Uh?

 

What in the bloody hell has just happened?

 

Buffy Summers…the real, in the flesh and bossy attitude Slayer I know and love has just kissed my bruised and beaten lips.

 

She knew about the robot…

 

And I’m not dust…

 

Again I go with a uh?

 

Let me tell you, having that Robot built hasn’t been one of my highlights ever…

 

Do you think I don’t know that?

 

Ah!

 

I may be a blood sucker, a soulless vampire, but I’m not stupid…

 

Never have been…

 

Fact is…have you ever been so in love that it tears you up from the inside? Have you ever felt so bloody desperate that you would have done anything to ease that pain?

 

My unlife used to be so bloody simple…me and Dru, killing, feeding, shagging…it was perfection…or it looked like that…then my unlife merrily went down the loo a few years ago and I haven’t been the same since then.

 

Dru left me because she could see the Slayer all around me …

 

Fact is I didn’t think about the bloody Slayer back then…I was head over heels for my black queen…do you really think I went to ask for Buffy’s help because of a sudden and overwhelming need to save the world?

 

Well…bugger it, yeah…but that’s not the whole point…

 

What I know is that I didn’t give a damn about Buffy Summers back then…

 

Quite the psychic my Dru, uh?

 

Ow…let me tell you, having your chest ripped open by a she-bitch god…hurts, a lot.

 

Where was I? Oh, yes…the Slayer…I didn’t love her…back then, oh yeah, I liked her…I’m dead, not brain-dead…or should it be penis-dead? She’s always been beautiful and strong, and bossy…and  brave, very brave. I’ve always admired her…

 

…yeah…what’s wrong? Can’t a fiend feel a healthy respect for his opponent?

 

But then I got chipped…

 

Me…William the Bloody, Spike…chipped, unable to defend himself from *humans*, unable to feed, unable to do anything, except whine, that is.  I mastered in whining last year…don’t you think I know that? I didn’t want to give up on what I am…was…whatever…

 

I betrayed them…I sold them to Adam, like the bloody fool I am…and part of me felt he wasn’t going to free me from this soddin’ chip…yet I did it anyway…

 

I went to them, I hurt them, I humiliated them, I sold them…

 

And God…did I like it…it made me feel like my old self…

 

Very good, be your old self…and be ALONE!

 

Alone…demons already hated me, the only people who could stand me hated my guts…and I was alone…and mostly lonely…

 

A whole summer spent watching repeats of Dawson Creek really wore me to the bone…

 

Perhaps that’s why I fell for the Slayer…

 

Bloody Pacey and all the lot…

 

I came back to Harmony…or rather she accepted me back – no point in lying to myself- and I felt grateful because I was tired to be alone…

 

Someone call the press, the big bad hates being alone…I’m a gregarious animal…so what? Sue me…

 

Then I fell for the Slayer…

 

I wish I could tell it was something I had foreseen…something I had expected…I mean I knew I had developed quite an obsession about her, with the mannequin and all the stuff…

 

But I didn’t bloody love her…

 

Until the dream…

 

I still remember that dream…I vividly remember it…I've replayed it in my mind for months…

The way I begged her to stake me, to take me out from a world with her in it

 

_witness the bloody poet in me, waxing poetry to my supposed sworn enemy…oh, bloody hell…how pathetic can a bloke get for love?_

 

I still remember the way I stripped from that shirt and posed in front of her, like a bloody, sodding, martyr …and then…the way I grabbed her and kissed her, as if my unlife depended on it…as if she was blood and I was thirsty…hungry…and the way I felt even in my dream whole, sated, after she broke the kiss…yet I craved for more…and then they way she took my face in her strong yet gentle hands and kissed me back, just like when we were under that spell…and she loved me and her smile, that look of pure bliss in her eyes was just for me…

 

Aw, bugger it…I hate my unlife…

 

Anyway, when I woke up from that dream I was scared shitless, I started pacing my crypt and think about her…about her smile, about her hair…about the look in her eyes when she fights, or when she’s brassed off..

