Wake Part 9
Author's note: In which the title of this story is finally explained. Thanks very much to everyone who has been so nice about it. Hope the end doesn't disappoint.
Part 9
Giles is woken by a voice calling his name. He knows the voice, and yet he doesn’t know it at all, and for a moment, he’s confused by its lower class English tones, thinking he’s at home in England, and one of the servants is calling him to get up for breakfast. But then it speaks again, and he realises that the accent isn’t quite right, and anyway, his whole body hurts, and why is that? And then he remembers where he’s heard the voice before, and when he heard it last, and he wishes that he could keep his eyes shut and hide in the comforting darkness. But the voice is unrelenting.
“Come on, Rupert, I know you’re awake. Can tell by your heartbeat. Don’t you want to look at me any more? Should I be offended?”
The voice is sneering now, full of contempt and spite, and that gives Giles the impetus to open his eyes and find out just how hopeless his situation really is.
He’s lying on a table in the dank concrete cellar where he’d kept Angel chained up. The table is, yes, it’s his oak dining table from home, the one he inherited from Grandpapa Wetherley. Spike has dragged it down here into the cellar by brute strength, and he’s chained him to it, the chains wound tightly round his body and arms. He can move his head, his hands from the wrist and his feet and that’s about it. He’s pleasantly surprised to discover that he’s not naked. The bright fluorescent lights are glaring straight into his eyes, and the air smells of cigarette smoke.
Spike comes into his field of vision then, looming over him, smiling the most joyless smile Giles has ever seen. He looks so different. He’s bleached his hair again and had it cut close to the scalp and flattened with gell. There’s no softness about him at all any more. The close-cropped hair reveals the shape of his head, which is beautiful, like the rest of him, but it makes him look far more predatory, like a wolf in its summer coat. He takes a drag on his cigarette, inhaling the smoke deep into his lungs, and turns his head aside to exhale. The smoke hangs in the stale air, turning it blue, making Giles feel like he’s choking. Spike’s feet are still bare but he’s wearing black jeans and a silk shirt the colour of dark chocolate, unbuttoned and hanging open to reveal glimpses of a torso as cold and perfect as marble, a miniature Michelangelo’s David, each muscle perfectly sculpted, the skin overlaying them fine as a sheet of white silk, coloured only by the two rosy nipples, like jewels set in stone. But he seems less thin than Giles remembers, his arms filling out the sleeves of his shirt. No one would think this creature frail now.
“Thought I’d lost you for good there, Rupes,” Spike says. “Glad to see I was wrong. Haven’t finished with you yet.”
The menace underlying the casual tone of voice sends chills down Giles’s spine. This is a very bad situation and he’ll be lucky to get out of it, he knows.
“What do you plan to do with me, Spike?” he manages to say. “And don’t think - “
“And don’t think what?” Spike interrupts, and he laughs, one short bark of laughter that has no humour in it at all. “Don’t think I’ll get away with it? Grow up, Rupert. No one knows where you are, except those Initiative blokes you paid off and sent away. Who’s going to come looking for you? The Slayer? Shouldn’t think so, what with the brush off you gave her and her little friends because of me. She could see what you were doing, you know. Girl’s not as stupid as you think.”
He takes another drag of his cigarette, while Giles tries to think of a reply, and fails. Then he says:
“Saw the little girl out walking with her toy soldier when I was in town getting supplies- hope you don’t mind me borrowing your credit card, by the way, mate? - I did think of bringing her back here to join in the fun, but then I thought, better not.”
“You leave her alone, you piece of filth!” Giles finds himself shouting. The girl would always mean something to him of course, what with him having been her Watcher, but he realises he sounds ridiculous, and it’s not really Buffy he’s concerned for anyway.
Again, Spike laughs, and he bends to stub his cigarette out on the concrete floor.
“Wasn’t going to hurt her, Rupert, old chap,” he says. “Not just now at any rate. Thought I might ask her if she wanted to join in. You know - be my Lovely Assistant while I torture you to death? After all, girls always have a soft spot for the first bloke that shags them, and not just girls. And you killed hers - oh, and mine, by the way.”
