a sweet innocent start.

Kieran turned out to be his buddy for the week, helping him out till he understood how things worked and where things were. They were banished from the shelter from ten AM to five PM, as yet another encouragement for the tenants to find employment, and Kieran had shown him around the city. He had so many precious memories of those first few months. He’d really started to believe that all that vampire rubbish really was just that… rubbish. Delusions of a madman.

It made everything so much easier to deal with if he thought of his past as nothing more than a psychotic break he’d gotten over at the hospital. It was alright now. He’d never heard Gunn gasp in a burbling breath before screaming his last, while a demon ripped out his insides. Of course not, it had all been a fantasy. He’d never killed a Slayer before, and feasted on their hot, sweet blood because they didn’t exist. There was no golden skinned goddess he’d once loved dancing in Rome in the arms of another man. He’d never killed those thousands and thousands of innocents to slate a never ending hunger. This was real! Kieran was real! The shelter was real! And so he allowed himself to love.

It had been so sweet, to give himself for the first time. It wasn’t like anything before had been real, right? So he had to be a virgin, and it had hurt so… it was his first time, and it had been nice.

Then Kieran got a job at a tech support line and his own little one bedroom flat. Spike had been devastated that Kieran apparently hadn’t a care in the world about moving away from him. He was being abandoned, left behind, used and tossed aside, and it hurt. It hurt so much, he thought he was dying, it hurt so fiercely he thought he’d never breath without pain again. He’d cried himself to sleep the night he overheard him telling the manager of the shelter that he was leaving. When he’d woken up, he’d still been so stuffy headed he couldn’t smell anything, and when Kieran glided in with a full breakfast in bed, Spike had cried again, knowing this was Kieran’s way of saying goodbye.

He remembered being comforted and held as he sobbed, begging Kieran not to say it, not to leave him, please don’t leave him. Kieran hugged him then, fiercely, and swore he never would. Kieran had leaned down and kissed him sweetly, his touch tender and gentle. He curled his fingers underneath Spike’s chin and lifted his face till they gazed at each other, pure blue eyes searching limpid brown eyes, and told him he wanted Spike to go with him.

For three blissful months, they were happy.

Kieran taught him how to cook, making things from scratch with cheap ingredients that ended up tasting smashing together. He taught Spike how to shop, for groceries as well as clothes and furniture and house hold supplies. He never questioned Spike’s curious lack of knowledge for such simple and common things. He just accepted, and taught, and loved.

Then Spike came home late one night. He’d been at a pub, watching a rugby match on their TV and drinking a pint, they didn’t have cable at home. So stupid, really. They could afford it, but Kieran said he’d rather talk to Spike than listen to a TV, so they didn’t. He always wondered what would have happened if he’d insisted more forcefully on getting at least some sports channel. If he had, maybe he’d have been home that night, maybe he would have been able to… able to stop them, able to stop Kieran…

His lover invited them in, of course he did, why wouldn’t he? There was no such thing as vampires, no need to fear a neighbor asking if they could see your electrical box so they could figure out where theirs was. He’d heard them laughing about it as he walked up to the door, about how stupid Kieran was, how trusting, how… human. And as he watched they sank their fangs into him, morphing into their demon visage just as he opened the door.

He’d screamed and ran as the truth was forced rudely upon him, they didn’t bother following. He hadn’t been hallucinating, he hadn’t had a psychotic break he’d gotten over and healed from, vampires were real, demons were real, and maybe if he’d only remembered that he could have saved Kieran. He could have warned him, or trained him, or taken him somewhere where they would have been safe, something, anything. He’d done nothing, absolutely nothing, this was all his fault. It was always his fault. He’d killed Kieran.

He was beside himself in grief, and lost himself in the oblivion of alcohol. He’d drank and drank and drank until he was out of money, and cried even more when he ran out. He’d left his bank cards and his one credit card in the flat, it was an old trick so he didn’t spent more than his budget, and he couldn’t bring himself to go back and get them.

He’d never gone back, unable to face the proof of his cowardice and failure. Rumors started to circulate that he’d killed his partner, his love, in a jealous squabble over another man and that’s when he made his decision. He could either go and turn himself in, hoping that the system would find him innocent, or he could do what he’d been getting so good at doing. He chose the second option and ran away. He burned all the ID’s that were a part of that identity and so Joshua Jones was no more. William Wallace was born.

He ran from the city, clear across the country, to get away from his demons. He’d jumped at every shadow for over a year, convinced the vampires were back to finish him off, that they’d gotten friends together to see just how far the once feared Master Vampire had fallen. Then it finally dawned on him, he wasn’t important anymore, not nearly important enough to chase and torment and tease. He was just a useless human, lost in a sea of mortals and unbelievers, just like everyone else.

He’d spent months on the streets, traveling from city to city, learning the ways of the destitute and desperate. He made a few contacts, not friends, never friends, who helped him find the closest clinics for medical attention, the soup kitchens, the churches where their kind were welcome. He learned to panhandle, and work odd jobs for a meal and a safe place to sleep. He claimed a cot at one of the shelters, and spent the coldest nights there.

And then his life changed again.

He remembered making his way down the alley behind the club, and the man that grabbed him. He was thrown hard into the wall, and slammed again into the recessed doorway before rough, strong hands undid his belt and forced his pants down, all while keeping him pinned against one of the double doors. Then… things got blurry. The next thing he remembered was Steve standing over him, a terrifying scowl on his face as he kicked Spike’s unconscious attacker.

“You’re alright now,” KICK! “He’s out for the count. C’mon inside while I call the cops.” He reached down to pull Spike to his feet, but he’d cowered away. He’d cowered away from the human that was helping him. Spike cowered away from a human who’d saved him from another human. He couldn’t help the self disgust that coated the back of his tongue like sickly candy, or the urge to vomit from his self loathing. Steve took it in stride, held his shoulders while he emptied the clear contents of his stomach in the back alley. Spike let him believe it was a reaction to the attack… and not a reaction to his reaction, which just would have led to way more uncomfortable questions than he was willing to answer.

“No cops,” he’d rasped. What would they do for a homeless nobody like him? His street contacts had always warned him against the pigs, said they’d be worse than anything he could be going to them for… they’d been right about everything else so far, so why not believe them about this too? He didn’t want to get sent back to that hospital, have more drugs forced on him, in him. Steve had just nodded, given the would-be rapist one more kick right where it counted and led him inside.

He was led to the office, just inside the back door, and given a hot coffee and a blanket. He’d met Ben then, Steve’s partner. Ben had fussed and brought a bowl of canned stew, fresh crusty bread, and mild chicken wings from the kitchen.

He didn’t know what would have become of him if he’d never found Steve and Ben. They gave him a chance to work, a place to stay in the spare room upstairs, and a stability he hadn’t realized he’d been missing. He started out behind the bar, and worked up the nerve to ask to dance, and… he eventually made himself a new home.

He worked hard to earn their trust and acceptance, worked hard to make them proud, make them happy. It was around then that he realized… how much he missed being close to people. Steve and Ben finally brought out his humanity. He owed them so much.

Time passed, they grew closer together. A warm, supportive family that he’d never had. His mother, centuries ago, had wanted him to stay with her, forever, she’d never encouraged his independence or ambitions, but they did. For the first time in his existence he was valued for himself, and not what he could bring to others… but he still worked hard to make them proud, to bring in as much money as he could, to be as perfect as he could… he couldn’t go against centuries of emotional programming, but part of him knew they’d accept him and help him even if he wasn’t perfect. He just didn’t want to test that theory.