Days in the Sun
January 2nd, 2018 – History (2)
It had taken some time for Spike to get used to writing on a computer. For a while, he had kept writing first on paper, then typed everything when it was finished. But he had quickly realized what a waste of time it was and finally had given up the paper part. He had been surprised and quietly delighted to discover that the noise of the keys he stroked was just as helpful to create a comfortable rhythm as the noise of an ink pen on paper. So ink was now reserved for Buffy’s Black Books, as he called them in his mind.
At that moment, it was computer screen and keys instead of ink and soft white paper. It was the story of a young boy traveling through time to visit China at the turn of the twentieth century instead of the story of a vampire who had indeed been to China, but hadn’t cared much about living historic events. This story he was working on now was for children. The other one, the one he usually worked on at night when he couldn’t sleep, he wrote for his wife, but it had found a new reader recently. He still wasn’t sure he liked the idea, though.
Lisa had assured both Buffy and him that she understood that, if Spike’s past had led him to be who he was now, he was not the same vampire he had been back then. She had promised she would stop reading if it got to be too much for her. He knew she was very mature for her age. She was also supposedly legally of age to read the most bloody or naughty parts of these books, and for all he knew she had read worse or seen the likes on telly already. He was also pretty sure that forbidding her to read any more would only lead to resentment and make her believe he kept horrific secrets from her. Stubborn as she was, she might even hunt for the books if he hid them. That was what he would have done in her place, and too often she thought as he did.
But despite all this, he was afraid it would be too much information for her, was afraid of her reaction to it all. He loved her so much, he couldn’t bear it if she started reproaching him what he had done in what was, after all, a previous life.
She was in the office with him, right now. He was aware of her presence in the room, of the light rocking of her chair, of her breathing and heartbeat, but he tried not to let all of this reach him. He had work to do.
But when quiet sobs started escaping her, his head shot up, and in three steps he was kneeling in front of her. Gently, he pulled the book from her hands, and glanced at the pages, trying to see what had upset her exactly. He had no trouble finding.
“In the few months since I had been sired, I had come to the conclusion that Angelus was a fair master, if harsh. I was soon to learn otherwise. He had left for a few nights. He did that, every now and then, disappearing without a word, returning a few nights later without an explanation. It enraged Darla, and they would usually get into shouting matches when he’d be back, before quickly moving to very noisy making up. When he came back, that time, there was even more shouting than usual, but no making up. Instead, once the screaming stopped, the house we had ‘acquired’ was suddenly disturbingly silent. Until he strode into the bedroom I shared with Dru, breaking the door in the process. He had forbidden me to touch her without his express consent, but allowed me to sleep next to her, and we had done nothing more than sleep, as I assured him as quickly as I could when I saw the fury that emanated from him. I doubt he even heard me. He sent Drusilla out, and in a brief second of sanity she did as she was told without a word. At first, I thought I had done something to bring to myself the rain of punches and kicks I received, and tried very hard to remember what so that I could apologize. But somewhere around the time he started carving long cuts in my skin with that ornate knife he always carried tucked in his boot, I understood that this was not about me, or Dru, but rather…”
Leaving the book on the floor, he reached up to dry Lisa’s cheeks.
“It’s OK, honey,” he said quietly. “Don’t cry, please.”
She shook her head, swallowing back more sobs, and managed to say:
“It’s not OK. How could he…”
“He could,” he interrupted her softly, “because he was my Sire. It’s just a vampire thing, luv. I shouldn’t have expected you to understand.”
“I never liked Angel,” she said somberly. “Now I know why.”
He let out a quiet chuckle. “No, you don’t know. It wasn’t Angel. It was Angelus. Don’t go blaming the poof for what he did to me when we were both different from who and what we are now. He’s brooding enough as it is without giving him more reasons.”
Getting to his feet, he took his child’s hand and pulled her up.
“How about some nice hot cocoa to forget all that?” he said with more cheerfulness that he really felt.
She nodded, and, wrapping an arm around her shoulder, he led her out of the room. If that was how she reacted to what had been, all things considered, a mild beating, he really didn’t want to know how she would react to some of the harsher ones, or, even worse, to some of the things he had done. She was done with reading, and there would be no argument about that.