At those words, it’s as if a cold hand has gripped Giles’s heart, and he knows suddenly that he’s not going to get out of this. This is it. Spike will kill him, and take his time about it, because he killed Angel. All he can do is to try to keep Spike talking and delay the inevitable as long as possible.
“The chip - “he says, and is fleetingly proud that his voice doesn’t give away how afraid he is, “when did it stop working?”
Spike pretends to consider this for a moment, wrinkling his perfect brow and assuming a thoughtful expression.
“Oh yes,” he says, finally. “I think that would be when you hit me on the head with a baseball bat and then threw me headfirst at a wall. I should thank you for that, I suppose. Must’ve knocked the thing out of commission - scrambled its circuits, like. And then you let me have enough time to recover, for my poor little brain to repair itself. Thoughtful of you.”
“But you remember everything?” Giles can’t believe it. Spike was just an animal. Animals don’t remember things, do they? Children don’t remember their early childhood. He’s sure of it.
“Yes, ‘Papa’,” Spike says, leaning forward, his voice full of venom. “I remember every single fucking thing. I remember trusting you and loving you like you were God. I remember you giving me blood and holding me on your knee and wanking me and making me feel good. I remember every single moment of that. And then I remember the first time you fucked me, and how much it hurt and me begging you to stop, and you not taking any notice. I remember how scared I felt that you would hurt me like that, and then how grateful I was when you made the pain go away and made me feel good again. I remember wanting to please you more than anything, even bringing you the toy box so you could stick things on my poor little willy and make it sore, or in me to make my bottom nice and loose for you, so Papa won’t have to try so hard. Your very words, Rupert. I remember you sticking your dirty great fist up my arse, and taking it, because I loved you and thought - such as I did think - that you had the right to do whatever you wanted to me, because you gave me cuddles and that nice blanket and cartoons to watch.”
He turns away in evident disgust, and Giles finds himself saying:
“You weren’t a child, Spike. You’re a vampire, an evil, disgusting, soulless thing. What duty of care did I owe you? You’re lucky I didn’t stake you on sight.”
And then Spike’s face is suddenly right up in his, his breath smelling of cigarettes and another odd, metallic smell that Giles doesn’t recognise at first, but then realises is the smell of blood.
“Don’t kid yourself, mate,” Spike says. “You’re no better than those sad perverts who go looking at kiddyporn on the internet and then acting out their fantasies. I may be a soulless monster, but I was innocent then. I knew nothing and no one, and I trusted you. And you abused me. You’re the one with the fucking soul, how much of a monster does that make you?”
He moves back a bit, and his fierce eyes seem to glitter with moisture, but he doesn’t give Giles a chance to say anything.
“And what else do I remember?” he goes on. “Oh yes, I remember being routinely chained up and drugged. I remember being held under water until my lungs collapsed for lack of air, just for getting my face dirty, and I remember having the skin flayed off my bum just for taking my clothes off. But most of all, and here’s the killer, I remember having your dick in my mouth or up my arse every single fucking day.”
His face twists in disgust.
“I’d bathe in holy water if I could get the taste and the smell of you out of my head for good, you shit! I’d go blind before I’d ever set eyes on your dick again. You took something that doesn’t belong to you, and you took something away from me that I can never get back. You’re lucky, is all, that I’m not a patient man and I can only spare you a week or so.”
“You’re not a man at all!” Giles spits, but he’s running low on defiance. It’s more difficult now, in extremis, to ignore that voice that he’s always ignored so successfully before; the one that tells him the truth about himself that he doesn’t want to listen to. He can’t wholly deny what Spike has said, not now, and perhaps admitting it will help him, redeem him a little in the monster’s eyes? It might even spare him, or at least kill him quickly.
“I’m sorry,” he says, finally, gritting it out, because it’s so hard to say.
