Truth Denied

Spike was back at his apartment, using his secret entrance so the cops out front and back didn’t see him and was busy putting a battle axe and sword into a duffle bag when Ben’s hand on his arm stopped him. 

“Spike, how do you even know it’s them that have him? What if it’s a vampire? A vampire would see some sort of demented poetry out of offering hearts for prayer towards Priape if they could… you know. Or even a really desperate human! Humans can be super evil Spike. You may be storming the stronghold of people who may have been our allies if we’d only asked first.”

“You ask, they hide him, we never find him; they can’t know we know. Besides, if they don’t have him, they’ll accept our apologies, as priests in search of love and all that, won’t they?” Spike looked down the edge of a katana then sheathed it, adding it to his bag. 

He pulled out an ammunition box and opened it; looking inside, he shrugged and dumped half a dozen hand grenades into his bag’s front pocket. “I love myself a noisy entrance if my cover’s been blown or just for a distraction really.” He zipped up the pocket and Ben grabbed him and turned him around.

“Who the hell are you?”

“What? I’m S-Spike, what do you mean who the hell am I? Same guy you guys saved from that rapist, same guy who’s been stripping so I can buy a strip joint, now I find out temple, from you guys, same guy.”

“No, you told us you couldn’t remember who you were past a few years ago, that your name was Mark Williamson. You had all the legal paperwork for that, though how someone without a place to live or a job could have all that I still don’t understand and you came into our lives. Now I find out your name’s actually Spike, and you’re some kind of big bad demon that’s got the local demon population trembling? Spike, who are you? This entire thing could be about you, tell me who you are right now! I need to know why Steve died!” Ben heaved a breath and let out a sob, running to Spike and hammering his chest with ineffectual blows.

“Tell me who you are Spike, tell me who you are!” He sobs, “Tell me Spike!! Tell me please!”

Spike let him be hit, because for the wildest moment he never thought it had anything to do with his history, but of course it could! If anyone had recognized him on stage, they could have kidnapped Xander just to get back at him. A demon’s vengeance was ever so sweet to them. They could have two demons to chase down, Spike’s stomach knotted and tangled as he thought he was getting an ulcer from all this stress.

He held Ben’s wrists and brought him over to Spike’s bed and sat him down. “If I tell you you’ll hate me…. Can’t you just trust me and accept that I’m human now and living as a human and wanting to forget my past?” He asked softly, blinking back tears. Only Xander knew his story and Xander knew why he didn’t go around telling people.

“Spike,” Ben sobbed, “tell me. I need to know if they’re killing because of Priape or because of you.” He kept sobbing. Spike got him a tissue box and he mopped himself up. “I need to know if it’s my fault.”

Spike got up and sat beside up and hugged Ben, stroking the big man’s back and rocking him. “Hey now, none of this is your fault, none of it, alright? Even if it’s done in Priape’s name it’s not your fault. Damned bugger would have found some other reason to sacrifice those men because he’s still got his little problem, doesn’t he? It’s not your fault darling, it’s not, it’s not,” he rocked Ben as the bigger man cried.

Ben sniffled. “You’re changing the subject…. What are you?”

“I’m human,” Spike replied, guardedly. The anguished look on Ben’s face made him take a deep breath and admit, “I’m human now.”

“What were you before Spike? All those demons were terrified of you, truly scared, what did we welcome into our home as a helpless waif”

“Okay, listen, I didn’t tell you my past, because I was told my past was crazy, I thought I was crazy for remembering it, so I figured that was all a delusion so my past didn’t exist and I wasn’t… what I was… but I guess I was…” Spike shook his head softly and looked at the hardwood flooring between his feet.

Ben mops up a blown nose and hiccoughs, then just leaks tears, no more sobbing, but he couldn’t stop crying*. “What were you then? Tell me Spike, I need to know what devil I made a deal with.”

Spike laughed without mirth and threw his head back, sounding delirious. “You know your demons right?”

“Y-yeah?” He grabbed another tissue and blew his nose again, intent on what Spike was saying.

“Do you remember anyone named William the Bloody?” Spike asked, softly, his head bowed, elbows on his legs, as everything just sagged between his legs, as he just felt empty. This last bit of himself was coming out and he was terrified what Ben was going to do.

