First Stanza - [Action & Voice]

[deadpoet]

[Action, Locked to Willow]
[A few moments before Spike arrived, he and Illyria had just escaped most of the main action and a great big bloody dragon come out of nowhere. He'd lost track of Angel and Gunn. Wesley was dead. So now it was just the two of them. Until Spike suddenly came to the surface of the river, cursing as he suddenly started burning and then swimming back underwater again until he could hide under the shade of the bridge. A bloody tiny bridge. And here he was with only a pair of white pants, now failing to hide much of anything, as he ended up STUCK in this tiny shadow. There was a book in the sunlight that was just out of reach. As the day passed on, it continued to get further away from him as the sun shifted the shadows further and further away.

What bollocks.

He decided he'd just wait until the first person came across the bridge and get their attention. That ought to do it.]

[Action/Voice, Open To All]

[Well, Willow took him 'home'. And he rather decided he liked it. Of course, a vamp can't make himself good and comfy without the proper accouterments. So after taking a nice long shower in House Seven, perusing the kitchen, and no doubt making his new housies terrible uncomfortable, he makes his way out as soon as it's evening. In his New Feather pants at first, because what else was there? But his first stop is the clothing store and he's soon back into slimming back. And then it's off to pick out a fancy weapon, get some blood at Good Spirits, find some smokes, recollect his lighter, and then snoop around town because he knows a certain old flame is around here. Not you, Buffy.

Around midnight, he hits up the journal after finally recollecting it from beside the bridge.]

This is a nice little village you lot have here. Very cozy. Has a certain quality to it, you might say. Very Shyamalan-type setting. Too cheerful. Downright unsettling, if you ask me.

Anyway, who do I talk to for the big plan? I've done my sitting around already. Relaxing, sure. Not too fond of the wings. Too ironic for my taste. But I'm ready to go and find the wankers who locked us up in here and do something about it. Champion of the people, right here. Just point me in the right direction.

Comments

[herotypical]

"It's not that I..." don't feel for you. No. That wouldn't help matters at all, would it? "You and me, Spike. Even under perfect conditions? Doesn't work."

Buffy could forgive -- almost. But she couldn't forget. That was what her last attempt with the vampire had taught her. "And even if it did...?"

She shrugged.

[deadpoet]

He set the cup down on the counter. A little too hard with a 'clang'. He then advanced on her, hands dragging back his coat as he settled them on his hips. Staring down at her.

"Know that for a fact, do you? Because I can't say I've got quite so firm a handle on that. But you don't need to make excuses for it. You've got a new boy. Do what you like with him. Just don't make it sound like you're doing me a favor with it."

[herotypical]

And she stared up at him. The Slayer didn't even blink -- although her insides were twisting into knots and she felt an awful lot like running away. It was those words again. New Boy.

"I do," she insisted. Maybe if she came clean about this one thing? She wouldn't have to come clean about others. "Because it happened, Spike. Not the first time you were here. And not the last time you were here. But the time in between. Chance the second. And guess what? We? Us? You and me? It. Didn't. Work. Out."

[deadpoet]

That caught him off guard. He stared at her quizzically as he put that all together. But not enough to keep him from objecting.

"So that's it then, is it? Poor Spike's gone and lost his memories. Shame he won't remember us breaking up. Well here's the newsflash for you, pet. I don't remember a bloody thing. I haven't quite worked out what these three years you've got in your head mean, but it's not enough. Not for me to just say 'oh well' and shrug my shoulders. The whole thing is bollocks. You want to call something perfect conditions? Try saying it in a place where I don't have a bleeding bar code stamped on my neck like I've become a piece of produce."

[herotypical]

God, but it was satisfying to have him on the back foot. She jabbed a finger at his chest but -- notably -- pulled up short just before actually touching him. Physical contact was a line neither of them had yet crossed. This time.