Spike looks surprised, but his face never softens. The eyes that were so limpid and gentle, are like chips of ice in a face that is barely more than skin laid over a skull, so pared down and fine are its edges. If you look hard enough, Giles thinks, in the centre of each pupil is a ring of flame, the eyes of a damned creature, bound for hell. And yet, it’s scored a moral victory over him, that he can’t hide from.
“Feeling it now, are we?” Spike says, amused. “Not like you will feel it, though. Still, a little remorse is nice to see, and it deserves a reward. Like a last treat, would you, Rupes? It’ll be strictly look and no touch this time, I’m afraid, but then killing my sire doesn’t give you his privileges.”
So saying, he seizes one end of the table and tips it on its side. Giles finds himself in a standing position, hanging from the chains that bind him uncomfortably to it. Spike meanwhile has walked back round in front of him, carrying one of the arm chairs from the living room. He sets it down in front of Giles, and smiles a cold, lascivious smile at him. He removes his shirt and shimmies out of his jeans, turning his back to Giles and wiggling his arse provocatively towards him. Giles can see that he’s had the tattoo removed. There’s a patch of pinkish skin just above his coccyx where the acid has stripped the skin clean. Apart from that, Spike’s back is flawless once again. Nothing remains of the beatings Giles inflicted on him. He must have been drinking human blood, and a lot of it, to speed the healing up. Giles wonders how much of it was his.
Sitting down gracefully in the armchair, Spike hooks his legs supply up and back over the wide arms, and cants his hips forwards far enough to expose his tight hole, wantonly displaying himself to his captive. He smiles again, and taking a tube of KY from his jeans pocket, squeezes some into his hands and begins to rub them together to warm it. Satisfied, he takes his cock in his hand and begins to pull and stroke it, bringing it to life in his slick grip. Giles watches it engorge, the dark pink tip poking out from the foreskin which gradually rolls back, until the thing is fully erect. It’s big. Much bigger than Giles remembers. He begins to think that his whole view of Spike has been distorted right from the start. This creature is in no way like a child, nor even a youth, except in the inhuman sparseness of its body hair, (and even of that, there seems to be more than he remembers). It’s a grown man, or at least resembles one in every way. How could he have been so deceived? Spike continues to wank himself, but now the fingers of his other hand begin to circle around his exposed pucker, leaving a glistening trail behind them, round and round, until finally one, and then two push inside, and he begins to fuck himself on his fingers, other hand moving faster and faster up and down his cock, pulling and stripping, clear pre-come leaking from the tip and slicking his hand more. Giles feels his own cock stir and lift against his leg, in spite of himself. The sight of Spike, his eyes closed, head thrown back, grunting throatily - “Unh! Unh! Unh!” - as he pleasures himself, is so erotic it even beats the sight of him coupling with Angel in the moonlight. Giles swallows, too much saliva in his mouth, then hears himself groan. At the sound, Spike’s eyes fly open, fixing on Giles, not allowing him to look away, as, with a final tug and thrust of fingers, he comes over himself, milky strands shooting from the tip of his cock to splatter on his flat belly. And as he comes, he says, voice hoarse: “Papa!”
There is silence for a moment, and then Spike strokes his hand down his own torso, pulls at his nipples, and swipes his cum onto his fingers. He lifts them to his lips and licks at them delicately, like a cat. All the time, his eyes never leave Giles’s.
Finally, he says: “Enjoyed that, did you, Rupes? No need to say, I can smell from here that you did. Consider it my thank you present for looking after me so well. But you do realise of course, that none of me ever really belonged to you, don’t you? This”- and he pulls at his softening cock-” belonged to Drusilla, and sometimes Darla, for as long as they wanted it.” His fingers wander down to press at his hole, still gaping a little and glistening with lubrication; “And this belonged to Angelus, and only to him. No one else was ever supposed to go there. No one else was supposed to fucking touch me, only him, and no one else has. No one. Except you. You weren’t invited, mate, which makes you a rapist and a thief. You aren’t going to touch me again.”
He wipes his hands on a piece of paper he takes from a stack on the floor (Giles recognises it from the neat, scholarly handwriting as his report) and stands up. He picks up the old sweatpants that Giles had made him wear for so many weeks, grimaces, then puts them on.
