Et Lux In Tenebris Lucet (And the Light Shineth in the Darkness) by Enigmaticblue

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Chapter 17: A State of Mind

Buffy came home from her shift a little more happy than she had been. She'd managed to ace the test she'd had today. (She could count the number of times that had happened on one hand.) And tips had been really good. The two major bummers were that Xander still hadn't shown up and Anya had yet to return, but other than that, things seemed to be going really well. She even had a list of places to check for the nerds that Willow had procured.

There were voices coming from the living room when she walked in, and from the sound of it, it seemed like a regular party. "Buffy, come see!" her sister called as she opened the door.

Buffy turned towards the living room, seeing her sister and Tara sitting on the couch with big grins on their faces and Spike standing across from them, leaning on his crutches. "What's up?" she asked, curious.

"Don't you notice anything different?" Dawn asked, an eyebrow raised and glancing at Spike, who was doing his best to not meet her eyes.

She frowned, giving him the once-over, not quite figuring out what was such a big deal. Then her eyes widened as she realized that while he was leaning on his crutches, he was no longer wearing the brace on his right leg. "Spike-" She broke off not knowing what to say.

"Legs won't take much weight, and they're still not cooperatin', but the right leg's startin' to tingle. Means I'm getting some feeling back." he said, looking over at her. "Not much improvement, but it's somethin' anyway."

"That's great," she said softly, smiling at him.

He looked over at her, and as had happened so often in the past, everything else seemed to fade away except for the two of them. "Been a year, luv. Maybe be another before they'll do much else for me."

"Remember what I said?" she asked. "As long as it takes."

He closed his eyes and looked away. "Let me go with you tonight, Slayer."

She hesitated, certain that it wasn't a good idea. And yet, she wouldn't mind the company while checking out all the new rentals. It would certainly be better than wandering around on her own. Besides, she knew Spike missed the action of the hunt. "All right, you can come. But you stay out of trouble."

~~~~~

Trouble had a way of finding Spike. They were most of the way through their list and still hadn't found anything when a very large, very ugly demon came out of nowhere. Spike yelled to get the Slayer's attention and then concentrated on not getting in the way as she fought it. It had been too long since he'd seen her dance, graceful as a cat, her movements truly poetry in motion. Fighting was the only poetry he'd written after he'd been turned, and now even it was denied to him.

That was when it hit him. "Buffy, he's a glarghk guhl kashmanik!"

She took a second to stare at him. "A what now?'

"Bloody hell," he swore. "Watch out for the stinger in its arm!"

Just then, said stinger popped out of nowhere, and might have managed to stick the Slayer if she hadn't been warned. Without thinking, she grabbed its arm, twisted, and sent it spinning away from her. Right into Spike. "Watch out," she called, wincing, but it was too late. The vampire didn't have nearly enough time to get away, and the stinger went deeply into his shoulder.

"It's pointless you know," he said. Spike looked over to see Angelus smirking at him. "Look at you, can't even protect yourself anymore, reduced to begging for scraps. In fact, when you get right down to it, you're pointless."

"Spike! Spike! Come on, I'm not hauling your butt all the way home, you stupid vampire," Buffy coaxed, her gentle tone at odds with her words. Spike's scream when he'd been hurt had scared her more than she would ever want to admit.

"Slayer?" Spike saw Buffy standing over him and blinked. Something strange was going on for sure. He felt her breathe a sigh of relief. "Come on, I think that's enough of the checking of houses for tonight," she said, laying a hand on his forehead. "We should get you home."

~~~~~

The small, niggling worry about Spike jiggled in the back of her brain even as she spoke with Willow the next morning. The redhead had come over with two purposes: researching the activities of the nerds and seeing Tara. Since she and Tara were sitting at the same table, sipping tea companionably, the second purpose was being fulfilled at least.

"How did the list turn out last night?" Willow asked cheerfully.

"Okay," Buffy said. "Spike and I managed to get most of the way through it before this seriously nasty demon came out of nowhere and stuck him with a stinger of some kind."

Willow frowned in genuine concern. She was actually coming to like Spike. "Is he okay?"

Buffy shrugged. "The sound he made when it stung him might suggest otherwise, but he swore he was fine. As far as I know, he's still sleeping, which is probably of the good."

"Did you take a look at it? Where he got stung, I mean?" Tara asked quietly. "He doesn't always come clean when he's been hurt."

Buffy rolled her eyes. "He's got more testosterone than half a dozen men sometimes, I swear. But yeah, I looked at it. Just looked like someone had stuck him with a really big needle."