 

And yes, guess what? I realized I was in love with her.

 

Of course, being the demon slash idiot that I am I started following her around…and she discovered me…and of course – how many of course have I used in one sentence? Oh, well, bugger it, I’m talking to myself here…- I started  stammering and being the idiot I was when I was alive…

 

Very, very clever of you, old boy…127 years as vampire and a look from her reduces you to a blabbering git…how sad is that?

 

Well, at least I still had some resemblance of pride, of dignity back then…I mean, I still had my image…

 

I stripped down from it one night when she was almost killed. She came to my crypt and with her usual gentle manners – that would be punching me, threaten to stake me and generally showing me who’s in charge…- she asked me to tell her about the two Slayers I had bagged.

 

Now, what a decent demon would have done? Besides tell her to sod off and sending a thank you card to the bloke who had almost got her with her own stake, that is?

 

A decent demon would have told her what she needed to know, the basics, the fights, then would have taken his money and went back to his merry way

 

Nope, not me…

 

Never me…

 

Ah! I wore my heart on my sleeve that night for her…

 

I told her about my past, my *human*  past, I told her things I had always kept to myself…I told her what led me to kill those two Slayers…

 

Very clever isn’t it? Sell your secrets for fifty bucks and then witness how she breaks your heart…

Yeah…she broke my heart that night…

 

The first of many times since then…

 

And before anyone complains…yes, we demons can have our hearts broken…quite effectively, trust me on this…not all the demons are cold, heartless bastards like Angelus…

 

She broke my heart in more than one way that night. She told me I was beneath her, just like Cecily, that bitch…had done more than a century before…and you know what? I did really want to kill Buffy that night…I was ready to take the physical pain her death would bring me and drink myself into oblivion to ease it, with the money she had thrown at me as if I was a bloody hooker…

 

Then I saw her crying.

 

And my heart broke some more…

 

Because I couldn’t stand seeing her crying…

 

Yeah, I’m a total wuss, I’m the pariah of all demons…happy now? I couldn’t…I sat next to her, and I would have done anything to ease her pain…

 

But what can you do against cancer? What can you do against a disease who threatens your love’s mum?

 

Nothing…I sat next to her, without talking, offering comfort...fully knowing she couldn’t care less about me.

 

The following months have been hard, it looked like everything I did just made her angrier, just made her hate me more.

 

Take Riley for example.

 

Did I force the idiot to have his blood sucked? No…I just informed the Slayer. Because you see if there is something I really hate is infidelity.

 

Surprised? Well, listen to the supposed love of your unlife getting shagged within a inch of her unlife by her sire in the room next to yours then open your gob if you can…

 

Anyway Buffy blamed me for that.

 

I helped

 

She didn’t care.

 

I tried to protect  Dawn

 

She thought I wanted to hurt her by hurting her sister.

 

Bloody sodding hell, in what language did  I have to tell her I’m not bloody Angelus?

 

I tried to change…hell, I even went shopping…using money and not fangs…

 

And she told me none too gently to sod off.

 

Then Dawn, that little brat, that little, very insightful brat told her I was in love with her.

 

I didn’t want to tell her.

 

I had already told Riley I knew I didn’t have a chance with her. I didn’t want her to know. I was perfectly happy to be a sodding poof and watching her from a distance…

 

But Buffy…being Buffy wanted to know…

 

And she had to break my heart…again, and again…and of course since my unlife sucks to high heaven – and no, that isn’t the lamest pun, ever…but the sad truth – Drusilla chose that exact moment to come back to me.

 

I had dreamed and wished to see her again for almost two years, I had missed her so much, so very much and she chose the moment where I was weakest to come back and tempt me into turning back to my old self.

 

Isn’t my life just a sodding ray of sunshine? I bet Murphy would get a kick out of this story.