“Don’t want to get my new clobber dirty,” he explains when he sees Giles looking. There’s no mercy in his gaze, and Giles knows there never will be. He’s aware of tears in his eyes, blinks them away angrily with the last of his defiance.
His eyes track Spike across the room to where there’s a small table covered in objects that he can’t see properly without his glasses. Spike stands for a moment, as if undecided, then selects one and comes back towards Giles, holding it behind his back. On the way, he pauses, as if considering something. He gives a wry smile, though only to himself, and then comes back and looks Giles in the eye again.
“Here’s the thing, Rupes. I’m not a patient man, like I said. Angelus always said that impatience was the worst of my many faults, that I’d never learn to be a proper vampire if I couldn’t be bothered to take my time and wring every last scream out of my victims. Of course, I said he was a poncey git and went my own sweet way. I couldn’t be bothered with torture. It bored me. But now, I have to consider that you killed my Angel. You killed my beautiful Angelus. He was the world to me: father, lover - my sire in all the ways that really mattered. He meant everything to me. I know he didn’t feel that way about me, but he might have done in time, which I thought we had plenty of - and what do you go and do? You kill him. You take that eternity away from him. I think that I owe it to the old man to exercise some patience for a change. I can spare a couple of weeks of my unlife in honour of his memory.”
His gaze is utterly implacable, though the tears that only threatened to fall before are now running silently down his face.
“Thought I should explain,” he says. “This isn’t just revenge. It’s in honour of the dead. Kind of a wake. He told me once that an Irishman always likes to know that someone’s having fun at his funeral. ”
Then he brings the small, neat bone saw out from behind his back, and takes Giles’s little finger in a firm grip.
“Hospitals,” he says. “Great places. You can get everything you want in a hospital. Blood for the freezer. Lots of neat little toys like this.”
He brings the bone saw up to Giles’s eye level, teasing him with it.
“Spike - “Giles says, but he gets no further. He’s aware of moisture running down the inside of his trousers.
“Shush,” Spike says, kindly. “Remember what I said about you never touching me again? Let me show you why."
Part 9
Giles is woken by a voice calling his name. He knows the voice, and yet he doesn’t know it at all, and for a moment, he’s confused by its lower class English tones, thinking he’s at home in England, and one of the servants is calling him to get up for breakfast. But then it speaks again, and he realises that the accent isn’t quite right, and anyway, his whole body hurts, and why is that? And then he remembers where he’s heard the voice before, and when he heard it last, and he wishes that he could keep his eyes shut and hide in the comforting darkness. But the voice is unrelenting.
“Come on, Rupert, I know you’re awake. Can tell by your heartbeat. Don’t you want to look at me any more? Should I be offended?”
The voice is sneering now, full of contempt and spite, and that gives Giles the impetus to open his eyes and find out just how hopeless his situation really is.
He’s lying on a table in the dank concrete cellar where he’d kept Angel chained up. The table is, yes, it’s his oak dining table from home, the one he inherited from Grandpapa Wetherley. Spike has dragged it down here into the cellar by brute strength, and he’s chained him to it, the chains wound tightly round his body and arms. He can move his head, his hands from the wrist and his feet and that’s about it. He’s pleasantly surprised to discover that he’s not naked. The bright fluorescent lights are glaring straight into his eyes, and the air smells of cigarette smoke.
Spike comes into his field of vision then, looming over him, smiling the most joyless smile Giles has ever seen. He looks so different. He’s bleached his hair again and had it cut close to the scalp and flattened with gell. There’s no softness about him at all any more. The close-cropped hair reveals the shape of his head, which is beautiful, like the rest of him, but it makes him look far more predatory, like a wolf in its summer coat. He takes a drag on his cigarette, inhaling the smoke deep into his lungs, and turns his head aside to exhale. The smoke hangs in the stale air, turning it blue, making Giles feel like he’s choking. Spike’s feet are still bare but he’s wearing black jeans and a silk shirt the colour of dark chocolate, unbuttoned and hanging open to reveal glimpses of a torso as cold and perfect as marble, a miniature Michelangelo’s David, each muscle perfectly sculpted, the skin overlaying them fine as a sheet of white silk, coloured only by the two rosy nipples, like jewels set in stone. But he seems less thin than Giles remembers, his arms filling out the sleeves of his shirt. No one would think this creature frail now.
