William Fic, Part 12
Feb. 15th, 2005 06:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thedeadlyhookOkay, not sure about this one, but for now... plot stuff. Previous parts here.
The Center, Part 12
He's dragged out of sleep the next morning to the feeling of something soft brushing his face. Like a cobweb. Muzzily, he raises a hand to push it away, but in another second, it's back. He repeats the motion, groggy, and a soft feminine voice giggles in his ear. "Hey, you," it says softly. "Trying to do this without the throwing things, okay? C'mon, sleepyhead, time to get up."
His eyes snap open. The voice was Buffy's, of course--she's leaning over him, elbows in the pillows, and she's using a lock of her hair like a feather, running tickling trails over his face. She's wearing the world's cutest smile, sunny bright, and for a fraction of a second, everything in him clenches up with petrifying fear.
A dream. It must be.
"Good morning!" she says brightly. "Sleep well?"
And then he manages his own smile, pushing it past the half-frozen feeling in his chest. "Yeah. Good. Thank you." And that part's true, now that he thinks about it, now that the panic's beginning to fade--panic he doesn't really want to examine too closely. He doesn't know when he's ever slept so well, in fact, warm and relaxed and... at peace. Not for a very long time, at least. The last few nights he'd spent with Buffy, maybe, with his arms circled around her, floating on the feeling that she trusted him enough for that. Maybe then.
But it's getting hard to remember, really, what he felt then. Such a strange mixture of resignation and hope. And fear.
"I slept good too, thanks for asking," she says, and falls back onto her side, propping her head up with one hand. "So what now? We can go get you some blood once we're out, but until then, do you drink coffee or anything? Or is it a British thing in the morning to have tea?"
The happy chatter's a little headspinning, though.
"What is this, Buffy?" he finds himself saying. She gives him a patient look, a little head tilt.
"It's called having a nice morning," she says evenly. "What, is there some rule that we have to have a huge conversation about every little thing?"
"Right," he answers, and then he gets it. She doesn't want arguments or discussions. Just wants a nice day.
And that's fine. He'll tour guide her around as she likes, make a few pleasant memories. All well and good. And then they'll both get back on course with their lives.
He gives her a nod and she smiles back, slides out of bed. Still naked and parading around--hard to get used to, that--and heads over to do battle with the tea service, all set up very elegantly on a side table. He can tell from the way she fiddles with the teapot that she's probably never seen the plug-in type before, frowning and studying it like a rare artifact.
"So how do we handle the daylight problem?" she asks. She's figured out the pot now, has moved on to examining the biscuits and tea. "Should we, like, rent a car, or--"
"What's the weather like out there?" he interrupts. He leans back, hands locked behind his head. She puts a biscuit packet down and heads to the window, carefully slides the curtain aside, making sure to hold it in such a way that the light doesn't reach him. A small thing, but it puts a throb of affection in his chest, a swelling ache.
She's lovely framed in the window. Dreary gray light on her pink skin.
"Ugh, it's raining. Wow, it's really coming down."
"Welcome to winter in England," he says simply. "Don't think we're gonna have much of a problem."
__________
And they don't. Sure enough, it's still raining heavily by the time they're dressed and downstairs. He borrows a big old black brolly from the front desk for the day. Buffy laughs when she sees it, but cheerfully huddles under its protection once they're out on the streets, running through the downpour from one Tube stop to the next. The places she wants to visit are all typical tourist fare: Buckingham Palace and Piccadilly Circus, the Tower of London and Big Ben. He only balks at some of the more crowded attractions, like Madame Tussauds, because he's not going to stand in any damn queues, but it goes alright. Not so many bad memories in those places. Too public.
It's the spots in between that do his head in, the back alleys and half-glimpsed corners that he recognizes from the old days. He finds himself unconsciously taking his old sunlight avoidance routes to stay out of the rain--pedestrian underpasses and department stores that can be cut through, the occasional covered arcade--and plenty of memories jump up at him there. He keeps seeing them, sooty old bricks sticking out beneath shiny facades, evidence of the old city, and his own bloody history is right there too, like bones jutting out through torn flesh.
