Days in the Sun
June 2nd, 2020 - Fangs
Buttoning his jeans so that he wouldn’t trip over them, William rushed down the steps.
“Dad!” His yell seemed to echo in the silent house. The three Summers women were out, which was one of the reasons he had brought Sarah here today. They had decided they had waited long enough, and now…
There he was. The blonde vampire who had made him what he was. A monster. A killer.
Spike watched intently his son come closer. Why was his heart beating so furiously? Something was wrong. That smell… Before he could say a word, William’s fist connected with his jaw, making him take a step back. Spike’s first thought was that he had taught him well, the second that he had still a lot to learn. Capturing the arm that was swinging at him again, the vampire twisted it behind the teenager’s back. Carefully, making sure he wasn’t hurting him, he held him tight enough so that he couldn’t move.
“What was that for, boy?” he growled.
“It’s your fault! All your fault! She’s dead!”
Surprise made him let go, and William fell to the floor, sobbing.
“Who is dead?” Spike asked, his voice void of emotions. Three names were running through his mind, and he knew he would scream if the boy said any of them.
“Sarah…” William cried. “She’s dead. I killed her.”
For a half second, Spike was relieved. Not one of his ladies. Thank God. Not one of them. Then he heard the words coming out of his son’s mouth.
“All your fault. You’re a monster. Made me a monster like you. Bit her. Drained her. Dead. Your fault.”
Wincing inwardly, Spike shook William and tried to get his attention back.
“Where is she?” he asked softly.
Eyes that were usually a luminous blue but that were now almost black looked at him, no life shining in them behind the tears.
“Bedroom,” the young man mumbled.
Leaving his son on the floor in the middle of the entrance, Spike climbed the steps four by four and rushed to the bedroom.
The smell caught up with him first. Blood, mixed with the unmistakable scent of sex. It made his demon roar and try to come forward, but he pushed it back to the corner where it belonged.
Then he saw her. Sarah, sweet young Sarah, whom William had been dating for more than two years now. She was on the bed, naked, eyes closed. Blood marred both her neck and thighs.
And finally he heard it. Her heart. She wasn’t dead. She wasn’t even dying, judging by the regularity and strength of the beating.
Drawing the sheet up to her chin, Spike examined briefly the twin punctures, finding that they had missed the artery by a good inch. That would have been deadly.
Certain that she was in no danger and merely sleeping, Spike returned to William. He found him in the same spot he had left him a couple of minutes earlier, still sobbing. The vampire sat on the steps, wishing he had a cigarette to smoke. Even Buffy would understand that he needed one, wouldn’t she?
“She’s alive. Now get a grip, son.”
He had to repeat the first three words a few times before they seemed to permeate William’s mind. Finally, he looked up at Spike, mouthing silently the word “alive”.
“You didn’t drain her. Probably took only enough to make her feel faint. She’s sleeping, but she’ll be just fine.”
William sighed, and this time it was tears of relief that fell down his cheeks.
“Do you think she saw you in game face?”
Hell, his voice was so cool. Shouldn’t he be comforting William right now instead of asking stupid questions that could wait for later? His unlife had become too complicated. A little more than two decades earlier, he would have finished the girl and dusted his minion for not killing properly. Except the boy was not a minion. Not even a full vampire. He was his son.
Made me a monster like you.
“William! Snap out of it! NOW! Did she see you in game face?”
The boy’s head jerked up, and his eyes flashed yellow for just a second.
“Yes. She saw it. She touched…”
His voice trailed at the same time as his fingers ran over his forehead. Smooth, not bumpy, as it must have been when she touched it.
From what he had seen in the bedroom, Spike could put the story together. Two kids deciding they were ready. Girl was a virgin, judging by the traces of blood on her legs. Boy was too, probably. When it had smelled the blood, the boy’s sleeping demon had jumped out in the open. And done what it was its nature to do. Bite and drink.
“You’ll have to explain to her.”
Again, such ice in his voice. He loved his son, why couldn’t he show it right now?