“Thought I’d lost you for good there, Rupes,” Spike says. “Glad to see I was wrong. Haven’t finished with you yet.”
The menace underlying the casual tone of voice sends chills down Giles’s spine. This is a very bad situation and he’ll be lucky to get out of it, he knows.
“What do you plan to do with me, Spike?” he manages to say. “And don’t think - “
“And don’t think what?” Spike interrupts, and he laughs, one short bark of laughter that has no humour in it at all. “Don’t think I’ll get away with it? Grow up, Rupert. No one knows where you are, except those Initiative blokes you paid off and sent away. Who’s going to come looking for you? The Slayer? Shouldn’t think so, what with the brush off you gave her and her little friends because of me. She could see what you were doing, you know. Girl’s not as stupid as you think.”
He takes another drag of his cigarette, while Giles tries to think of a reply, and fails. Then he says:
“Saw the little girl out walking with her toy soldier when I was in town getting supplies- hope you don’t mind me borrowing your credit card, by the way, mate? - I did think of bringing her back here to join in the fun, but then I thought, better not.”
“You leave her alone, you piece of filth!” Giles finds himself shouting. The girl would always mean something to him of course, what with him having been her Watcher, but he realises he sounds ridiculous, and it’s not really Buffy he’s concerned for anyway.
Again, Spike laughs, and he bends to stub his cigarette out on the concrete floor.
“Wasn’t going to hurt her, Rupert, old chap,” he says. “Not just now at any rate. Thought I might ask her if she wanted to join in. You know - be my Lovely Assistant while I torture you to death? After all, girls always have a soft spot for the first bloke that shags them, and not just girls. And you killed hers - oh, and mine, by the way.”
At those words, it’s as if a cold hand has gripped Giles’s heart, and he knows suddenly that he’s not going to get out of this. This is it. Spike will kill him, and take his time about it, because he killed Angel. All he can do is to try to keep Spike talking and delay the inevitable as long as possible.
“The chip - “he says, and is fleetingly proud that his voice doesn’t give away how afraid he is, “when did it stop working?”
Spike pretends to consider this for a moment, wrinkling his perfect brow and assuming a thoughtful expression.
“Oh yes,” he says, finally. “I think that would be when you hit me on the head with a baseball bat and then threw me headfirst at a wall. I should thank you for that, I suppose. Must’ve knocked the thing out of commission - scrambled its circuits, like. And then you let me have enough time to recover, for my poor little brain to repair itself. Thoughtful of you.”
“But you remember everything?” Giles can’t believe it. Spike was just an animal. Animals don’t remember things, do they? Children don’t remember their early childhood. He’s sure of it.
“Yes, ‘Papa’,” Spike says, leaning forward, his voice full of venom. “I remember every single fucking thing. I remember trusting you and loving you like you were God. I remember you giving me blood and holding me on your knee and wanking me and making me feel good. I remember every single moment of that. And then I remember the first time you fucked me, and how much it hurt and me begging you to stop, and you not taking any notice. I remember how scared I felt that you would hurt me like that, and then how grateful I was when you made the pain go away and made me feel good again. I remember wanting to please you more than anything, even bringing you the toy box so you could stick things on my poor little willy and make it sore, or in me to make my bottom nice and loose for you, so Papa won’t have to try so hard. Your very words, Rupert. I remember you sticking your dirty great fist up my arse, and taking it, because I loved you and thought - such as I did think - that you had the right to do whatever you wanted to me, because you gave me cuddles and that nice blanket and cartoons to watch.”
He turns away in evident disgust, and Giles finds himself saying:
“You weren’t a child, Spike. You’re a vampire, an evil, disgusting, soulless thing. What duty of care did I owe you? You’re lucky I didn’t stake you on sight.”