"Can't you even muster one inch of compassion? I get it. You're rocking the rage 'cause -- yeah -- getting stuck here? Sucks beyond the telling of it. But while you're wrapped up in your testosterone-charged aggro-fest? Here's me. Once again with my heart in the blender as I watch an endless parade of people I know and lo--" Don't say love "--care about. As they show up. And then leave. And then show up again. And here's Buffy, too out of her league to find a way home like she'd otherwise always do. And too luckless to get the easy way home. And too...stupid not to go and end up caring for other, less-from-home people."

Her shoulders heaved. Wow. That was a vitriolic rant long left corked.

[deadpoet]

If he wasn't on the testosterone-charged aggro-fest, he might have been able to drop the vitriol long enough to let her words sink in and realize how bad she had it. But he was still pissed. Angry at just about everything. Reason? Wasn't high on his agenda.

"See? That's why I don't buy it. The Buffy I know wouldn't be out of her league in something like this. She'd be taking charge, finding a way out, and not being concerned about a bunch of new friends being a little unhappy about a vampire moving in. It's these scientist-types, isn't it? Gotten in your head. You've lost your mojo, Slayer. That's why you're still here."

[herotypical]

Lost her mojo. Well, damn, if that didn't just cut to the quick. It zeroed in on the one insecurity she had been battling with ever since...well? Ever since Derek had gone all ubervamp on her.

"There are no spells to fix this. No enchanted gourds. Willow? She's also been here three times and, God, wicked wicca powerhouse that she is? She still hasn't been able to crack it. I have exhausted myself trying to escape and...and..."

She stammered. "I'm running on empty, here."

[deadpoet]

It was always with a deep sense of satisfaction and immediate regret that Spike was always able to tear straight away at the heart of her problems and expose them. That was how it was now. He'd been on the money and now he could see it. She really had lost her mojo. She was hurting. Broken. But not in the way he'd seen her before. She had a will to live.

But the fight wasn't in her anymore.

It wasn't in him so much anymore. He backed off a step, looking away instead. Suddenly feeling the need to be less confrontational and more helpful. Like old times, really. He took the mug from the counter to the sink and filled it with water. Keep the blood from drying inside it.

"Well you've got me here now, don't you? I'm not empty quite yet."

[herotypical]

Buffy would do her cause no good by explaining to him that his help -- though desired -- would not really make a difference. Not in the end. The answer, she was convinced, was not with any one individual in the barrier. The answer sat somewhere beyond them. It was locked up in science and magic to which they'd been denied access.

She watched the water run into the cup. Run over its edges. A little mug waterfall. "If you're going to help, then you should know what you're up against..."

[deadpoet]

He turned the faucet off and left the cup, filled with pinkish water, to sit in the sink. He turned back towards her.

"A cult of big, scary winged loons is the way I've heard it."

[herotypical]

"The Third Party," she confirmed. "I know. It's just about the worst stand-in name ever. I didn't come up with it. Fighting their Elites are just about as troublesome as going toe-to-toe with some very crafty vamps, only minus the satisfying banter."

In spite of the argument they'd just pulled back from, Buffy was more than willing to spill the entirety of her intel to Spike. Hell, she was prepared to tell him more than she'd told most of her non-home-based friends. He had to know; she had to inform him.

"The real challenge is the guy at their head, alias The General."

And this was her cue to wave him over to the kitchen table. It wasn't that she felt he ought to be seated for this discussion. Rather, she knew she needed to be sitting herself. Her muscles still occasionally failed her when she thought about the old enemy.

[deadpoet]

He took a seat across from her, siting to the side of the table, one arm resting on it and the other dangling over the back of the chair. Doing his very best to be concerned, but not seem too concerned. Casually interested, that's what it was. He watched her from the side.

"General. Right. Heard you killed the bastard. Problem solved, right?"

[herotypical]

Despite it being her own unspoken suggestion, Buffy now warred with herself over taking a seat. Obviously, she felt more powerful on her feet. A little taller, even, given that Spike was now seated. But at problem solved she felt that horrible seizing sensation in her knees and she quickly -- mechanically -- took the chair across the table from him.

"Killed him. Of course. Once. About, oh, a few months after I got here. Apparently that's one way to make a name for yourself. But..."

