Improvising Atonement, 10/?
Feb. 26th, 2008 12:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sevendeadlyfunCharacters: Spike, Giles, Darla, OC
Rating: NC-17 overall
Summary: A vampire with a soul comes to Sunnydale to help The Slayer. Can a demon ever atone?
A/N: Written for![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
tamingthemuse prompt 84-suspension of disbelief. Thanks to my betas noandwhere and kidcyclone for their help. I hope I made this clear before, but if I haven't, this is not going to be an episode by episode rewrite. I am following the general progression of events and portraying the characters as canonically (I hope!) as is possible for such a radical change. So, if this story seems like it skips around a bit...it does. I just don't have seven years worth of interest in this project, yanno? :)
Previously:
“No place for innocence here,” Spike murmured, as he stared out at familiar amber eyes. “Evil remains and so long as it lurks in the secret places of the heart, utopia is only the shadow of a dream.”
Darla’s eyes caught him, held him fast for a moment. He could feel the stretch and swell inside him, a demon’s yearning for the simplicity of family, feeding and fucking. She smiled at him through the foggy tempered glass, face radiant with malicious glee.
“Hawthorne,” Giles finally responded. “Rather poetic, in a grim sort of…” He trailed off, gazing in bewilderment around the empty room.
“I can’t believe I allowed you to coerce me into playing along with this…this utter charade,” Giles hissed, still staring fixedly at the emptiness in front of him. “I’ve kept secrets from my Slayer, the one person to whom I owe my complete loyalty and for what?”
“This utter charade,” Wei Jinn replied dryly, her voice floating out from the darkened stacks.
Giles turned to her, his face contorted with barely controlled fury. He whipped his glasses off and they sliced through the air, an academic warrior wielding a small weapon from his vast arsenal. Jinn stood silent and stolid as Giles regained his composure.
“Miss Wei,” he said tightly, “this is not a joke.”
“No, “ she agreed solemnly. “It is the balance of existence. You have seen the prophecies with your own eyes. You know the fine line on which the universe rests. All it requires is a bit of tolerance on your part, a willing suspension of disbelief.”
Giles snorted, blue eyes flicking up towards his companion. He fancied he saw a bit of mischief dancing inside the grave depths of her dark eyes. Errant nonsense, of course and likely a sign of his need for adult companionship; spending time with children had its disadvantages.
“I think this has passed from suspension of disbelief into rejection of reality,” he said sardonically, replacing his glasses. “A vampire with a soul to play a part in the final battle between good and evil? Really, it makes one wonder what sort of drinks those prophets were consuming.”
*~*
Spike fled the library, the disapproval of Rupert Giles, the unseen but keenly felt presence of his own Watcher. She was out there, watching him, taunting him. He could feel her, the very presence of her replacing his long forgotten pulse and rushing through his blood.
He skidded out the open front doors, racing down the stairs and towards the window where she’d been lurking. As he rounded the corner of the building, the scent of hot copper overwhelmed him. He could almost taste it, feel it coursing down his throat and pushing through his dead veins. Standing there with a warm, almost dead body in her arms, Darla smiled at him, her fangs glistening in the soft artificial lights.
“Do you miss it?” she asked, and a casual listener would have mistaken her words as kind. Spike knew better. Whatever Darla might or might not be, whatever her strengths or shortcomings, she had never been kind. Not to him, nor to anyone else so far as he knew.
“Let ‘er go,” Spike ordered tersely, struggling to keep his human face. The urge to feed, to join Darla in her feast and sink his fangs into the buttery, pliant flesh was strong. “Don’t do this.”
Don’t, don’t, don’t. The words rang inside him and he watched in horrified fascination as her hands released the body. No longer alive, no longer a person now; just a body falling gracelessly to Earth, killed by a graceful predator. The slump of the body, the sound it made, a soft wet thump, drew Spike in and he recalled a thousand other feeds, a thousand other bodies falling. Blood on the face, the fingers, careless and heedless bodies pressed together between corpses, falling and rotting…
“Poor little man,” she crooned, the malicious lilt striking its intended target. Spike winced, visibly shaken by the remnants of his past. “Did you think you could escape yourself? That you could ever be good enough? No way to retrieve that pesky heartbeat, precious.”
“I know,” he answered her, eyes still riveted on the slumped corpse.
“She’s fighting for her life right now,” Darla informed him casually, sauntering over to stand between Spike and the body. “And you’re not quick enough, not…good enough, to save her. She’s dying, her body just another rotting husk. The boy you’re so fond of? Quite the tasty little morsel.”
Spike snarled, losing the fight to hold onto his human features. Bones shifted as his face changed, smooth sensuality abandoned for the rougher features of a killer. He stared at her, rumbling ominously as she smiled at him.
“There you are,” she said approvingly. “Not a human, no matter how much you play at it. Going to run now, William? Try to save them?”
Spike growled at her, wheeling around and running as fast as his supernatural body would let him. He could hear her laughter, floating behind him and he cursed. Sunnydale was a one-horse town, but that still left a hundred and one places for a Slayer to die.