“How do I explain that?” the boy muttered. “She’s going to hate me.”
“Maybe. Or maybe not. Just tell her the truth.”
William got to his feet, wiping his wet cheeks with the back of his hands.
“The truth? What truth? That I am a monster?”
Made me a monster.
“Being the son of a monster doesn’t make you one. You’re just a confused, shaken, angry kid.”
Again, William’s eyes flared yellow. This time, Spike’s mirrored the flickering.
Laughing at her oldest daughter’s words, Buffy pushed the entrance door and stepped in, followed by the two giggling sisters. She stopped dead when she took in the scene in front of her. Spike was sitting on the steps, and if she knew him half as well as she thought, he was fighting back his demon. Facing him, his back to her, was William. A shirtless, barefoot William, whose hands were tight knots.
She felt Lisa stop right next to her, and she guessed without looking at her that she had sensed something was going on too. Joyce Anne however was oblivious, and rushed to her father, giving him a quick hug. His face softened a little as his eyes drifted to the girl.
“Hey there Nibblet. Want to do me a favor? Have big sis drive you to the store and you two buy some ice cream. The good kind. I treat.”
He fished a few bills out of his jeans pockets and gave them to Joyce, who ran back to the entrance, calling after her sister.
“Come on Lisa, before he changes his mind!”
Buffy felt a brief squeeze on her arm before Lisa slipped out, closing the door behind her.
“Ok,” she said softly. “What’s going on here boys?”
Only silence answered her question.
“Spike?”
His eyes blinked as they settled on her.
“There’s a young lady in your son’s bed, who is going to wake up pretty soon and probably ask a few questions about why he bit her. She might take the news better coming from another woman.”
Buffy stared at him, speechless, as he got to his feet and walked to the basement’s door.
“Now if you will excuse him, the monster is in no mood to play twenty questions.”
The door banged shut behind him, and Buffy cringed. He was angry, angrier than she remembered seeing him in a long time. Better to let him cool off and to deal with the most pressing matters. Stepping closer to William, she put a hand on his bare shoulder, feeling him flinch under her touch.
“Tell me what happened,” she asked.
“Sarah… Wake up dear.”
Sitting on the edge of the bed, Buffy gently shook the girl’s arm until she opened her eyes and looked at her in confusion.
“Mrs. Summers? Where is William?”
A half forgotten memory resurfaced in Buffy’s mind. Awakening alone in Angel’s bed, unaware that the man she loved had been replaced by a demon… She pushed away the thought and concentrated on the present.
“He’s downstairs. How do you feel?”
The girl clutched the sheet, and Buffy wondered briefly which of the two men had had the grace to cover her. She would have bet on Spike.
“I’m fine. How is William? He was… I mean, his face…”
She stopped, probably at loss for words, and the Slayer gave her a tiny smile. For someone who had just came face to face with a game mask, she seemed relatively unshaken.
“I know. Do you remember anything else?”
Sarah frowned, her hand coming up to her neck, touching gingerly the tiny puckered wounds.
“He bit me,” she said slowly.
“He did. You have to understand something right now. He wasn’t trying to hurt you.”
Suddenly, the girl blushed furiously. “It didn’t hurt,” she whispered. “It was weird. It felt kind of good actually…”
She looked at Buffy shyly, and for some reason the older woman felt herself blushing like the teenager had.
“Yeah… So, you’re not mad at him?”
Again, a frown. “Mad? Why?”
Buffy rose to her feet, placing the robe she was holding across the girl’s legs. “How about you take a shower. I’ll fix you something to eat and we can talk some more.”
“Mrs. Summers..? What’s wrong? Are you angry?”
“No dear, I’m not angry. I just need to explain a few things to you. Just come down when you’re ready, ok?”
Leaving the puzzled teenager behind, Buffy left the bedroom, sighing heavily. Would anything in her life ever be normal? Anything at all? Ok, she had skewed things just a tad by falling in love with a vampire, but come on, she wasn’t asking for much, was she?