Just as he was coming back to the living room with a snack, William was surprised to see Lisa and their father come out of the latter’s office. He couldn’t remember the last time he himself had been allowed to go in there. Spike’s arm was around the girl’s shoulder, and her eyes were a bit red and swollen, as if she had been crying.
“… Wasn’t such a good idea”, Spike was saying quietly. “I don’t want you to get upset about things that happened more than a century ago. I’m not even upset anym…”
He stopped talking then, realizing that William was there, and gave him an unreadable look. Lisa followed his gaze, and her lips curled up in a lopsided smile. He returned the grin, and walked into the living room, leaving them without a word despite the hundred questions that were suddenly cluttering his mind.
What things that had happened a century before had been enough to make Lisa cry? From what Spike had been saying, it sounded like something that had happened to him. But he never talked about his past, ever. So where had she learned about these things? And why had she been in their father’s office? Had they been taking a trip down memory lane together? And if so, why? And even more, why hadn’t he been invited along for the ride?
Half an hour later, having established that Spike was in the kitchen by himself, William crept up the steps to Lisa’s room. He hesitated before knocking; after all, this was the room of a sometimes moody, always quick with sharp words teenage girl, and he wasn’t exactly suicidal. In the end, his curiosity was greater that his wariness of Lisa’s temper, and he requested, and was granted, entrance.
He stepped just inside the room, and, after pushing the door closed, he leaned against it, unwilling to walk farther into the lioness’ den than was strictly necessary. He tried not to make a face at the few posters on the walls – one thing they certainly did not agree on was music. They were different from whatever posters she had had up the last time he had a peek inside her room, but that had been quite a while before. He had no qualms about going into Joyce’s room for any reason at all, or even none, but he respected Lisa’s space, as she did his, by a mutual if non-verbal agreement.
She was sitting cross-legged on her bed, and he could see the corner of a notebook sticking from under her leg. Her diary, he supposed. There had been a rather nasty episode, when they were around Joyce’s age, when he had foolishly put his nose in there. Once. He had learned that lesson very effectively.
“Hey, big sis. What’s up?”
The cheerfulness might have sounded a bit too forced, and she raised a questioning eyebrow at him.
“You tell me. You’re the one who was looking for me.”
Of course, she wasn’t going to make it easy. She never did. He stuck his hands in his jeans’ pockets, preparing himself for the game.
“Just making sure you’re OK,” he said with a smile that he hoped looked more compassionate than nervous. “You looked a little… upset, earlier.”
Her head tilted to one side as she considered him thoughtfully.
“I’m fine,” she said at last. “Anything else you want to ask me? What I was doing in dad’s office, maybe?”
Darn… She was just too annoying. If he didn’t know any better, he might have thought she could read his thoughts. One day she would have to teach him her trick.
“Since you mention it… what were you doing in there?”
A faint smile tugged at her lips. “Just reading.”
“Reading about what happened a century ago?” he tried to piece together.
Her smile widened slightly and she gave him a small nod.
“More than a century, actually,” she said absently.
She frowned slightly, as if to a sudden thought, and her lips moved silently.
“One hundred and sixty four,” she murmured.
“One hundred and sixty four what?” he questioned, curious.
“Years. That’s dad’s age, if I still remember how to count.”
He stared at her like she had grown another head. They knew Spike was older than what he appeared to be, older than their mother, but that much older? It was one thing to know that their father was a vampire, and therefore immortal. Come to think of it, no, that was probably one of the weirdest things ever, but William had gotten used to it. But to actually put a number on his age…
“And we wondered why he doesn’t want to celebrate his birthday”, William tried to joke feebly.
“It’s weird, uh?” she whispered, her gaze seeking his almost as if she was seeking the reassurance that he felt as she did.
“Weird”, he agreed, his mind still buzzing from the almost incredible number.
“William,” she said after a few seconds, very quietly.
“What?”
“That was his name. Before he was called Spike.”
“It was?”
His sister nodded, and William did his very best to hide his sudden pleasure at the revelation. She would think it was pretty stupid for him to feel happy about having his father’s real given name, and he would never hear the end of it if she noticed his odd pride.
