Kirsi
Angel
Joined: 09 Jan 2007
Posts: 35
Location: Finland
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 Posted: Wed Jan 10, 2007 3:30 pm Post subject: Silence (BtVS/Spike) |
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This story was written in depressed and sad state of mind, and I think it shows. I love Spike more than any other TV character, so this one was also emotional but also therapeutic to write.
***
The silence around him was like a scream. So loud it made the fragile joints keeping the fragments of his skull together crack and give in to the terrible pressure. The pain was too much to endure, so he covered his head in his hands and just slept away. All he wanted was oblivion, but that was the one thing denied from him forever.
He couldn't sleep long – the roar of the engines woke him up as soon as the ship left the harbour. It was dark and dank in his hiding place deep under the deck, and a rusty pipe kept leaking and dripping with infuriating regularity just above him. He felt the drops on his naked arm and smelled the stench of mildew and dirt, but he wasn't able to move. It was like the slightest movement could awaken the predators circling in the darkness around him. He could hear their heavy breathing and see those hungry eyes, and maybe for the first time in his life he was truly terrified.
But it wasn't the first time, not really, and of course he knew that as well. The cracks in his skull were now wide enough for the memories to escape his tortured mind, and there was nothing he could do to stop their relentless march. He didn't want to remember because with recollection came the shame and the guilt and the silence more deadly than anything he had ever faced before.
***
William was so nervous and scared to approach Cecily. It was bad enough to be ridiculed for his poetry, but Cecily was the bright and precious gemstone of his whole existence. She was his secret joy and delight, a dream so tender he was afraid to even brush it with his clumsy fingertips. He wasn't worth her, he knew that, but he had to try. He had to tell her how he felt – how her smile was able to lighten up the whole room for him and how looking into her eyes made him want to protect and cherish her for the rest of his worthless life.
He never knew he could love this much. He knew he was not a special man in any way, not someone people noticed or admired. But he was so full of love it had to mean something. Cecily had to see that, too. Cecily was not like the others, the ones who didn't even bother to hide the contempt they felt for him. Cecily was able to see who he truly was; Cecily was like him.
And now it was time to act. He could no longer hide his feelings. He had to be brave, just this one time in his life. He wanted to make his mother proud and tell the whole world how he had written every single verse just for his beautiful, effulgent Cecily. There could never be anyone else for him to love like this, he was sure of that as he took the first step towards the woman of his dreams.
***
How long had he been laying in the cargo hold now? He had no idea. The ship had travelled slowly along the African coastline and stopped at countless strange harbours. He could hear the seamen talk about places with names like some exotic and rare fruit when they climbed down the ladder to the hold, either to add or remove some cargo crates.
They never saw him, he was one with the darkness and so still it seemed like time had stopped running and left him in an eternal invisible limbo. But the pace of the ship was different now, and he could hear the thunder of the great waves breaking against the sides of the ship even beyond the dull and monotonous throb of the engines somewhere below him.
Where was he going? What instinct had made him attempt this return home? Maybe he had indeed lost his mind. His sanity for the soul. There was nothing for him in Sunnydale, there never had been. But it was his stubborn heart that refused to believe that. He had always followed his heart, whether it was beating or not, and he couldn't stop – not even now when he was all lost.
His soul. How it was burning in his chest now. He felt desecrated and disgusted. He wanted to tear his cursed flesh apart to remove that pain. It wasn't about re-birth this time; it was about eternal demise and damnation. There was no salvation, no forgiveness. No woman to hold his hand through this metamorphosis.
***
William wasn't afraid when he felt the fangs biting his flesh. And when it was his turn to drink, he only moaned for pleasure. He drank from her breast, and she was so close to him, closer than any woman before. He drank like a man about to die from thirst, and she was his oasis in the middle of a terrifying desert. Her intoxicating scent filled his nostrils. It was like thousand poems more beautiful he could ever imagine were singing in his head now with sudden and complete unison.
It was pure freedom and ecstasy that was rushing through his veins: Freedom from all the shame and mortification. Freedom from false hopes and dreams. He could feel the burden of rejection and failure slip so easily from his shoulders. He was like a snake shedding his skin. And a new strength soon filled the gap in his essence that had once been his soul.
And when he opened his eyes and faced her mischievous and strangely victorious smile, he had already forgotten the gap had ever existed, even for the briefest moment of time. He was looking at her dark mistress in awe and wonder. He had never seen such a wonderful being before, and for some reason far beyond his imagination she had chosen him as the one to set free. She was his destiny with a heart as black and perfect as her beauty.
***
Was this the end? Would his soul slowly cremate his lifeless body until there was no pain any more? He didn't want to feel remorse and shame. He only wanted to forget. If he could turn back time, would he do it? And to what place would he travel to make the difference? Would it be the naïve young poet with a broken heart he wished to stop? Or the desperate, miserable vampire asking for his soul to be worth of a woman who could never love him? He honestly couldn't tell.
He was not alone in the darkness. His guilt was going to catch him soon enough and it wore the face of every single one of his victims. There were thousands of unforgiving ghosts out there, just waiting for him to make the first move. It was their forlorn panting he could hear in the blackness, and their icy skeletal fingers that kept reaching for his paralysed limbs. But their eyes were the worst. He had never seen eyes like that, so hollow and full of muted rage. And their silence was the most penetrating scream he had ever heard. The one he couldn't escape.
And he also knew it would be pointless to tell the phantoms of his wretched past how it was all done for love in the end. Because love was no magic word to get him off the hook, not this time. They would catch him and fill his head with their silent cries and they would walk with him forever. It was the choice he had made in that remote African cave, in front of a nameless ancient demon.
For now on he was safe, though. The rumble of the engines and ocean waves was like a lullaby to him, in his desolate and filthy hiding-place. It was the miserable womb of his third and most painful birth, the one he had chosen himself to be someone who could finally be loved in return.
The end
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