Just then there was a knock on the door, followed closely by Xander's entrance. "Hey," he greeted them, appearing pretty grim.

Buffy was torn as she listened to Xander explain himself. She understood that he'd been afraid, and that was why he'd run, but as she pointed out, Anya had been broken by his departure. Even though she wanted to be sympathetic to one of her best friends, she also wanted to knock him upside the back of the head. She'd been left enough in the past to know exactly what Anya had been feeling.

Which was possibly why when Spike appeared he said what had been going through her mind. Well, way back in the deepest recesses of her mind anyway. "So he returns to the scene of the crime. Come back to wallow in self-pity and recriminations? Or are you going to try throwin' your sorry self at her feet? It'll take a bit more than groveling with that one, Harris."

Spike stood in the doorway to the dining room, a sneer pulling at his lips. Despite his snark and bluster, however, he didn't look very good. "Or maybe you came back to finish her off," he suggested, his blue eyes sparking. "Wasn't enough to break her heart, you wanted to come back and gloat about it."

"Shut up, Spike," Xander snarled, moving suddenly and grabbing him by the front of his t-shirt, slamming him up against the door jamb. "What's the matter?" he asked, smiling. (And it was a smile Buffy didn't particularly care for). "Can't defend yourself, Willie Wannabite? Or maybe you forgot you can't walk as well. All I need is a pencil, and you'd be-"

"Xander, enough." Buffy decided to break them up before she wound up with one less friend. "Let Spike go and sit down. And you-" she looked at the vampire, who was looking rather self-satisfied after getting a rise out of the younger man. "Go back downstairs and get back in bed. You look like crap." When he looked as though he were about to protest, she pushed on his uninjured shoulder. "I'll bring you something to eat in a few minutes."

Spike looked as though he might contest the summary banishment, but either he was as tired and sick as he looked, or he had finally gained some sense, because he turned and did as she directed without another word. Buffy looked back at Xander before going into the kitchen. "Spike doesn't get staked, Xander," she warned quietly. "Not by you. Just ignore him."

Tara followed her into the kitchen, leaving Willow and Xander to talk. "Is it just my imagination or is Spike more irritable today than he has been in the past?"