“William the… Yes, he was the most… wait… He became Spike, of the Aurelius clan, he… he killed two slayers… Then… recently, the gossip has been haywire, why?”

“I’M William the Bloody,” Spike clenched his teeth and waited for a blow, a scream, Ben running away, a stake through his human heart, anything, but when nothing happened he looked up at Ben, who was just listening.

“You don’t… want to kill me?”

“For your past? Spike, if I killed everyone for having a monstrous past, I’d have to kill myself and my entire family along with you. Drennars may be peaceful gods-following folk, but some gods we follow ain’t that into loving your neighbour.” He tried to give a shaky smile, and patted Spike’s knee.

“I trust you Spike, you’ve kept me and mine healthy and happy for as long as you’ve been here, never caused problems, always kept the peace. If you were truly an evil blood sucking demon, we’d all be dead.”

“Th-thank you Ben,” Spike smiled shakily. “But I had a very evil past and I have no excuse, other than I had no soul and the demon in me wanted chaos, wanted blood, wanted death and I was entirely too weak in my clan of vampires to do anything but follow those instincts. I am so sorry for the lives I’ve ruined because of that, but I have to accept that as the past and move on or I’d live in a monastery with a vow of silence forever until I died. That’s what I should have done, but I couldn’t, couldn’t bring myself to sully a holy place.”

Ben gave him a wary smile. “Well this holy place welcomes you.”

“Just wait till you hear everything. So you know my past, vampire, killed slayers, killed thousands just for blood, just for pleasure, just for the thrill of it, then… then I met the slayer and my world collapsed. This slayer was Buffy, longest lived Slayer in the history of slayers. Tiny little blond thing, fought a lot with her mouth and heart, as well as her body”

“Anyways, I fell in love with her, but I couldn’t see it. My dark plum, my blood sire Drusilla, mad as a loon she is, still on the look out for her in case she changes her mind and tries to get me back, she could see it. She had an affair with a snotty chaos demon, right in bloody front of me and when I confronted her she said she couldn’t be with me, that the little blond would always be between us; that she was the problem, not Dru, not me, Buffy, the slayer. So I got in the car and came back to Sunnydale to kill her.” He laughed mirthlessly again, remembering, his face looked like stretched wax over exquisite bone, not quite human.

“Know what happened instead? Fell in love, head over heels. Group from the government was gathering up demons, vampires, for shock troops and for dissection and other nastiness. They put a chip in my brain so I couldn’t attack or even think of hurting a human without intense pain, but I ran away when they thought I was unconscious and made my escape. Got to Buffy’s watcher’s house and begged them for help, they took me in, nursed me, eventually trusted me enough that I wasn’t always bound… then I found out even if I couldn’t hurt humans, I could sure as hell hurt demons, so I joined her Scooby gang, and helped clean up Sunnyhell of demons.” Ben was listening with rapt attention, lips parted as if he wanted to say something, but knowing better than to interrupted a stream of consciousness like this.

“I died, reason the crater happened, but I sealed the hellmouth and all the baddies that were in there trying to get out and kill everyone. Came back as a ghost at Wolfram and Hart and was bound to the building, couldn’t leave LA no matter how I tried. Eventually, with a little help I became me again… but I couldn’t go back to how I was before I loved Buffy.” He hung his head and wiped tears with his hands, then grabbed some tissues and mopped up, blowing his nose, feeling like a blotchy, ugly, snotty thing.

“So you know about Wolfram and Hart by working for them?” Ben asked.

“Yeah, worked for them for a year, but not in a helping the demon world sort of way, more in a ‘we will take down the demon world one contract at a time’ kind of way. We saved a lot of lives. People were grateful, but finally Angel, the CEO of our branch, and leader of our gang realized it wasn’t enough so he set all of us, his upper echelon, his most trusted friends, to kill the Black Thorn.” Spike shook his head and paced the bedroom, thankfully there was a lot of floor space because he was neurotically clean now that he had a nice place; Ben just watched him, wary.