“’Wonder why they never told me I was named after him,” he observed, as nonchalantly as he could.
She gave a small shrug, but did not comment. To say that their parents were the weirdest parents on earth was an understatement, and who knew why they did anything?
“So, what else did you read?” William asked, eager to hear more. “Was it all about dad? Does it tell everything he did during his one hundred and sixty four years?”
Repeating the number made it somewhat less intimidating, William mused as he waited for Lisa’s answer.
“He doesn’t say anything about when he was human,” she said with a brief frown. “And I didn’t read that much, just the first few months after he became a vamp.”
“Why not more?”
Was there suddenly more red in her cheeks? Why would she blush?
“It got pretty… intense,” she said vaguely.
“Intense?” he pressed.
“A bit too much torture for me”, she completed, almost hesitant. “Reading about dad having… uh… you know… that was kinda disturbing. And the killing and feeding stuff, so gross. But seeing how we was tortured by the big poof that was just too much.”
For an instant, William kept quiet, running over what Lisa had just hinted at. By her stuttering and accentuated blushing, there were some naughty things in whatever she had been reading. The feeding part, well, they had never talked about it but he had never imagined Spike had always made use of bagged blood. And the last part… the big poof? Did she mean…
“Do you mean Uncle Angel tortured him?” he tried to clarify.
He frowned unhappily when she nodded. He liked his godfather very much, and to think that he had hurt Spike was upsetting.
“He is his Sire,” she added after a second. “Angel, he made dad a vampire.”
“This is just getting weirder and weirder. You think he’ll let me read whatever it was you read in there?”
“I doubt it,” she said somewhat apologetically. “He was rather upset that I freaked out, and he said it’s better if I don’t read it anymore. As in, he’s not going to let me. I doubt he’ll let you. You’re not even sixteen.”
She had added the last bit almost dismissively, as an afterthought, and he made himself stand straighter, accentuating the couple of inches he already had over her. Just because she was a few months older than him – OK, a year, barely - , she sometimes seemed to think she had years of wisdom to share.
“I’ll be sixteen in two weeks”, he reminded her smugly. “And I bet you he will let me read. ‘ Cause I’m not gonna cry like a girl.”
He expected her to mock him, but was surprised when she just looked at him levelly, almost as if gauging him.
“You will cry,” she said very softly just as he was getting out. “You care too much about him not to.”
Spike had felt the kid enter the kitchen and noiselessly sit down at the island, but he had kept on his dinner preparations, giving no clue he knew William was there, until he finally asked:
“So, what did big sis tell you?”
He glanced back over his shoulder, smirking at the startled look on the boy’s face.
“What did she tell me?” William repeated, dumbstruck. “How did you know?”
“You’d think after all this time you kids would give me more credit,” Spike replied in a mock offended tone.
Slipping the full pot into the oven, Spike finally turned back to face his son, arms crossed as he leaned against the counter. William was looking up at him, obviously unsure what to answer, and it amused the vampire a little. His amusement died pretty quickly however.
“She said I would cry if I ever read whatever it was she read.”
There was a slight accusation in that voice, as well as unspoken questions. In face of three women, the Summers men always made common cause unless it was a parents versus children issue. If Spike read the boy correctly, there was some kind of feeling of betrayal going on. But he wasn’t going to play this game right now. Lisa’s reaction had been more than enough to convince him that no one but Buffy should ever touch these damned books again.
“She might be right,” Spike said noncommittally. “Or maybe not. But we will never know.”
There was the beginning of a pout, before William probably reminded himself he was a bit too old for that. His features softened a little, and he asked, almost hesitantly, blue eyes seeking their twins:
“Is it that bad?”
Probably worse than you can imagine.
“When was the last time you saw Lisa cry?”
William slowly nodded his understanding.
“Why did you let her read it, then?” he asked after a few seconds.
“Because she had started already,” Spike replied almost despite himself. “So we let her figure out for herself if she could stand it or not.”
Bloody big mistake that, and Spike didn’t intend to repeat it. The kid, however, did not plead his case as Spike had thought he would. Instead, he asked the most unexpected question.
