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They hadn’t exchanged Christmas gifts; they didn’t have that kind of relationship.
He wasn’t sure what type of relationship they did have, but he knew it wasn’t the kind that marked occasions like that.
Still, he’d tried to do right by her—tried to make her feel something other than the constant dread and overwhelming despair that seemed to haunt her these days.
And as usual, he failed.
He knew, intellectually, that it wasn’t up to him to reinitiate her into her own life. Yet, emotionally, he was compelled to do just that. He wanted to do nothing more than to try make her life bearable, to make her want to stay in the world where he loved her to be. To stay near him, if not with him.
After all, to fight that would be like fighting fate. His fate. His destiny. To always be the caretaker, the tender of love. In every single relationship, dead or alive, he’d always been the one to support and tend to and care for; the provider that gave and gave, but never quite got back a fair share in return.
When he’d been alive, his mother and sisters had depended on him. His father's early death had pushed him into a role that had fit him like a too tight waistcoat. But he’d donned it with pride and done what he must, taking the reins of the family business and assuming the mantle of head-of-household, while no more than a boy himself. He’d taken care of his mother, and made sure that his sisters had what they needed; watching as they blossomed.
His sisters were the first women to rule his heart, just as surely as they ruled his world. He’d lived to turn their frowns to smiles, their woes to happiness, their fear to security. Whatever it took, he made it happen. And they repaid his utter and complete devotion by scampering off to parties and into the arms of suitors, in the end marrying well and starting families of their own.
Which was how life should be. For them. But what about him - the man who watched them leave? He who stood in as father and gave them away? He should have been happy for them, and yet he wasn't. He was sad and lonely and empty to the core of his being. His life after they left was one dreary day after another, with nothing but work to fill his hours and a home with only mother and the servants to share his time. Unrequited love and the resulting poetry even he knew was horrible and overblown, were the only things keeping him afloat in a sea of despair. And then, even those were stripped from him by the callous fellows he’d called friends and the very woman whose heart and soul he held is such great regard.
He reached his lowest point and that’s when she’d found him. His effulgent princess. His dark goddess. His ripe, wicked plum. Luring him into the netherworld with bright promises of love and lust and unbridled passion.
But even death could not buy off the curse that seemed to hold him fast. Even as he lost his blood – and his very soul – to her, it made no difference. For while Drusilla may have rescued him from a bleary life of duty, he’d still, from the moment he’d crawled from his own grave, lived to serve her. Her moods, her sanity, her health, were all his responsibility. And again, a job foisted on him by a twist of fate became his heart’s work.
He began to call himself Spike after some time, but forever he would hold a single seed of William, deep down in what should have been the empty well of his soul. But that well was far from dry. Were there others like him? He didn’t know. He feared to find out, truth be told. But inside, some part of the old him remained, perhaps not drawn out completely in his turning; but regardless of the reason, a coal remained burning where only the cold ashes of a spent fire should have lain fallow.
It was this small flame that fueled his urge to protect and defend what was his—what he felt he was made to serve. So he fought for her, saved her too many times to count, and loved her beyond reason and time. And in return he watched as she held her heart from him, saving it only for the one who had created her, who had given birth to her lunacy. No matter what he did for her, it was never enough. Yet Angelus would do so little, nothing really, and she’d fall at his feet weeping of her love for him.
In the end, she had left him. As they all did. Telling him what he already knew; though he was loath to admit it even to himself. That he was being drawn towards the light; the small flicker in his soul, perhaps, calling out to his golden warrior. The light inside himself pulling him into the arms of the one that was sworn to kill him. Whatever it was—and more than once he’d called it his own brand of lunacy, that he was cursed, hexed, jinxed—he knew he was just a pawn in the game.
And once he’d realized the futility of his plight, he’d given over all of himself to her. There was no part of him that wasn’t hers to take and use at her pleasure. He’d nearly died himself, when he’d watch her soar towards heaven and fall into a crumpled mass at his feet. He’d hung on simply to keep his promise to her, all the while wishing and hoping for the day when someone, something would take him out of the world and the misery of being apart from her.
