Scene of the Crime

But I don't want comfort. I want god, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.
~ Adolf Huxley

It was late. The dark side of midnight as I lay in Willow’s bed, propped up on pillows, stroking her hair as she slept. She was cradled in between my legs, curled around me, her head resting on my shoulder. So beautiful.

So trusting. It just blew me away.

I had been breathing with her as she slept, puffs of her breath washing over me and into me. I could taste her tears with every breath and it warmed me. There had been the occasional whimper, the odd sigh as she slept, but at least the crying had stopped. I couldn’t stand it when she cried. She was normally so strong and light-hearted, and the thought that us being together was the cause of her pain was just too much.

I was playing with her hair, thinking up all sorts of pretty, colourful deaths for the Slayer, when all of a sudden, it hit me.

Typical really. I'm thinking about murder and mayhem, splattering blood and cracking skulls, when I find myself thinking about how that would effect Willow. How it would break her heart if I were to, oooh, I dunno, break the Slayer’s face?

Quite a predicament.

That was when it hit me.

I couldn’t have free reign the vampire department anymore. I couldn’t kill willy nilly any longer, as and when I wanted. No, now I have my very own little redheaded conscience. And the hell of it was, she hadn’t even brought up the subject of me killing. Not really. Although I knew it was coming. She couldn’t let it slide forever. Good guys have a habit of not wanting their boyfriends sneaking out at night to rip people’s throats out.

No, so far she’d been more than accommodating in that department, defending an unnatural killer against his enemies. Her friends.

The reason I was soon to become the world’s first anti-vampire (unsouled version, thank you very much) was because I was 100%, head over heels, prime time in love.

With a human no less.

Fool that I am - I loved her.

The realisation hit me like a tonne of bricks. I don’t know how long I sat there like a stupid great lump. I thought it over, I rationalised, I analysed, and for a really scary moment I was in great danger of brooding, before I finally snapped out of it.

I loved her.

Of course I woke her up straight away.

Well I figured this was something that she’d want to hear, and I never have been very good at keeping secrets. So I called her name, and gave her a little kiss to wake her up. She smiles and blinks and tries to wake up for me, but I can see how tired she is.

Beautiful. Trusting.

‘I love you.’

That woke her up.

‘Whuh?’

Eloquent when she’s sleepy, isn’t she?

‘I'm in love with you.’

‘You are?’ she asked. I could see that she was battling to wake up all the way, sure that she was still dreaming. Like her dreams could get this good. As if! I could practically see the wheels turning in her head as she tried to get her head ‘round this one.

I know what she was thinking.

Love?

A horrible soulless vampire declaring his undying (no pun intended) love? Was it possible?

Bloody right it’s possible. I could sit here and tell you a million reasons why I love her. Why she’s more than enough woman for me, and the darkness that I can see just creeping around the edges of her that everyone else doggedly ignores is just the sprinkles on my Willow flavoured ice cream. I could tell you why I would be prepared to change my unlife to suit her, just so long as she let me stay with her.

And you’d never believe me.

Why?

Vampire. Evil. Grrr.

It’s like I keep on telling you, and nobody ever listens.

So the best way I can put it is like this, and you just ponder over this for a while.

Humans. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that you’re one. Souls. You all have one. Doesn’t always equal goodness and light, does it? My sire has managed to kill plenty of people with his heavy burdened soul, and I can bloody well manage not to kill people without mine if that’s what it takes, and I get the feeling that it will.

Not good enough? How about those good Christian types who fight wars, slaughtering millions in the name of “good” and of their “god”? Or loving mothers who have never hurt a fly in their entire lives, hunting down and killing the murderer of their children? It doesn’t happen every day, but it does happen. Love and your belief in what you perceive as right can make you insane. Sure, these people may not like what they’re doing, but they’ll still do it. For right or wrong, black and white and a million shades in between, they’ll do it.

Now I know how to be bad, it’s true. I'm one of the very best at what I do. You want someone tortured and killed? I'm your man. Orgies of carnage and drinking the blood of innocent children until I'm so full I think I'll burst at the seams? Who ya gonna call?

Doesn’t mean I can’t stop. I'm a demon of extremes. Jump from one end of the spectrum to the another, doesn’t bother me. There are other ways to float my boat.

