Title: Method and Madness
Words: 1080
Rating: PG-13
Summary: S6. Spike’s chip no longer works on Buffy. A peek inside his head before he sees her in person.
AN: Rated for… sinister predatory thoughts? Bits of dialogue from Smashed (found on Buffyworld) and a lyric from Roxy Music’s Avalon. Hope the cut works, I’ve never tried using one before. Enjoy!
Spike is free.
For once, the night air feels fresh in his dead lungs. He swaggers down the street. Owning each step as he takes it. Something feral and vital beats rampant in his chest, slamming against the prison bars of his ribcage.
Can’t be his heart. Must be something better.
Spike’s heart has been useless to him in Sunnyhell. Surviving Dru’s abandonment, dashing himself against Buffy’s indifference again and again…it’s hard to remember why being love’s bitch is such a great thing. All it’s brought him is pain and misery.
Well, all that’s about to change. They’ve entered a new era. Spike’s a new vamp.
Why? Because the chip doesn’t work on her. Buffy, Buffy. Buffy is all wrong these days. And that makes her just right for him.
Spike’s coat snaps at his heels. He curls his tongue and considers lighting a fag, but no. He doesn’t need the distraction. The last few years have been a total shitshow, but now the path is clear before him. Spike’s been out of his mind long enough. He knows what he needs to do–what he’s always done, what he does best.
Spike’s on the hunt for the Slayer.
—
Method to madness. He has a process. A series of moves that brings him in glorious conflict with Slayers. Nothing like Angelus’ overwrought scheming. Spike likes to keep things simple. Leaves him lots of room to improvise.
To start: familiarize yourself with her.
Spike stares down at the quarters in his hand that he won in a pissant game of poker with the Slayer’s kid sister. His eyes drag up to the payphone keypad, the numbers jumping out at him in the dark. Numbers he knows by heart. Spike punches in the Summer’s home number and grits his fangs against the shrill ring. A passerby double-takes and hurries past Spike outside the blurry walls of the booth.
Right, fangs. He shakes them off. Getting too excited, he needs to keep his wits about him. But god, the anticipation is pooling saliva in his mouth and making his fingers twitch.
“Hello?”
Dawn. At the sound of her voice, a thousand memories from the endless summer washes over him, tamping down the thrill of the hunt.
“Um, hello? Is anyone there?” A pause, and then: “Buffy?”
Spike finds himself biting his tongue against answering the girl. Muting inquiries about her evening activities and did she lock the door when everyone went out tonight?
He hangs up. More quarters. Tries again. Only one other number he knows that might reach the Slayer.
It’s after-hours, but someone picks up at the Magic Box.
“Hello?” Buffy’s tinny Cali-girl voice sounds in his ear. Spike grins, stomach tightening.
Make contact. Establish the tone. An important step. So many battles lack definite tone, and that’s a shame. Tone crystallizes all important matters. When Spike replays his fiercest moments, he likes to taste the theme.
With Nikki, it straddled the line between serious and spunky. Back when things were much bloody simpler with Buffy, their battles were badass but also a bit playful. Almost tongue-in-cheek.
Spike’s about to engage in his first post-chip battle against the Slayer. Since his original slay in China, there has never been a more defining moment.
Spike leans against the booth wall, fingers stroking over the phone box.
“Slayer,” he drawls, a low purr.
“Spike?”
Girl sounds confused. Nonplussed, even. She can be obtuse about some of the finer things in life, but no matter. Spike’s a pro.
It’s more difficult without eyes on the prize, but when Spike closes his lids, he pictures the Slayer’s lithe golden form in the dark and imagines the predatory circles he’d creep around her. Closer and closer.
One of his favorite steps. Make her come to you.
“Meet me at the cemetery. Twenty minutes. Come alone.” Classics are classic for a reason. Spike can get all sorts of creative when she finds him, flipping her shiny hair over her shoulder, chest heaving in irritation…
“…Spike?”
Oh, come on!
“Bloody hell,” Spike says. “Yes, it’s me.” He wonders at her distraction. What has her so thrown? He wishes he could witness whatever has made her so pleasantly out of sorts. Unless it’s just more of the sadness and listlessness his girl hasn’t been able to shake from the grave.
Spike’s thoughts derail a bit unprofessionally during the course of the rest of their conversation–er, threatening demands–but things end rather positively. He can practically feel her blushing from the other end of the phone line.
Buffy hangs up on him, but that just starts the countdown. Twenty minutes until the main event.
Spike rubs his hands together, fully aware of how maniacal this makes him look. A man on his way to the payphone, not so subtly changes course and crosses the street, continuing on to avoid walking near him.
Ha! He should be scared. Spike’s chest puffs up. The Big Bad is back in town. So he can only smash and wreck one specific human on the planet right now–he’s still dangerous. He’s glad it shows.
Unable to stay still, Spike begins prowling around the street. He thoughtlessly hums under his breath, random bits of lyrics floating from him. “Avalon…Avalon…ba, buh, ba…would you have me dancing out of nowhere?”
Jauntily, he kicks out at a trashcan. The metal can crashes off the curb, spilling trash everywhere. Spike salutes the mess and saunters on in the general direction of the cemetery where he and the Slayer often begin their patrols.
He’ll wait, but not for very long. Challenge now issued, Spike will confront Buffy one way or another. And when he does, he’ll…
Spike actually has to stop and brace his hands against his hips as he shivers under the onslaught of possibilities.
Does it matter what he does to her? He can decide in the heat of the moment, as usual. The point is, he can do whatever he likes.
“I can do whatever I like,” Spike says aloud. The words sound so good, he says them again in a hoarse and giddy scream. “Hear that? I can do whatever I like!”
Spike clenches his fists and inhales deeply. Images flicker in his mind’s eye, but he pays them no mind. He is well and truly sick of relying on fantasy.
Cuz baby, it’s time for the real deal. Final step. Ending the dance and putting his hands on her at last.
Originally posted at http://seasonal-spuffy.livejournal.com/557034.html