Buffy sighed. "I don't know. He likes to get a rise out of Xander, but he's been a little more tame lately. In fact, they were actually semi-getting along for a while. Maybe it's just that he got hurt the other night when I took him out with me and he's embarrassed. It's hard to say."

~~~~~

It wasn't embarrassment that was bothering Spike, however. It was the visions, the people. He'd heard that the venom of a glarghk guhl kashmanik had hallucinogenic properties, but he was a bit surprised that it worked on vampires. The problem was that they didn't feel like hallucinations; they felt real. In a way, they were real.

Angelus had taunted him while he was in the wheelchair, and during his hallucinations, that's where he was again. Only this time, he'd never gotten out, was never going to get out, and Buffy was nowhere around. It wasn't physical torment, it was mental, and what was worse, it was just as true now as it was then. He whimpered slightly as he felt himself back there.

"You see why she could never really love you, William?" Spike's eyes met Angelus' brown ones. It was all real. He could feel the chair underneath him, could smell the mansion, and his grandsire's familiar odor, could see Dru as she stared dreamily at the Angelic One.

"You could never be as good a vampire as me, you know," he said. "There's too much humanity left in you, too much niceness. And that's the problem, isn't it? You're too good to be a demon, and too bad to be a human."

"This isn't real," Spike muttered, hoping to shut out the painful truth. "This isn't real. I'm in Buffy's basement, I'm in-" The slap across his face got his attention.

Angelus grinned. "You're with me now, boy-o, and we're gonna have some fun."

"Hey, I brought you some blood," Buffy said. Spike blinked once and sagged against the wall behind his cot, relieved. For a moment there, he hadn't been sure that this place, with Buffy and Dawn and all the rest hadn't been a fantasy, and the other was reality. This was real. He was beginning to heal, slowly but surely, and Buffy was looking at him with pained sympathy. This was real. That's what he had to keep telling himself.

"Are you okay?" she asked, then smiled a little. "If I didn't know better, I'd say you were on drugs."

"'m fine, pet," he said, unwilling to tell her the truth. Maybe because it made him weaker; maybe because he was a stupid git, it was hard even for him to tell at this point.

She frowned. "You aren't a very good liar," she informed him primly. "In fact, you suck at it. Spike, what was in that gargling demon's stinger-thing?"

He hesitated and then replied, not even bothering to correct her pronunciation. She was right; he'd always sucked at lying. Even becoming a vampire hadn't improved that ability. "'s a hallucinogen. Makes you think you're somewhere else for a bit, I 'spose."

"Where?"

Her fingertips were tender on his arm, and he wondered at it. How was it that they had come to be so gentle with one another? Had they always been moving in this direction, or was this something new? He wanted to be gentle with her, to show her his love in tangibles, in the way he touched, and tasted. He wanted to be rough with her, to show her what it meant to walk on the wild side, to dare things she'd never imagined. He wanted things he couldn't have. "Doesn't matter, does it?" he said hopefully, not wanting her to press, hating to have to reveal his humiliation went so far as dreams now.

"I think it does," she said, "but you don't have to tell me if you don't want to." And of course now he wanted to.

He sighed. "I'm back in the mansion," he said shortly. "You know, like before."

And that was all that needed to be said. Oddly enough, it was a bond between the two of them that they had survived the wrath of Angelus. Both of them had lost much to him; both of them had hated him. The difference being that Spike hated Angel in all his forms, and Buffy had loved him in one. But they had both wanted him gone, and they had both wanted their lovers back. And neither had gotten exactly what they'd wanted, but they'd never spoken of it before.

"I hated you then," Buffy said matter-of-factly. "I mean, I really, really hated you." And then she gave him this sly look that was all mischief and devilry. "But there was always this little tiny part of me that liked you."

"You never, Slayer," he scoffed. "You hated my bloody guts right up until-" He broke off, unsure of when it was exactly that she'd stopped hating him.

Buffy put her hand on his, where it rested on his tingling right leg. "I think I must have liked you a little, mostly because I never killed you."

"You wish," he replied with a smile.

"Do you want to know when I stopped hating you?" she asked quietly, her eyes and face now serious, without a trace of laughter. He nodded. "I think it was that night when you promised to protect Dawn. You told me you were a monster and that I treated you like a man. And you said I could never love you."

"'s true, innit?" he said. "I know that, Buffy. 'm not stupid. I know what I am." He hesitated, and then asked. "What was that kiss then, luv? The one after Glory beat me all to hell?"

"That was a thank you, but there was still a part of me that hated you," she said. "But after you promised to protect Dawn, I couldn't hate you any more."

"You're out of my league, luv," he said tenderly. "Even if I could give you something worth hangin' onto, you'd still be out of my reach. Just knowin' you don't hate me-Like I said that night, it's worth more to me than you'll ever know."

She smiled at him. "Drink your meal, Spike, and get some rest. I'm going to see if we can't find out a little more about this demon and how to get you better just a little bit faster, vampire healing or no." She stopped and turned back to him on her way to the stairs. "You're a strange vampire, you know that? Most wouldn't want to be treated like a man."

Spike gave her a self-deprecating smile that he held until he heard the door to the basement close behind her. "Don't I know it."

~~~~~

"You know why no one's killed you yet, William?" Angelus asked idly. Spike clenched his jaw. His grandsire was always around in this reality. Before, he'd been alone much of the time, but now the older vampire was always there. "It's because you're just too pathetic. Really, the Slayer should have picked you off a long time ago, but she knew you weren't a threat."

"Maybe it's because she likes me," Spike countered.

Angelus snickered. "No one likes you, Spike. Haven't you figured that out yet? Dru doesn't even like you. She just feels sorry for you. Isn't that why she never comes to your bed anymore?" He grinned. "She comes to mine. Because you can't give her what she needs. A pathetic loser like you can't give any woman what she needs."

"That's not true," he replied, but without much strength. Wasn't it true? Hadn't it always been true?

"Isn't it?" Angelus replied, as though reading his mind. "You're a worthless waste of space. You can't hunt, you can't defend yourself, you can't even stop me from doing this-" And he grabbed the wheelchair and tipped it over hard, sending Spike sprawling. "See you later, Wheels."

"Are you okay?" Dawn asked Spike urgently. He had been sprawled out on the basement floor, a blank look in his eyes.

He blinked a few times and looked up at her. "Yeah, Bit. Just lost myself there for a minute." He swallowed. That had been a bad one.

"Well, Buffy wants you to come upstairs," Dawn said quietly. "I think she's worried about you. I am too," she confessed. "You're going to be okay, right?"

He gave her a pained smile. "Be right as rain in no time, L'il Bit." He followed her upstairs slowly. He really didn't feel good at all, physically or emotionally.

Buffy took one look at him when he came into the kitchen and frowned. "Xander and I are going to look for this gargle demon tonight," she informed him. "Willow figured out that it has the antidote to its own poison in its stinger."