They're crossing Trafalgar Square when he nearly runs into Buffy, not realizing that she's come to a halt.
"Are you okay?" she asks. She's staring up at him, troubled.
He shifts his grip on the umbrella. He hadn't realized that he'd fallen silent. She'd been cheerful, chattering, asking questions and making jokes. He'd barely been listening.
"Everything's alright, pet. I'm fine." It comes out sharper than he wanted, and he does his best to cover it, change the subject. "So what's next on your little list? Wanna duck inside somewhere for awhile, get out of this rain?"
"No, you're not fine. You're being really quiet. What is it?"
He rolls his shoulders, looks away. "It's nothing, Buffy."
"It's not nothing. Spike, I wanted us to have a nice time together. I can't have a nice day if you're not."
I can't have a nice day if you're not. She's really trying. He relents, tries to lighten up his mood for her sake. "Buffy, it's fine, alright? Just pick a new spot, and I'll take you there. Let's go." He waves his hand. After you.
Her expression doesn't change, still colored with worry, but she presses her lips together and begins to page through her dampened guidebook, rain spattering in a fine mist off her white vinyl coat.
"Okay, how about the National Gallery? You could show me some of that art you say you like." She turns to point at the building, directly across the way. And oh, leave it to her to go right for one of his favorite haunts as a human, a place where he'd contemplated things of beauty. And not so coincidentally, where he'd also waited on the steps like a predator for an acquaintance who'd laughed over his verses at that last, fateful party. A man he'd eventually turned into another kind of art, the kind the newspapers wrote headlines about. Portrait of man with his insides on the outside.
"No, let's go to the Portrait Gallery instead. It's right around the corner," he says gruffly, and grabs her hand, starts pulling her along before she even has a chance to answer. New building, not even there when London was his city, sweeping away all traces of the old workhouse across from St Martin-in-the-Fields. No nasty memories there, not now. And stuffy old pictures of kings and queens. Perfect.
She's still shooting him funny looks as they step inside, check the umbrella, their coats. But she walks around obligingly and examines all the pictures, silently reading the little captions. He follows her, pretends to be interested.
It's something of a relief to be bored.
And the irony is, when he was soulless, this would have been his deepest desire, no doubt about it. Even the boring parts. Buffy at his side. Buffy laughing and smiling. Buffy wanting his company.
Ridiculous to even think of it now, but he can't help it. Deepest desire. Christ, what a joke. Once upon a time it would have been Drusilla.
He stamps down on his thoughts, focuses on the paintings. Kings and queens. Standard education, in his day, to memorize long lists of of their names: Ethelred the Unready and Edward the Confessor. Harefoot and Lionheart and Longshanks. And William the Conqueror, his namesake.
But then again, he has his own name now, doesn't he? Just as earned as any king. William the Bloody.
Christ, but London was messing with his head.
"Spike?" Buffy calling him. He looked up. She was across the room, beckoning, pointing at a particular painting. He walks over to see.
It's small portrait of a woman done in an antique allegorical style. A fairytale landscape is visible over her shoulder, a knight on horseback, a tiny castle on a hill. In her hands, a small rosette of flowers. Ribbons in her dark hair.
It's a painting of Drusilla.
__________
For a long minute, he stares at it, gape-mouthed. Reads the caption card, the name there, the year. An obscure scion of royalty, 1875, by a semi-famous painter. One of a pair of portraits, the card informs, of sisters, the other in the hands of a private collector.
The second painting is reproduced in black-and-white miniature next to the card.
Darla.
His first thought, that some researcher at the gallery had simply gotten his wires crossed, promptly vanishes. He grabs Buffy's hand and pulls her with him toward the gallery's floor map.
"What is it?" she hisses, a conspiratorial whisper. "Did you know abo--"
"No," he cuts her off shortly. His finger traces lines on the map, tracking out a route. He launches into motion again, pulling her behind him, her hand still in his.