 

I fed that night…alright, the girl was already dead, but her blood was still warm, and the feeling of my fangs sinking into her neck, and of  her blood filling my throat, sweet and powerful was intoxicating. Drusilla was intoxicating…

 

I wanted to pretend nothing had changed, I wanted to pretend I could come back to the way things were…

 

Truth is …I couldn’t…

 

And not because of the chip.

 

Yes, witness me going to Los Angeles and being humiliated by Darla, ignored by Dru and staked by Angel.

 

Witness my total humiliation with my family when I’d heat up my supply of blood in a microwave…

 

Witness me, missing Buffy. do you see a pattern here, somewhere?

 

Buffy…

 

I told her, she’s in my  gut ... my throat ... I told her I was drowning in her. well, it would have probably more effective if she hadn’t been chained up to a wall when I told her.

 

Never mind.

 

I realized that night I really loved her. I was ready to stake Drusilla. I honestly can’t say whether I’d had the stones to really stake her….but I wanted to.

 

She didn’t care, she rejected me, effectively shutting me out from her life, her house. bloody hell, I was furious, I was hurt…I was really at the end of my rope, then…but I’m a optimist at heart…or I’m really a little bugger, because I didn’t give up.

 

Part of me, my demon…hell, even my pride wanted revenge…was seeking for revenge, but you see that’s when I realized I couldn’t do that.

 

Don’t think I wasn’t tempted …going to the sodding goddess and tell her about the key…but I couldn’t do that. I just couldn’t.

 

You know which is the real difference between demons and humans? It’s not the lack of a soul…or not knowing the difference between good and evil…it’s that we don’t care. We do what we like, when we like and we don’t care about the consequences…that’s the real blast of being a soulless demon.

 

Instead I found out I cared. I cared whether something bad happened to Buffy…and to Joyce and Dawn.

 

That’s why I didn’t speak when the entire Scooby lot treated me like crap. I was a bit surprised to got acquainted with Rupert Giles in Ripper mode, that’s it, but even then I didn’t plan to sell them…I couldn’t.

 

Instead I went ordering myself a robot. Why? I’ll be damned if I know. All I knew is that I wanted Buffy…and I knew I didn’t have a chance in hell to have her.

 

I wasn’t planning anything. I just wanted to have my robot and shag her …and tell her I loved her without her going all ‘eeeew’ on me.

 

And I wanted her to tell me she loved me…is that a crime?

 

Someone might think that a robot is just an electronic version of the mannequin I used to have …well…so? Are you shocked to the chore? I said I found out I cared I didn’t say I had grown a soul.

 

I didn’t plan Buffy to find out about the robot…ever, just like I don’t plan her ever to find out about when I helped Dawn with that spell.

 

I told her the truth, I really don’t like Summers’ women taking it in the chin so hard. I helped her because I missed Joyce too, she was a nice woman and she liked me…despite what Xander the whelp said.

 

So, when the robot arrived I was just the happiest vampire around. The robot was so alike Buffy yet she was so different, but I didn’t care. The robot was warm, just like the original. She had her smile, which just seems to lit a room, she was strong almost like the real thing.

 

But she wasn’t the real thing…although it looks like I’m the only one who realizes that. Her chums  didn’t recognize her and neither did Glory’s minions, who thought I was the key.

 

Yeah, right…me the Key…I’m just all glowy and pure and key-like. Note the sarcasm in my words…

 

Those were the densest, stupidest, most useless minions ever! Come on, those gits are supposed to help a god? 

 

Speaking about our resident god…she really wanted to peel me off like a sodding apple, she hurt me, a lot, what is worst? She knew! She felt somehow no one would exactly drown in sorrow whether I’d died, unless of course I told her about the Key. I could tell her about the Key then getting staked by Buffy…or I could tell her to sod off then getting killed.

 

A no win situation. I thought about that. I thought about everything. I may be hyper but contrary to popular belief I haven’t a strong death wish. I like my bones in their places, and I like walking around.