William jumped to his feet as Buffy entered the kitchen, and looked at her with mixed feelings of expectancy and worry. Spike had said Sarah would be ok, but what did he know about these things? He was a killer, not a doctor.
“How is she?” he asked quietly.
“She’s fine. She was worried about you, actually.”
The boy let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. “She really was?”
“Yep.”
He watched as Buffy gathered food on the table. Bread, peanut butter, fruits, orange juice.
“You explained to her?”
“Not yet. I told her to get cleaned up first. And she needs to eat. She must be famished.”
William frowned, and repeated Buffy’s last word. Why would Sarah be famished?.. Then he understood. Blood loss. And at the same time, he understood how Buffy knew.
“Oh my God… He bites you. You let him bite you.”
She arched an eyebrow at him, and her voice was ice as she replied. “If I didn’t, you wouldn’t be here to give me that condescending look, boy.”
“Would that be such a terrible thing?” he spat. “One less monster.”
Suddenly, his left cheek was burning, and he rubbed it absently. The slap had come so fast he had not even seen it. He couldn’t remember his mother ever raising her hand on him, which was probably a good thing considering her Slayer strength. She looked as stunned as he felt by her gesture.
“So that’s how you made your father so mad,” she said after a few seconds of silence.
“Yes,” he replied defiantly. “I called him a monster.”
She shook her head and gave him a smile that was vaguely reminiscent of Spike’s usual smirk.
“You don’t get it. You called yourself a monster. And your sisters as well, by association. You can say just about anything about your father, and he will laugh to your face. But say a single bad word about his children, and you are literally looking at your own death.”
William’s fists clenched. How could Buffy, of all persons, talk so casually about a killer? She was a Slayer, supposedly she had to fight that kind of killers. Not defend them.
“Just what I was saying,” he muttered. “He is a killer and a monster.”
She looked sad now. So sad, it almost hurt him.
“He was. It was his nature. The very same thing that made you bite the girl you love made him kill. And for almost twenty years he has been controlling the hunger and the demon. Twenty years of fighting himself every single day. Every minute. Do not judge what you can’t understand, William.”
He was about to reply when Sarah entered the kitchen. Instinctively, he went to her and hugged her. To his relief, she returned the embrace.
Still shaken by her discussion with William, Buffy watched him as he hugged his girlfriend and muttered a string of apologies.
“Come here dear,” she said when the teenagers separated. “Have something to eat.”
She gestured to the table where she had assembled some snacks, and by the happy look on Sarah’s face, she knew she had guessed right in thinking she would be hungry. They all sat down at the table, William just next to Sarah, Buffy facing them. She gave the girl a couple of minutes to start snacking, then started talking, softly, slowly, her eyes noting all of Sarah’s reactions to her words.
“Ok. There’s something you need to know about William. About all of us, actually. I guess we’re not exactly the average American family we appear to be… Let’s see. It may be a bit hard to believe at first, but vampires exist. Bad vampires, who kill people, like in the movies. Or almost. And against them, there’s that kind of super fighter, called a vampire Slayer. Twenty years ago, a very weird thing happened and the Slayer fell in love with a vampire. I’ll spare you the details. In short, they had children that are mostly human but have some minor vampire traits. And you, my dear, are in love with one of these children.”
The girl stared at Buffy, a cracker covered with peanut butter forgotten in her hand. She was thinking, that much was readily apparent on her face. But thinking what?
“Mrs. Summers,” she whispered at last. “ You mean you’re a vampire?”
Buffy could not repress a quick giggle, both at the words and at the startled look on William’s face.
“No Sarah, I’m the Slayer.”
A frown barred the young brunette forehead.
“So… Mr. Summers is…?”
“Yes dear. Spike is a vampire.”
“And William?”
“Is human. He doesn’t need blood and that’s what vampires are all about.”