They climb the stairs to an upper floor. He takes the steps two at a time. Finally he reaches a room more dominated by photographs than paintings, and he searches the images, moving quickly.
He finds what he's looking for in a glass case. a studio portrait that he actually remembers being taken, around 1885 or so, in Paris. His head's held proudly high in a dark-draped room, his arm leaning casually on a classical column.
The caption identifies him as the last holder of an old English name that died out before he was born.
There's a picture of Angel in the case too, taken in the same photo studio. Similar caption. He reads the two cards again and again, looking for clues.
"That's really not your real name, is it?" Buffy whispers. She squeezes his hand, and he glances at her, shakes his head. Then tugs at her to follow him.
They collect their umbrella and coats, leave the gallery. He sets a brisk pace, almost too fast for Buffy. She has to trot quickly to keep up. While they were inside, the rain had stopped, replaced by gusty winds and scudding gray clouds. Buffy yanks the closed umbrella from his hand and opens it anyway, nervously glancing at the sky.
"Where are we going?" She's panting, a little breathless, her arm extended at full stretch to keep the umbrella over his head.
"Somewhere we won't be watched," he growls, and leads them at sharp speed through old routes, weaving through back alleys and over the Thames into Southwark, to an out-of-the-way pub, the kind that only survives on the patronage of locals. He pitches his accent right for the area and orders them pints, sits her down in a dark corner and puts his own back to the wall, a place where he can see the entire room.
Pint in front of her, a flickering candle dimly illuminating her face, Buffy sucks in a breath and finally speaks.
"So what was that all about? Why did they have your picture? Or are you really royalty and I never knew?" Her expression tells him that she's already guessed his answer.
"No, love, sorry. Not a frog prince." He manages a grim smile. "Those were wanted posters, Buffy. Mug shots. And I'll give you one guess who had them put there."
She just looks at him, frozen silent. Not wanting to believe it, maybe. He can't imagine she hasn't come to the same conclusion she has.
He sucks in his own breath, says it.
"Your council. Your new council of Slayers."
TBC
The Center, Part 12
He's dragged out of sleep the next morning to the feeling of something soft brushing his face. Like a cobweb. Muzzily, he raises a hand to push it away, but in another second, it's back. He repeats the motion, groggy, and a soft feminine voice giggles in his ear. "Hey, you," it says softly. "Trying to do this without the throwing things, okay? C'mon, sleepyhead, time to get up."
His eyes snap open. The voice was Buffy's, of course--she's leaning over him, elbows in the pillows, and she's using a lock of her hair like a feather, running tickling trails over his face. She's wearing the world's cutest smile, sunny bright, and for a fraction of a second, everything in him clenches up with petrifying fear.
A dream. It must be.
"Good morning!" she says brightly. "Sleep well?"
And then he manages his own smile, pushing it past the half-frozen feeling in his chest. "Yeah. Good. Thank you." And that part's true, now that he thinks about it, now that the panic's beginning to fade--panic he doesn't really want to examine too closely. He doesn't know when he's ever slept so well, in fact, warm and relaxed and... at peace. Not for a very long time, at least. The last few nights he'd spent with Buffy, maybe, with his arms circled around her, floating on the feeling that she trusted him enough for that. Maybe then.
But it's getting hard to remember, really, what he felt then. Such a strange mixture of resignation and hope. And fear.
"I slept good too, thanks for asking," she says, and falls back onto her side, propping her head up with one hand. "So what now? We can go get you some blood once we're out, but until then, do you drink coffee or anything? Or is it a British thing in the morning to have tea?"
The happy chatter's a little headspinning, though.
"What is this, Buffy?" he finds himself saying. She gives him a patient look, a little head tilt.
"It's called having a nice morning," she says evenly. "What, is there some rule that we have to have a huge conversation about every little thing?"
"Right," he answers, and then he gets it. She doesn't want arguments or discussions. Just wants a nice day.
And that's fine. He'll tour guide her around as she likes, make a few pleasant memories. All well and good. And then they'll both get back on course with their lives.