Her well-manicured fingernails tapped the table-top. "If you've heard about that then you've obviously already heard about the one week return policy on the dead. Me and him tangoed again, last draft. He was...much stronger."

[deadpoet]

"Been eating his Wheaties, has he? A new Big Bad that's just getting badder. Never did much care for those."

It put things into perspective, though. It wasn't often Buffy had a foe come back and beat her her. It was always a struggle at first where she was victorious in the end. No second chances. No coming back and proving her better.

"So how strong are we talking about?"

[herotypical]

Buffy Summers -- a champion of forceful eye contact who rarely baulked -- dropped her gaze. She couldn't look at him. However? She had to tell him.

"Strong enough to send me into a week's worth of bed-rest. Of course, we're capped here. Not on the battlefield but...the moment we were shipped back to town, my everything slowed down. You can feel it -- right?"

[deadpoet]

He nodded. "Little bit, yeah. Not quite feeling my full self here. Even the blood smells duller."

He wasn't just weaker. His senses were duller too. Until now, he'd not been acknowledging it. The fact made him vaguely uncomfortable. And moreso, it made him feel vulnerable. Spike never liked admitting to that.

[herotypical]

"You adjust. The good news is that just about everyone else is capped, too -- except the vanillas. The garden varieties. So the playing field remains mostly level. Kinda. Sometimes? It's apples and oranges."

She folded her arms on the table. "Other times? We're left totally powerless."

[deadpoet]

"Totally powerless. Can't say I know that feels."

He'd been there. Hated it. But it didn't scare him. It was just something that was incredibly unpleasant and he'd do anything to avoid getting into that situation again.

[herotypical]

"...We do missions, too. Last one I went on? I was Buffy the Normal Girl. It's -- more humbling than I care to admit, really. But you'll have to know these things. 'Cause when it happens to you? You'll still have that pesky UV allergy and...

Spike. I need to warn you about something else. Something a little more...personal."

[deadpoet]

He'd lived with that 'allergy' for a hundred years. It wasn't a handicap, in his opinion. Just an annoyance.

"I thought we were moving away from personal."

[herotypical]

"Different kind of personal."

But no less dangerous. Probably more so. "The experiments. Sometimes they...change us. Take parts of us away. Important parts."

A soulless Spike was still no Angelus -- but the notion terrified her nonetheless.

[deadpoet]

He could guess right away what she meant.

"You mean me without a soul, right? The same thing could happen to you, Slayer. I heard a lot of things working with Angel and his crew. I was told about a soulless human child that even terrified the demon that possessed him. So don't go making some special concern about me losing my soul. I'm not Angelus, right? I can be downright decent without mine. But you? We've not seen you without one yet."

[herotypical]

"Decent."

It took every final sinew of willpower left in her body not to spit the word back in his face. Decent? After--

No. Different man, now. Changed. She was supposed to be getting better at accepting that. Buffy had made a show of forgiving Jack his past and accepting his current self; she supposedly had already learned to care for Spike and his soul. But it truly did anger her. Decent was never a word she'd use for what had happened.

"I mean that it's incredibly likely that you're going to hurt someone, here. Someone you don't even know or...someone you care about. I've done it. Everyone does it, at some point."

[deadpoet]

He was well aware that he'd made bad moves, even with the chip. Even when he was being downright heroic. It was why he went for his soul. He found himself his own moral compass that wasn't named Buffy Summers.

But he'd never call himself a good man without his soul. Not a hero. Just decent. As vampires go.

"I've already done it, Buffy. A hundred times over. More times than I can remember. I don't fancy doing it again. But death doesn't quite take in this place, does it? I can deal. It's what us souled vampires do."

It was a rare moment where he felt solidarity with Angel on anything. But this was one of those times.

[herotypical]

"Right. What a boys' club that's become..."

She straightened. Her warning had been given -- and the possibility of a necessary staking was made implicit. Or, at least, an uninvitation spell. Buffy would not allow a soulless Spike near her, she thought. Not after the sin that had precipitated the soul's chase.