 

Yet, it never crossed my mind to really tell that poor excuse for a Goddess about the Key. Images of Buffy’s face while her little sister died gave me strength to resist her torture, flashes of her pain and sorrow, which probably would have made me growl with pleasure until a few months ago hurt me more than Glory’s finger dipping in my chest.

 

I couldn’t…I kept seeing Buffy’s face that night when she discovered her mother was sick, I kept seeing Dawn’s face while she told me she needed her mum back.

 

I didn’t talk…although I suspected that if I ever got out from that apartment in one piece I was going to bite the dust, because there was no way Buffy and her chums would think I hadn’t betrayed them.

 

I didn’t care. I couldn’t betray her. I just couldn’t.

 

I escaped, I made the goddess so angry she released me from the chains…nice plan, a bit on the suicidal side if you ask me, despite what I've previously said about my lack of a death wish, but I couldn’t come up with anything better.

 

Anyway Xander and Giles drove me to my crypt and I think I should be dust right now…but I was probably too beaten to be dusted. I mean where is the gloating if you dust someone who is probably going to bite it anyway? That…or they pitied me…

 

…I don’t know what is worst. I honestly don’t know.

 

So here I was in my crypt, lying over my makeshift bed, feeling only slightly better than when a sodding organ fell on me…and my robot enters the crypt saying I was covered in sexy wounds.

 

Yeah, right, I felt sexy like a ton of bricks …I mean, I didn’t need a mirror to know how the hell that bitch had reduced me…I still feel pain, you know.

 

She went on babbling about sex and then asked me why I had let myself being hurt by Glory. I was too tired to play being the big bad cool, and frankly I had the robot built even because I didn’t want to be alone…even Harm had dumped me for good…so I told her the truth. I told her that  the goddess wanted to know who the key was, when she told she was going to tell Glory herself I knew that was the end for the Robot, so I told her  that she didn’t have to, that Glory didn’t have to find out…ever.

 

She asked me why.

 

Why? Because I’m a total poof  who has madly fallen for a Vampire Slayer who has a sister who happens to be the key….that’s why. Because under all this bleach beats a heart…well, not technically but you get the point, which wouldn’t stop bleeding if Glory knew about the Key because of me.

 

I can’t help thinking about what I told her. I told her something along the lines of  “I couldn’t live whether the real Buffy suffered …” I think I've even said something like, “let me die first”

 

Very demon-y of me uh? Told long time ago I was love’s bitch…and it wasn’t the alcohol talking.

 

It was then I've had the surprise of my unlife…the Robot leant forward and gently kissed me.

 

It was Buffy, the real Buffy. The real Buffy, who is leaving my crypt now.

 

She has just halted, she’s looking at me while she says, “That thing…it wasn’t even real. What you did for me and Dawn…that was real. I won’t forget it”

 

She doesn’t give me time to say something. She leaves the crypt and I’m …

 

Bloody hell, the only thing which keeps ringing in my mind is this huge ‘uh?’ …she has just kissed me.

 

It wasn’t a mind blowing kiss induced by a spell.

 

It wasn’t my robot kissing me almost senseless.

 

It was the real Buffy…and while part of me is screaming at me that I’m a moron because I should have recognized her sooner – I mean I have spent a fall sniffing her sweaters for god’s sake!- there’s another part of me who’s registering her words.

 

Has Buffy Summers actually thanked me?

 

I sit on my makeshift bed, lightly scratching my head, wincing in pain at this gesture. I would like to gloat about what has just happened, but even my demon has enough sense not to gloat. She still doesn’t love me back. She is grateful…and perhaps she will stop seeing me as a horned beast ready to slit her throat as soon as turns her back to me.

 

I said once to Angel that we demons can’t change. I bet he would laugh his head off if he saw me now.

 

Because guess what? I've changed.

 

Because I now know I  will help them…when time comes, and even if I know this won’t change things between Buffy and I, even if I know Glory will probably kill us all  I’ll do it anyway.

 

Because I care. I chose to care.

 

The End.