Chapter 11
Rating: NC-17 overall
Summary: A vampire with a soul comes to Sunnydale to help The Slayer. Can a demon ever atone?
A/N: Written for
tamingthemuse prompt 84-suspension of disbelief. Thanks to my betas noandwhere and kidcyclone for their help. I hope I made this clear before, but if I haven't, this is not going to be an episode by episode rewrite. I am following the general progression of events and portraying the characters as canonically (I hope!) as is possible for such a radical change. So, if this story seems like it skips around a bit...it does. I just don't have seven years worth of interest in this project, yanno? :) Previously:
“No place for innocence here,” Spike murmured, as he stared out at familiar amber eyes. “Evil remains and so long as it lurks in the secret places of the heart, utopia is only the shadow of a dream.”
Darla’s eyes caught him, held him fast for a moment. He could feel the stretch and swell inside him, a demon’s yearning for the simplicity of family, feeding and fucking. She smiled at him through the foggy tempered glass, face radiant with malicious glee.
“Hawthorne,” Giles finally responded. “Rather poetic, in a grim sort of…” He trailed off, gazing in bewilderment around the empty room.
“I can’t believe I allowed you to coerce me into playing along with this…this utter charade,” Giles hissed, still staring fixedly at the emptiness in front of him. “I’ve kept secrets from my Slayer, the one person to whom I owe my complete loyalty and for what?”
“This utter charade,” Wei Jinn replied dryly, her voice floating out from the darkened stacks.
Giles turned to her, his face contorted with barely controlled fury. He whipped his glasses off and they sliced through the air, an academic warrior wielding a small weapon from his vast arsenal. Jinn stood silent and stolid as Giles regained his composure.
“Miss Wei,” he said tightly, “this is not a joke.”
“No, “ she agreed solemnly. “It is the balance of existence. You have seen the prophecies with your own eyes. You know the fine line on which the universe rests. All it requires is a bit of tolerance on your part, a willing suspension of disbelief.”
Giles snorted, blue eyes flicking up towards his companion. He fancied he saw a bit of mischief dancing inside the grave depths of her dark eyes. Errant nonsense, of course and likely a sign of his need for adult companionship; spending time with children had its disadvantages.
“I think this has passed from suspension of disbelief into rejection of reality,” he said sardonically, replacing his glasses. “A vampire with a soul to play a part in the final battle between good and evil? Really, it makes one wonder what sort of drinks those prophets were consuming.”
*~*
Spike fled the library, the disapproval of Rupert Giles, the unseen but keenly felt presence of his own Watcher. She was out there, watching him, taunting him. He could feel her, the very presence of her replacing his long forgotten pulse and rushing through his blood.
He skidded out the open front doors, racing down the stairs and towards the window where she’d been lurking. As he rounded the corner of the building, the scent of hot copper overwhelmed him. He could almost taste it, feel it coursing down his throat and pushing through his dead veins. Standing there with a warm, almost dead body in her arms, Darla smiled at him, her fangs glistening in the soft artificial lights.
“Do you miss it?” she asked, and a casual listener would have mistaken her words as kind. Spike knew better. Whatever Darla might or might not be, whatever her strengths or shortcomings, she had never been kind. Not to him, nor to anyone else so far as he knew.
“Let ‘er go,” Spike ordered tersely, struggling to keep his human face. The urge to feed, to join Darla in her feast and sink his fangs into the buttery, pliant flesh was strong. “Don’t do this.”
Don’t, don’t, don’t. The words rang inside him and he watched in horrified fascination as her hands released the body. No longer alive, no longer a person now; just a body falling gracelessly to Earth, killed by a graceful predator. The slump of the body, the sound it made, a soft wet thump, drew Spike in and he recalled a thousand other feeds, a thousand other bodies falling. Blood on the face, the fingers, careless and heedless bodies pressed together between corpses, falling and rotting…
“Poor little man,” she crooned, the malicious lilt striking its intended target. Spike winced, visibly shaken by the remnants of his past. “Did you think you could escape yourself? That you could ever be good enough? No way to retrieve that pesky heartbeat, precious.”
“I know,” he answered her, eyes still riveted on the slumped corpse.
“She’s fighting for her life right now,” Darla informed him casually, sauntering over to stand between Spike and the body. “And you’re not quick enough, not…good enough, to save her. She’s dying, her body just another rotting husk. The boy you’re so fond of? Quite the tasty little morsel.”
Spike snarled, losing the fight to hold onto his human features. Bones shifted as his face changed, smooth sensuality abandoned for the rougher features of a killer. He stared at her, rumbling ominously as she smiled at him.
“There you are,” she said approvingly. “Not a human, no matter how much you play at it. Going to run now, William? Try to save them?”
Spike growled at her, wheeling around and running as fast as his supernatural body would let him. He could hear her laughter, floating behind him and he cursed. Sunnydale was a one-horse town, but that still left a hundred and one places for a Slayer to die.
Chapter 11