"Sounds good, luv," he said. "Sooner I get m'self sane again the better."

"Yeah," Buffy replied. "Well, I don't want you in the basement right now. I can't really keep an eye on you down there. I've put blankets over the windows in my room, so you should be safe up there."

He hesitated. "Are you sure, Buffy?"

"Yeah, I am." She put a hand on his arm and squeezed it reassuringly. "I'll get you through this, Spike."

~~~~~

"Explain to me again why we're doing this," Xander said irritably, not at all happy to be demon-hunting for Spike's benefit.

"Number one, I'm not letting that thing run around loose in my town," Buffy explained, a little irritated herself, since this was about the third time she'd gone over it. "Number two, we need it to get the antidote to help Spike. End of story."

"But this is Spike," Xander said, still dissatisfied with the whole deal. He still hadn't forgiven the vampire for his comments at the wedding-that-wasn't or for earlier in the day.

"Yeah, it is. And Spike would do the exact same thing for me."

"He couldn't."

"He would anyway," Buffy said, with perfect assurance.

Xander felt a deep fear gnawing in his gut. "You and Spike aren't-you know, right?"

"Define 'you know,'" the Slayer said, keeping a sharp eye out for the demon. She knew exactly what Xander meant, but she wasn't in the mood for it at the moment.

He frowned. Xander didn't actually want to say it, just in case saying it made it true. "You haven't slept with him, have you, Buffy?" Buffy stopped and glared at him. Xander took the look on her face the only way he wanted to. "Sorry, that was a stupid question."

"You're right. It was stupid," she said. And then with something resembling one of Spike's more evil smirks, said, "Besides, it's really none of your business, Xander."

"You have slept with him?!" he gasped horrified.

She sighed and rolled her eyes. There were two possible answers to that question, since she had slept with him, she just hadn't had sex with him. "No, I just meant that who I sleep with is absolutely none of your business." She shot him another look. "And I mean it, Xander. Spike happens to be my friend, just like you're my friend. If you think I'd let some demon's venom drive you insane, then by all means, let's call this off." He stayed silent. "That's what I thought. Let's go."

"Your problem, William, is that you have nothing to offer her," Angelus said with an evil smile. "Let's face it. You've never been my equal in fighting, or torturing, or even-dare I say-lovemaking. She was bound to turn to a real vampire at some point."

Spike stayed silent. He had learned through hard experience that Angelus was not to be interrupted when he was in one of these moods. It just meant more pain, physical and mental.

"I'm wondering when you're just going to give up," the other vampire continued. "What's stopping you from meeting the sunrise, seriously, Spike? One of these days you're going to get left behind. And then where will you be? Still crippled, still helpless. Worthless, pointless, reduced to begging for scraps until someone with an ounce of mercy puts you out of your misery." Angelus started laughing. "Of course, I've never been a merciful guy."

As he walked away, Spike realized that it was all true. Whether this was the real world or not, didn't matter. What Angelus said held true both here and with Buffy. He was pointless. He was a waste of space. As Harris had said, he couldn't bite, couldn't fight, couldn't walk. He couldn't even make love to the woman he loved more than unlife itself. Why shouldn't he meet the sun?

Indeed, why shouldn't he?

Spike shook himself, trying to dislodge the thought, but it stuck with him stubbornly, ringing through his head with insistence. It was becoming harder and harder to distinguish one place from the other, zinging back and forth inside his own head with all the ease of a ping-pong ball. He was beginning to doubt that this place, that his spot inside Buffy's house was a real one. What if he'd made it all up? What if he had never gotten himself out of that chair, but had lost himself in daydreams? Was it even possible?

It couldn't be. And yet-and yet, what was more plausible, still being stuck in that damn chair with Angelus and Dru flitting about him, or being taken into the Slayer's house? Never having healed, or being a vampire who no longer had the desire to eat humans? It was unreal, and unlikely, and impossible. Buffy hated him; he hated Buffy. What if it was true, and he'd made it all up because being around Dru and Angelus all the time had finally driven him around the bend and he was just now coming to his senses? What then?

He looked up, half-dazed, to see Xander standing in the doorway, holding a mug. "Buffy had a shift at work, and Tara and Willow had a class, but they wanted me to give you this." The other man seemed sullen as he handed Spike the mug. "You're supposed to drink all of it."

Spike stared into the dark, viscous liquid as though it held the answers to all his questions.

"I don't get you," Xander said, from the doorway. He had to get to work and didn't really care to stay and sit with a sick vampire. "You can't feed, you can't walk. You're nothing but a burden to Buffy and the rest of us. I just don't get why the heck you haven't dusted yourself by now. If I were you, I would have done it a long time ago."

It was an off-handed comment, meant half in admiration, half in exasperation; it wasn't really meant to do what it did. But in Spike's weakened mental state, flashing somewhere in between reality and delusion, it seemed to click. If even the people in this place seemed to think he'd be better off dead, maybe he would be.

Deliberately, he poured the antidote into the trash can and lay back on the bed to think. He couldn't do it here, of course; someone might stop him before he could dust himself properly. The crypt wouldn't be a good place either. He needed to go somewhere that connected the two places in his head so he could be sure to die in both. At least, he thought that would work. And he knew just the place.