“People died, good people, when Wolfram and Hart realized what we had done. They opened a gateway to their forbidden dimension where they kept all the demons from history that were no longer welcome on Earth for whatever reason, but they still had their contracts so they were still beholden. They came after us, Angel, me, Illyria and Gunn.” He sat down again and hugged himself, remembering the battle, remembering Gunn fall, remembering Illyria disappear, remembering all the screams, all the blood, and through it all, Angel’s maniacal laughter as he got to ride a dragon. He ran his fingers through his hair and took a deep breath, wiping away tears that had sprung out.

“Woke up in an alley, human. There was this prophecy called the Shanshu prophecy; it read that after a lot of trials the vampire with a soul would get to be human again. We all thought it would be Angel, he’d been cursed with a soul after all, for a really long time, but he signed it away. Now, I don’t know if that means anything, but I got it instead. I think it had more to do with the fact that I fought to get my soul out of love, instead of being cursed with it out of revenge.” 

Ben looked at him, confused. “Who did you love? And didn’t you already love Drucilla? Why did you need a soul to love?”

“Don’t need a soul to love, need a soul to tell you when you’re doing the wrong thing in the name of love. I loved that beautiful tiny blond, with all my heart. We had a relationship of sorts, where she’d have sex with me and beat me up. Vampire in me saw it as love and the me in me loved her enough anyways to forgive her the abuse, crazy, yeah?”

Ben shook his head, “Not nearly as crazy as what you’ve told me so far.” He gave a tiny tight lipped smile.

“So demon in me said if I loved her, she’d love me back if I just… did with her what you’d normally do to someone you loved and… and… I tried to rape her. Thankfully common sense won out and I stopped, but not before scaring her and hurting her. I ran away that night to fight to get a soul, so I could really love her and never hurt her that way again.”

Ben nodded. “Did the slayer take you then?”

Spike snorted, “Hardly, she’d loved a vampire with a soul before and it ended badly, don’t think she wanted a repeat. And my soul… my soul let me love her without needing to be loved back. Don’t get me wrong, it still hurt and I still longed for her, especially those cold lonely nights and days in the basement, but I stood by her, trained the slayers to be, protected her little sister, fought by her side until… I died... all out of love.” 

“And through everything, through every single thing, there was this annoying brunet that kept mucking things up by accident or got into a damsel in distress spell or who knows what. And here I was trying hard to ignore him, because all he ever did was seem to hate me, throw insults at me, try to attack me, even tried to kill me you know,” he chuckled, remembering. “But he never left her side. But now he has and he’s come to me and I’ve realized he means more to me than she ever could…” Spike twiddled his thumbs, not sure what to say next.

“Why didn’t you go back to her though? Right away?” Ben asked, ever the pragmatic one. “You loved her, you had a soul, you were a hero, why didn’t you go back to her? I’m sure she would have welcomed you with open arms.”

“She wanted a normal life, couldn’t give her that, was a demon, was fighting demons, she wanted to be a normal girl, with normal boyfriend problems, with a husband and a baby… and with all the potential slayers activated she could do that now, she didn’t have to fight, she could retire…” Tears pricked his eyes and traveled down his sharp cheeks.

“She tried… but she couldn’t, she kept finding reasons to be in fights, going out of her way to get in fights, so they reinstated her, sent her after one Armageddon demon and she… died. Stopped the end of the world, which is great, don’t get me wrong, but… she died. She was never selfish. She’d already died twice to help save the world, and for once the rest of her friends let her rest in peace.”

“Did she ever… have children?” Ben asked, curious, could a slayer have children?

“Dunno, never asked and since none of them know I’m alive I’m not going to ask. They all think I died in the demon uprising in LA and that only Angel survived, want it kept that way.”

“Why though? I thought they were your friends?” Ben seemed less and less concerned about his safety and more and more curious.

“Look, if I go back, they’ll demand I help and I’m just human now, aren’t I? I’ll just fail and end up causing someone else to get hurt or die myself for no good reason. Can’t let the girls down like that, not when they’d depend on me for so much.” He got up and looked through his closet again, at the hidden stash of weapons, all carefully maintained and well looked after. He picked up a wicked looking, long silver blade and slipped it into his boot.