Then she’d returned. He couldn’t lie and say it wasn’t a joy unlike any he’d ever known to see her dirty face and bloody and broken fingers after she’d clawed her way out of her own grave. Selfish to the end, he’d only cared that she was back. He could see her, talk to her, brush against her from time to time. But soon enough he knew her sadness, of being lost to heaven and the serenity of knowing her job was done. That she was done.
But finally, in her misery she’d turned to him. Well, actually she’d crashed into him, flailing and grappling and working off that misery and emptiness in mindlessly fucking him. Not that he’d minded the mindless fucking; it was actually the highlight of the century for him. But in his heart, when he could hear it above the screaming of his cock, he knew she did it to shame herself. Not to punish him, but to punish herself. He might have been her punching bag, but the fight always cost her more dearly. And he hurt every time she opened another wound and he died a tiny bit with each wave of grief she inflicted upon herself through him.
So here he stood. His heart in the clutches of yet another woman who could not love him. Would not love him. Would not even give a second to the thought that there could be a feeling such as love between her and a monster such as he.
And it wasn’t as if she’d ever misled him. He wasn’t stupid. Impetuous, yes. Foolhardy, perhaps. But stupid, never. He knew how she felt. How being with him made her feel. How wringing out those tiny, shameful, disgusting bits of emotion were all she was clinging to and all she felt she had left in her resurrected soul. All she deserved.
And he would never deserve her. Yet it was enough if he could be with her occasionally. Touch her. Hold her. The few moments of peace she found were his priceless jewels to hoard. When he could make her smile or even laugh, for one moment, he was the king of the world. When he could give her that moment, one instant of time, when she wasn’t mourning heaven and trudging through life, that was what he was put on earth for. He knew this. He accepted it. He lived for it. God help him.
And now the year of life and death and rebirth was ending and a new one beginning. He wanted, so desperately, to give her the gift of a fresh start. A day where she woke up to a life she looked forward to. And, to be totally honest, a day where she looked into his face, into his heart, and understood what she meant to him. Reciprocation was a fantasy in which he indulged regularly. However, simple acceptance, an acknowledgment of his feelings would be enough. He’d make it enough. Even if he knew it would never be. Simply a dream he indulged in to make it through the lonely hours without her.
So tonight he would give her a gift he could afford. One she wouldn’t throw back in his face. One he knew would work, if only for a short time. He spruced up the place—if one could, indeed, spruce up a crypt. New linens, nicked from the mall, and candles flickering from every surface, glowing in expectation of her arrival. The bed turned back and sprayed with perfume stolen from her own dresser.
The thud of the crypt door being flung open heralded her entrance. A bellowed “Spike!” reverberated throughout the sparsely furnished tomb and down into the bowels of the crypt where Spike waited.
With a soft thud, her feet hit the floor as she stepped off the ladder to lower chamber. He stood in the dark corner of the room, watching as she scanned for him. The sad lines of her face echoing yet another day for her out of the arms of heaven. A small hell of a day, just like the one before, just like the one to come.
Stepping out of the darkness, he sauntered toward her, watching her face change from weariness to surprise to bemusement. Her smile grew and her laughter bubbled until it overflowed into unladylike guffaws of joy. Finally, her knees gave out and she collapsed before him, laughing uncontrollably as he walked around her.
When she’d at last controlled herself to look up, wiping away the tears that had sprung to her eyes, he raised a brow. She reached up a tentative finger to the waist band of his black and red silk boxer shorts, the large glitter hearts shimmering as she snapped the elastic.
Her fingers walked their way up his taught abdomen and chest as he bent forward, at last grasping into the curls at the nape of his neck. He removed the long-stemmed red rose from his mouth, just before her lips reached his, and murmured, “Happy Valentine’s Day, luv.”
The End
Author's Chapter Notes:
This was written as a gift for a btvs santa group on LJ. Thanks to an old Scotsman named Robert Burns for the translated title. Thanks also to my betas, xyellowroset and beanbeans.