He gives her a nod and she smiles back, slides out of bed. Still naked and parading around--hard to get used to, that--and heads over to do battle with the tea service, all set up very elegantly on a side table. He can tell from the way she fiddles with the teapot that she's probably never seen the plug-in type before, frowning and studying it like a rare artifact.
"So how do we handle the daylight problem?" she asks. She's figured out the pot now, has moved on to examining the biscuits and tea. "Should we, like, rent a car, or--"
"What's the weather like out there?" he interrupts. He leans back, hands locked behind his head. She puts a biscuit packet down and heads to the window, carefully slides the curtain aside, making sure to hold it in such a way that the light doesn't reach him. A small thing, but it puts a throb of affection in his chest, a swelling ache.
She's lovely framed in the window. Dreary gray light on her pink skin.
"Ugh, it's raining. Wow, it's really coming down."
"Welcome to winter in England," he says simply. "Don't think we're gonna have much of a problem."
__________
And they don't. Sure enough, it's still raining heavily by the time they're dressed and downstairs. He borrows a big old black brolly from the front desk for the day. Buffy laughs when she sees it, but cheerfully huddles under its protection once they're out on the streets, running through the downpour from one Tube stop to the next. The places she wants to visit are all typical tourist fare: Buckingham Palace and Piccadilly Circus, the Tower of London and Big Ben. He only balks at some of the more crowded attractions, like Madame Tussauds, because he's not going to stand in any damn queues, but it goes alright. Not so many bad memories in those places. Too public.
It's the spots in between that do his head in, the back alleys and half-glimpsed corners that he recognizes from the old days. He finds himself unconsciously taking his old sunlight avoidance routes to stay out of the rain--pedestrian underpasses and department stores that can be cut through, the occasional covered arcade--and plenty of memories jump up at him there. He keeps seeing them, sooty old bricks sticking out beneath shiny facades, evidence of the old city, and his own bloody history is right there too, like bones jutting out through torn flesh.
They're crossing Trafalgar Square when he nearly runs into Buffy, not realizing that she's come to a halt.
"Are you okay?" she asks. She's staring up at him, troubled.
He shifts his grip on the umbrella. He hadn't realized that he'd fallen silent. She'd been cheerful, chattering, asking questions and making jokes. He'd barely been listening.
"Everything's alright, pet. I'm fine." It comes out sharper than he wanted, and he does his best to cover it, change the subject. "So what's next on your little list? Wanna duck inside somewhere for awhile, get out of this rain?"
"No, you're not fine. You're being really quiet. What is it?"
He rolls his shoulders, looks away. "It's nothing, Buffy."
"It's not nothing. Spike, I wanted us to have a nice time together. I can't have a nice day if you're not."
I can't have a nice day if you're not. She's really trying. He relents, tries to lighten up his mood for her sake. "Buffy, it's fine, alright? Just pick a new spot, and I'll take you there. Let's go." He waves his hand. After you.
Her expression doesn't change, still colored with worry, but she presses her lips together and begins to page through her dampened guidebook, rain spattering in a fine mist off her white vinyl coat.
"Okay, how about the National Gallery? You could show me some of that art you say you like." She turns to point at the building, directly across the way. And oh, leave it to her to go right for one of his favorite haunts as a human, a place where he'd contemplated things of beauty. And not so coincidentally, where he'd also waited on the steps like a predator for an acquaintance who'd laughed over his verses at that last, fateful party. A man he'd eventually turned into another kind of art, the kind the newspapers wrote headlines about. Portrait of man with his insides on the outside.
"No, let's go to the Portrait Gallery instead. It's right around the corner," he says gruffly, and grabs her hand, starts pulling her along before she even has a chance to answer. New building, not even there when London was his city, sweeping away all traces of the old workhouse across from St Martin-in-the-Fields. No nasty memories there, not now. And stuffy old pictures of kings and queens. Perfect.
She's still shooting him funny looks as they step inside, check the umbrella, their coats. But she walks around obligingly and examines all the pictures, silently reading the little captions. He follows her, pretends to be interested.
It's something of a relief to be bored.