“Then why are you going now? Won’t you just die and let Xander down? How is this any different? If you know about these slayer people we should get in contact with them, we should call them and have them deal with it, it sounds like they know what they’re doing.” Ben said, gently tugging Spike’s shirt bottom to pull him away from the weapons and to get rid of the dark look in Spike’s eyes.

“Can’t, Xander used to fight with them and now he can’t have them near him anymore, dunno why, never asked, but it’s his wish. Police can’t do anything against demons, especially the kind that can throw a glamour at you and make you see anything they want! It’s up to us, have no one else. Can’t leave Xan to die, can’t abandon him and this is the only way he’ll get rescued. And if I die, at least I’ll die doing something to save him, instead of cowering in fear.” 

He looked over his shoulder and smiled ruefully, “Love makes you do the crazy.”

Ben just sat and watched him pack, digesting everything he’d heard, what he knew about vampires and what he’d heard of the Aurelius clan. He knew a little and even with the little he knew, he still couldn’t believe Spike was going after Xander; maybe it was because he was human? But no, not every human would do this for another human… maybe it really was love then, like he’d told Lakshmi. True love.

Ben’s eyes shone brightly, “Don’t forget to pack for me; I’m coming with you.”

“Do you know how to fight? Nothing personal, but I know your inhuman strength will come in handy, but if you don’t know how to hold a sword, you’re more of a liability than an asset.”

Ben got up and flexed his muscles, “I’m a ninth dan black belt, I’ll be fine.”

Spike smiled and nodded. “Would have had a use for you, back when I was training the slayerettes, but won’t say no now. I think I’ll wear the lenses, since it’s my sacrifice and my love coming into question, don’t you think?” Spike asked as he pulled the paper bag to him. 

He unwrapped the glasses and pulled them out of the velvet pouch. He looked them over. Each lens had copper melted around the edges and one melted prong, meant to handle the lenses, so you could remove them from the glasses and put in a different lens if you wanted. They were ancient, but had no flaws, nothing floated in their thin expanse. Spike pulled away from the unnatural attraction to put them on, quickly putting them away again.

Ben watched him and nodded. “Yeah, good idea, you should do it, but that means I’ll go in and totally trust you to see traps and doors where I can’t see anything… can you do that?”

“Yeah,” Spike laughed. “Should be no problem, you just gotta trust me… can you trust me? Knowing all of me now?” Spike piercing blue eyes locked on Ben’s confident green ones.

“I do… Xander trusts you after everything, through everything. I trust you, I really do, we’ll get him back and make them pay for what they did to Steven!”

“Yeah, that’s right, we’ll get ‘em pet, we’ll make ‘em pay.” Spike smiled a ghost of a familiar old evil smirk and it got Ben’s spirits up.

They looked over the old scroll one last time for a hint of when would be best to strike their stronghold, they wouldn’t wait months, but a certain hour would be nice. Ben’s finger moved along the scroll as Spike looked over their weapons one last time and he frowned, re-reading what he’d read.

“Spike, night time is when they’re strongest, the sun weakens them, see, here? The picture, when it’s in the sky, they shrink in strength.” Ben showed him the scroll, Spike looked at it and shook his head.

“Doesn’t matter, not going to leave Xander alone with them another minute if I have the choice.” Spike strapped the katana on his back and picked up the bag. 

Ben held his arm. “Spike, we won’t be able to stop them while the sun is in the sky, trust me, this scroll has never lied to me before, we need to wait.”

“What are we supposed to do till them, have a good hashing out over what’s going on then?” Spike countered.

Ben looked at his watch and rubbed his eyes. “No, I think we catch a few hours of shut eye and hit them at dawn. I’ll drive, promise, just… get to bed, come on, back to my apartment. We’ll take all the weapons, but we can’t stay here, cops are watching, come on.” 

He helped Spike carry the second bag and together they snuck out of the secret entrance and out a side door, into the shadows of a forgotten alley and into Ben’s car.

Spike bit his lower lip hard, trying not to imagine Xander screaming, being tortured, gods only knows what being done to him. And he couldn’t do a thing, not a damned thing.

I’m sorry Xander…