“Am I really named after you?”
Frowning briefly in surprised, Spike acquiesced, even more surprised at the faint grin that bloomed on William’s face.
“Why didn’t you ever tell me?” the kid asked softly.
Spike felt like shrugging, but didn’t let himself dismiss the question, something telling him that it was more important for the teenager than he would have suspected only an hour before.
“No one called me that in a very long time, Will. And it hadn’t been my name for many years even before that. I never thought you’d want to know.”
“Did they call you that?” the boy asked again, leaning forward over the table, a sure sign that the unusual discussion captivated him. “I mean, your parents? Did they call you Will?”
Spike closed his eyes briefly. The scent of his own blood caught his nose, and he forced his fists to unclench, realizing that his nails had dug into his palms.
“No,” he replied softly. “My… they didn’t call me that.”
And that was as much on this subject as William would ever know, or so he was about to say, when the kid surprised him again.
“So, where did you get the name ‘Spike’?”
It was only when he heard the words leave his mouth that he realized how upset he was, but it was too late already. In truth, he didn’t really know why he was upset. Just discussing names, what was wrong with that?
“Got it by shoving railroad spikes through people’s heads.”
The cold declaration was met by widening eyes, and what looked suspiciously like awe.
“Wow,” the kid murmured. “That’s…”
He seemed then to catch the closed expression of Spike’s face, because he paused briefly before finishing, questioning slightly:
“Awful?”
Spike had to suppress a sudden grin. He would have given a lot to know exactly what the kid had been about to say.
“You’re done with the interrogation, inspector?” he said as lightly as he could, trying to brighten the mood a little.
His efforts were ignored by the teen, who asked with a simply curious voice:
“Why did you do it? The spikes thing?”
It was becoming way too much information than Spike felt like sharing right now, and he let his upset feelings answer for him again. He briefly flashed his game mask at the boy, getting in reply a sharp jerk backward.
“That’s why,” he replied blankly. “Vampire.”
“Yeah, I had gotten that part”, William said a bit shakily. “But vampires drink blood. They don’t go around killing people with…”
Very consciously, Spike pushed back the demon that wanted to come out again, but he knew his eyes must have flashed gold when William interrupted himself. He wanted nothing more than to send the kid to his room or wherever, but he knew that just wouldn’t do. No reason to hurt his son because some old memories were still painful. No reason either to break the promise he had made to himself and start lying to his children about who he was and had been.
“Because…”
He hesitated just a second, and made himself meet the teen’s eyes.
“Because they had hurt William. When he was human. It was just revenge pushed to its extreme.”
Very, very slowly, William nodded, as if to say he understood. Spike flinched, and hoped with all his unbeating heart that no, the kid didn’t really get it, and never would. There was a silent pause, during which Spike tried to read on his son’s face what he was thinking, but failed miserably. So he was, once again, surprised by the new turn the conversation took.
“Lisa said Uncle Angel made you a vampire. Is that true?”
“Yes,” Spike replied simply, tonelessly, wondering where the kid was going with that.
“But I thought… I mean, he has a soul, doesn’t he? I thought he didn’t kill people.”
Cringing, Spike made a slight face.
“He didn’t have his soul back then,” he replied carefully. “He was different. A completely different person. Like I was.”
Contrarily to his older sister, William actually liked the poof, maybe because he was his godson, maybe because of his favorite (and only) ‘cousin’, Connor. Angel would never forgive him if Spike went and messed that up by mixing up Angel and Angelus in the boy’s mind.
“Dad? Why are you different? I mean, if Angel changed because of his soul, what made you change? Do you have a soul too?”
It was kind of a surprise that the boy had never asked the question before. Lisa had, years before, completely out of the blue, and never talked of it again. He gave William the same answer he had given her.
“I don’t need a soul. I have your mother.”
As if on cue, the garage’s door opened and Buffy entered, followed by Jay, returning from Willow and Tara’s.
“Enough with the questions, son,” Spike said warningly, and William
nodded his understanding before giving him a small smile and leaving the
kitchen.
The characters and names used in these stories do not belong to me. All copyrights remain with Fox and Mutant Enemy. No profit is made from this fanfiction.