And then Spike’s face is suddenly right up in his, his breath smelling of cigarettes and another odd, metallic smell that Giles doesn’t recognise at first, but then realises is the smell of blood.
“Don’t kid yourself, mate,” Spike says. “You’re no better than those sad perverts who go looking at kiddyporn on the internet and then acting out their fantasies. I may be a soulless monster, but I was innocent then. I knew nothing and no one, and I trusted you. And you abused me. You’re the one with the fucking soul, how much of a monster does that make you?”
He moves back a bit, and his fierce eyes seem to glitter with moisture, but he doesn’t give Giles a chance to say anything.
“And what else do I remember?” he goes on. “Oh yes, I remember being routinely chained up and drugged. I remember being held under water until my lungs collapsed for lack of air, just for getting my face dirty, and I remember having the skin flayed off my bum just for taking my clothes off. But most of all, and here’s the killer, I remember having your dick in my mouth or up my arse every single fucking day.”
His face twists in disgust.
“I’d bathe in holy water if I could get the taste and the smell of you out of my head for good, you shit! I’d go blind before I’d ever set eyes on your dick again. You took something that doesn’t belong to you, and you took something away from me that I can never get back. You’re lucky, is all, that I’m not a patient man and I can only spare you a week or so.”
“You’re not a man at all!” Giles spits, but he’s running low on defiance. It’s more difficult now, in extremis, to ignore that voice that he’s always ignored so successfully before; the one that tells him the truth about himself that he doesn’t want to listen to. He can’t wholly deny what Spike has said, not now, and perhaps admitting it will help him, redeem him a little in the monster’s eyes? It might even spare him, or at least kill him quickly.
“I’m sorry,” he says, finally, gritting it out, because it’s so hard to say.
Spike looks surprised, but his face never softens. The eyes that were so limpid and gentle, are like chips of ice in a face that is barely more than skin laid over a skull, so pared down and fine are its edges. If you look hard enough, Giles thinks, in the centre of each pupil is a ring of flame, the eyes of a damned creature, bound for hell. And yet, it’s scored a moral victory over him, that he can’t hide from.
“Feeling it now, are we?” Spike says, amused. “Not like you will feel it, though. Still, a little remorse is nice to see, and it deserves a reward. Like a last treat, would you, Rupes? It’ll be strictly look and no touch this time, I’m afraid, but then killing my sire doesn’t give you his privileges.”
So saying, he seizes one end of the table and tips it on its side. Giles finds himself in a standing position, hanging from the chains that bind him uncomfortably to it. Spike meanwhile has walked back round in front of him, carrying one of the arm chairs from the living room. He sets it down in front of Giles, and smiles a cold, lascivious smile at him. He removes his shirt and shimmies out of his jeans, turning his back to Giles and wiggling his arse provocatively towards him. Giles can see that he’s had the tattoo removed. There’s a patch of pinkish skin just above his coccyx where the acid has stripped the skin clean. Apart from that, Spike’s back is flawless once again. Nothing remains of the beatings Giles inflicted on him. He must have been drinking human blood, and a lot of it, to speed the healing up. Giles wonders how much of it was his.
Sitting down gracefully in the armchair, Spike hooks his legs supply up and back over the wide arms, and cants his hips forwards far enough to expose his tight hole, wantonly displaying himself to his captive. He smiles again, and taking a tube of KY from his jeans pocket, squeezes some into his hands and begins to rub them together to warm it. Satisfied, he takes his cock in his hand and begins to pull and stroke it, bringing it to life in his slick grip. Giles watches it engorge, the dark pink tip poking out from the foreskin which gradually rolls back, until the thing is fully erect. It’s big. Much bigger than Giles remembers. He begins to think that his whole view of Spike has been distorted right from the start. This creature is in no way like a child, nor even a youth, except in the inhuman sparseness of its body hair, (and even of that, there seems to be more than he remembers). It’s a grown man, or at least resembles one in every way. How could he have been so deceived? Spike continues to wank himself, but now the fingers of his other hand begin to circle around his exposed pucker, leaving a glistening trail behind them, round and round, until finally one, and then two push inside, and he begins to fuck himself on his fingers, other hand moving faster and faster up and down his cock, pulling and stripping, clear pre-come leaking from the tip and slicking his hand more. Giles feels his own cock stir and lift against his leg, in spite of himself. The sight of Spike, his eyes closed, head thrown back, grunting throatily - “Unh! Unh! Unh!” - as he pleasures himself, is so erotic it even beats the sight of him coupling with Angel in the moonlight. Giles swallows, too much saliva in his mouth, then hears himself groan. At the sound, Spike’s eyes fly open, fixing on Giles, not allowing him to look away, as, with a final tug and thrust of fingers, he comes over himself, milky strands shooting from the tip of his cock to splatter on his flat belly. And as he comes, he says, voice hoarse: “Papa!”