And the irony is, when he was soulless, this would have been his deepest desire, no doubt about it. Even the boring parts. Buffy at his side. Buffy laughing and smiling. Buffy wanting his company.
Ridiculous to even think of it now, but he can't help it. Deepest desire. Christ, what a joke. Once upon a time it would have been Drusilla.
He stamps down on his thoughts, focuses on the paintings. Kings and queens. Standard education, in his day, to memorize long lists of of their names: Ethelred the Unready and Edward the Confessor. Harefoot and Lionheart and Longshanks. And William the Conqueror, his namesake.
But then again, he has his own name now, doesn't he? Just as earned as any king. William the Bloody.
Christ, but London was messing with his head.
"Spike?" Buffy calling him. He looked up. She was across the room, beckoning, pointing at a particular painting. He walks over to see.
It's small portrait of a woman done in an antique allegorical style. A fairytale landscape is visible over her shoulder, a knight on horseback, a tiny castle on a hill. In her hands, a small rosette of flowers. Ribbons in her dark hair.
It's a painting of Drusilla.
__________
For a long minute, he stares at it, gape-mouthed. Reads the caption card, the name there, the year. An obscure scion of royalty, 1875, by a semi-famous painter. One of a pair of portraits, the card informs, of sisters, the other in the hands of a private collector.
The second painting is reproduced in black-and-white miniature next to the card.
Darla.
His first thought, that some researcher at the gallery had simply gotten his wires crossed, promptly vanishes. He grabs Buffy's hand and pulls her with him toward the gallery's floor map.
"What is it?" she hisses, a conspiratorial whisper. "Did you know abo--"
"No," he cuts her off shortly. His finger traces lines on the map, tracking out a route. He launches into motion again, pulling her behind him, her hand still in his.
They climb the stairs to an upper floor. He takes the steps two at a time. Finally he reaches a room more dominated by photographs than paintings, and he searches the images, moving quickly.
He finds what he's looking for in a glass case. a studio portrait that he actually remembers being taken, around 1885 or so, in Paris. His head's held proudly high in a dark-draped room, his arm leaning casually on a classical column.
The caption identifies him as the last holder of an old English name that died out before he was born.
There's a picture of Angel in the case too, taken in the same photo studio. Similar caption. He reads the two cards again and again, looking for clues.
"That's really not your real name, is it?" Buffy whispers. She squeezes his hand, and he glances at her, shakes his head. Then tugs at her to follow him.
They collect their umbrella and coats, leave the gallery. He sets a brisk pace, almost too fast for Buffy. She has to trot quickly to keep up. While they were inside, the rain had stopped, replaced by gusty winds and scudding gray clouds. Buffy yanks the closed umbrella from his hand and opens it anyway, nervously glancing at the sky.
"Where are we going?" She's panting, a little breathless, her arm extended at full stretch to keep the umbrella over his head.
"Somewhere we won't be watched," he growls, and leads them at sharp speed through old routes, weaving through back alleys and over the Thames into Southwark, to an out-of-the-way pub, the kind that only survives on the patronage of locals. He pitches his accent right for the area and orders them pints, sits her down in a dark corner and puts his own back to the wall, a place where he can see the entire room.
Pint in front of her, a flickering candle dimly illuminating her face, Buffy sucks in a breath and finally speaks.
"So what was that all about? Why did they have your picture? Or are you really royalty and I never knew?" Her expression tells him that she's already guessed his answer.
"No, love, sorry. Not a frog prince." He manages a grim smile. "Those were wanted posters, Buffy. Mug shots. And I'll give you one guess who had them put there."
She just looks at him, frozen silent. Not wanting to believe it, maybe. He can't imagine she hasn't come to the same conclusion she has.
He sucks in his own breath, says it.
"Your council. Your new council of Slayers."
TBC
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-08 01:40 am (UTC)That put a big lump in my throat, as did all her trying so hard in this chapter. You've pushed my Buffy button with that. :)
Twist at the Gallery had me gasping. This just keeps getting better and better!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-02-09 07:22 am (UTC)