And I've always been a fool for love.

‘I’m in love with you,’ I told her again, watching her face intently to see if it would actually register this time. ‘I just realised it this second, but I've loved you for a very long time. You accept me, and you fight for me, and you make me so damn warm inside. That alone should make me want to kill you, or at least retch, but it doesn’t. I just want more.’

Nothing like a little honesty to prove a point.

‘Spike, I...’ Willow’s voice faltered.

‘It’s okay, luv, you don’t have to say anything. I just wanted to tell you. Say the words out loud, y’know? It won’t be all peaches and cream with me, you know that already, but I... I just...’

She laid a delectable finger on my lips to shut me up.

‘Spike,’ she said tenderly, ‘my William. You don’t need to explain it. It’s in here already.’

She lifted my hand and laid it over her heart, smiling for me in the darkness.

‘You love me?’ she asked.

God help me, I couldn’t speak. It was all I could do to nod, kissing her like my unlife depended on it. Which, incidentally, it did.

My girl, my beautiful girl, wriggled around in my arms, touching me everywhere at once, crawling up my body, undressing me as she went. But it wasn’t enough. I needed all of her. Right there and then. So colour me impatient. I knew what I wanted and Red wasn’t complaining one little bit. I ripped off our clothes, hampered by that stupid chastity skirt of indestructo-denim, but then we were finally together. Sweet, sweet bliss, and had I really kept myself away from this girl for an entire year?

I was lost in the moment. That wonderful, fantastic, soaring over the clouds moment of revelation, crashing down to earth with her arms waiting to cushion the fall.

‘I just wish it could be like this all the time,’ she told me, lying there all warm and wet and breathless beside me. ‘I wish the rest of the world would just go away.’

‘You mean it?’ I asked. God, I was in heaven. Just a scruffy little demon boy from the wrong side of the hellmouth, and someone up there had goofed and let me into heaven.

‘Yes. Maybe. If we could just be together, no consequences. That would be perfect.’

I didn’t think she’d want what I was about to offer her, but I had to be sure. I lowered my head to kiss her throat, feeling the wonderful singing thrum of her pulse with the tip of my tongue.

‘I could make it all go away,’ I offered lightly.

‘Spike?’

‘If you want. I could do that for you. It doesn’t hurt for long, I promise you that.’

She seized my head, yanking it away from her throat so she could look at me. Hell, she looked into me.

‘Don’t.’

‘Don’t what?’ I asked innocently.

‘Don’t ever bite me.’

I gave her that look. The one I knew was guaranteed to get a blush in reply. I couldn’t help it, she looked so serious, and all I could think about were the memories of the last time I'd lain in this bed with her. The first and last time that I'd bitten her. When I tasted her and the pleasure it had given both of us.

There it was. The blush I loved so much as she ducked her head.

‘I mean, nibbling’s ok, and even the occasional drink,’ she blushed again.

That’s my girl. I told you – Baby knows how to be bad.

‘I can deal. You’re a vampire. I walked into this with my eyes open.’

I grinned lecherously at her, but it kind of faded right off my face when I saw how serious she was.

‘But don’t even turn me. Don’t even try. You can’t. I can’t. I might be able to somehow work this... relationship out with the others, and justify it to myself, but I can’t become a killer. I won’t let you. Do you understand?’

I understood, but did she? This was forever she was talking about. Forever lasts for a very long time.

‘Willow, don’t talk rot, luv. That’s a hundred years away. Who knows what’ll happen in the future...’

She squeezed my hand hard.

‘Promise me. Promise me you won’t ever turn me.’

She looked me straight in the eye, and I swear she never blinked once the whole time.

‘Promise me you won’t ever do it...’

I opened my mouth to agree. There wasn’t anything I wouldn’t have agreed to. Nothing in my power I wouldn’t have willingly given her.

Then something changed, I don’t even have a word for what it was I saw in her eyes, but I do know this.

I liked it.

‘Promise me you won’t... unless I ask you to.’

And that changed everything. Those five little words. That meant she would consider it.

One day. Maybe. Because who knows what the future will hold. For any of us.

That was all I needed.

‘Okay Willow. I promise. I love you, baby.’

‘I love you too, Spike. Always.’

The End.