There is silence for a moment, and then Spike strokes his hand down his own torso, pulls at his nipples, and swipes his cum onto his fingers. He lifts them to his lips and licks at them delicately, like a cat. All the time, his eyes never leave Giles’s.
Finally, he says: “Enjoyed that, did you, Rupes? No need to say, I can smell from here that you did. Consider it my thank you present for looking after me so well. But you do realise of course, that none of me ever really belonged to you, don’t you? This”- and he pulls at his softening cock-” belonged to Drusilla, and sometimes Darla, for as long as they wanted it.” His fingers wander down to press at his hole, still gaping a little and glistening with lubrication; “And this belonged to Angelus, and only to him. No one else was ever supposed to go there. No one else was supposed to fucking touch me, only him, and no one else has. No one. Except you. You weren’t invited, mate, which makes you a rapist and a thief. You aren’t going to touch me again.”
He wipes his hands on a piece of paper he takes from a stack on the floor (Giles recognises it from the neat, scholarly handwriting as his report) and stands up. He picks up the old sweatpants that Giles had made him wear for so many weeks, grimaces, then puts them on.
“Don’t want to get my new clobber dirty,” he explains when he sees Giles looking. There’s no mercy in his gaze, and Giles knows there never will be. He’s aware of tears in his eyes, blinks them away angrily with the last of his defiance.
His eyes track Spike across the room to where there’s a small table covered in objects that he can’t see properly without his glasses. Spike stands for a moment, as if undecided, then selects one and comes back towards Giles, holding it behind his back. On the way, he pauses, as if considering something. He gives a wry smile, though only to himself, and then comes back and looks Giles in the eye again.
“Here’s the thing, Rupes. I’m not a patient man, like I said. Angelus always said that impatience was the worst of my many faults, that I’d never learn to be a proper vampire if I couldn’t be bothered to take my time and wring every last scream out of my victims. Of course, I said he was a poncey git and went my own sweet way. I couldn’t be bothered with torture. It bored me. But now, I have to consider that you killed my Angel. You killed my beautiful Angelus. He was the world to me: father, lover - my sire in all the ways that really mattered. He meant everything to me. I know he didn’t feel that way about me, but he might have done in time, which I thought we had plenty of - and what do you go and do? You kill him. You take that eternity away from him. I think that I owe it to the old man to exercise some patience for a change. I can spare a couple of weeks of my unlife in honour of his memory.”
His gaze is utterly implacable, though the tears that only threatened to fall before are now running silently down his face.
“Thought I should explain,” he says. “This isn’t just revenge. It’s in honour of the dead. Kind of a wake. He told me once that an Irishman always likes to know that someone’s having fun at his funeral. ”
Then he brings the small, neat bone saw out from behind his back, and takes Giles’s little finger in a firm grip.
“Hospitals,” he says. “Great places. You can get everything you want in a hospital. Blood for the freezer. Lots of neat little toys like this.”
He brings the bone saw up to Giles’s eye level, teasing him with it.
“Spike - “Giles says, but he gets no further. He’s aware of moisture running down the inside of his trousers.
“Shush,” Spike says, kindly. “Remember what I said about you never touching me again? Let me show you why."