Half a lie, Buffy thought. He used to need blood when he was a baby. And he needed it longer than his sisters, for some reason. His last blood bottle must have been a few days before he turned one year old. But Sarah didn’t need to know that, at least not now.
The girl gave William an apologetic look before asking quietly: “Why did he bit me then?”
“Sarah, I’m so sorry…”
He took her hand between both of his, holding it like a precious and fragile bird.
“He didn’t choose to bite you,” Buffy tried to explain. “It was more a reflex than a conscious act. Some things can trigger the change. Blood. Intense emotions or pain. Sex. If these things are present, the game face just comes forward spontaneously.”
There had been a time when the only thing Buffy Summers wanted to know about vampires was how to kill them fast. How this time seemed far…
“Game face? You mean the bumpy face?”
Both Buffy and William nodded. Sarah looked at the boy, tilting her head slightly.
“I want to see it again,” she requested, startling William.
“I can’t,” he replied, his head shaking.
“But you did it before,” she pressed.
“It just happened. I can’t shift by myself. I don’t know how. I hadn’t changed for years. Last time was when I broke my arm when I was seven.”
“You were eight,” Buffy corrected absently. “Your father had to teach you how to bring the mask down before we could get you to the hospital. Hell of a day…”
For long minutes, all three were silent. Sarah was observing William, as if trying to see the demon mask behind the human one. Finally, she turned back to Buffy and asked hesitantly: “If Mr. Summers is a vampire… does it means he kills people?”
Buffy smiled slightly. “No dear. He doesn’t feed on human blood any more.”
“What about Lisa and Joy?”
“They are like William.”
The girl nodded. Buffy realized that her daughters had been gone for a while now, longer than an ice-cream raid should have taken. Silently, she thanked Lisa and congratulated herself for having such a perceptive child.
“Do you have any question, dear?” she asked Sarah.
“No, not now. Maybe later. Thank you for explaining all that to me. If it happens again I’ll know what’s going on at least.”
Surprise and delight battled on William’s face at the girl’s words. Buffy got up and started putting away the food and drinks.
“You mean… you want to… you don’t hate me?”
“Why would I? You’re still the same, aren’t you?”
“Oh Sarah I love you so much…”
“I love you too.”
When she turned back to them, Buffy found the couple engaged in a steamy kiss. They seemed to have even forgotten she was there. She cleared her voice loudly.
“Hmm, kids, I’m glad all is well but I’m not ready to be a grandmother yet, so you two need to tune it down.”
It was between 1 and 2 am, and all was quiet in the Summers home. William made his way to the kitchen, and poured himself a glass of milk. The back door was open, and he could guess rather than see the man sitting on the porch steps. He watched his back for a couple of minute. The vampire was completely immobile, his head turned up, toward the sky and the stars. William wondered what was going through his father’s mind. He had been very silent during the dinner, just sitting at the table with his wife and kids but not eating himself, which was very unusual. The teenager realized now that Spike did everything to be as human in the eyes of his children as he possibly could. He ate real food with them, and rarely ever let one of them see him drink blood. He slept during the night and was up during the day, and from bits of overheard conversations, William knew it wasn’t easy for the vampire. He acted like any other father. Like any other human. A human with a slight case of sun allergy, but still a human…
Spike could feel his son in the kitchen behind him, he could smell him, could hear him. All of his senses were screaming that the kid was there, but he ignored them, ignored him. His anger had subsided long ago, but not his pain. One second he was his son’s best friend, and the next he was a monster. A thing. As much as he hated to admit it, it hurt. Yet, it didn’t hurt as much as the kid calling himself a monster.
He heard steps coming closer, and the scent of blood made the demon roar inside him. He hadn’t drunk anything since morning. He turned his head to William as the teen sat next to him, and absently took the mug his son was handing out to him. His mug. The one that said “Best Daddy in the World”. Father’s Day 2015. Or was it 2014 ?
William gave him a faint smile, and he returned it, just as faintly, before taking a gulp of the warm pig blood, understanding that it was both a peace offering and an apology.
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.