~~~~~

Buffy woke with a nameless dread forming in the back of her mind. Spike had seemed back to his normal self when she'd gotten home that evening, even though he hadn't said much. She'd chalked it up to a long ordeal and let it go, even though she'd asked him to stay in her room. Mostly she wanted to keep an eye on him, but it also had to do with the fact that she still had the demon chained up in the basement just in case they needed more of the antidote to cure him.

But now, at 3:30 in the morning, with his spot on the bed cool beside her, and Spike nowhere to be found, the small doubts somehow seemed much bigger. He hadn't been himself, and he really hadn't said much. So she pulled on a pair of jeans and tennis shoes, and threw on a jacket over her pajama top to go look for him.

Nameless dread turned into fear when she realized he wasn't on the back porch, nor anywhere else in the house. And the demon was still in the basement, pulling at its chains, however unsuccessfully. She realized, with a sinking feeling, that the four people who would have stood next to Spike to make sure every drop went down his throat hadn't seen him drink it. And the one person who couldn't care less was the one entrusted with the task.

She looked at her watch. She had perhaps an hour, maybe an hour and a half before the sun rose. Buffy went to the crypt first, and, not finding him there, felt the first fingers of despair. What if he managed to dust himself? What then? What if she couldn't find him in time?

The small, optimistic part of her brain reminded her that he might have just gone off to play cards or get drunk, but she didn't think so. She had house-trained him well enough so that he would have left a note or something. Besides, when had Spike ever willingly left her bed after being invited in, while she was still in it? 'Think, Buffy.'

And something clicked. Her feet hit the ground in smooth strides as she ran toward the old mansion. Spike had told her that's where he was in his delusions. It just figured that it was the same spot where she'd had to convince another vampire not to meet the sunrise.

Somehow Buffy knew he wouldn't be on the cliff, as Angel had been, and she was right. Spike was sitting in the courtyard, a blank look on his face that frightened her. He was normally so expressive, but under the influence of the demon venom, his face was unreadable. "Spike."

He didn't reply, and she gingerly sat down next to him on the low fountain. "The sun's going to be up soon."

"That was the plan," he said evenly.

She frowned. "Spike, I know you didn't take the antidote. This is the insanity, not you."

"This isn't real."

Buffy reached out to touch his arm, but he didn't even react, almost as though she weren't even there. "What are you talking about, Spike?"

He finally looked at her. "It doesn't make sense, Buffy. I should have killed you a long time ago. I should have drained your mum and your sis while I was at it. I should have at least wanted to kill the both of them, but I never did. I protected 'em. This isn't right; you shouldn't have invited me into your house. None of this is possible."

"This is Sunnydale, Spike. I don't think impossible exists here," she said, striving for some levity, but he didn't even seem to hear her. From his eyes she thought he might be going back and forth pretty rapidly, since he couldn't quite seem to focus on any one thing.

"Angelus was right, you know," he said conversationally. "This is better. It'll only hurt for a minute and then it'll be over."

"For you, maybe," she said hotly, her voice rising with anger. "What about the rest of us?" He didn't answer again, and this time Buffy took his chin in her hands and forced his head around to meet her eyes. She could overpower him and drag him into the mansion, she knew. She could knock him out and sit on him all day until nightfall, and then have Willow make up more of the antidote so she could pour it down his throat. But she didn't want to force him; she wanted him to choose.

"You know how I know it's the poison talking?" she demanded. "Because the Spike I know doesn't give up. He never gives up. In fact, he's a little like the Energizer Bunny and just about as annoying because he just doesn't stop."

His eyes actually focused and she felt a brief sense of relief before he spoke again. "Maybe you don't know me as well as you thought, then, luv. I only keep going when there's somethin' to keep goin' for."

"You have me!" she protested. "And Dawn. And the others."

He shook his head. "None of you really care about me, though. Y'might feel sorry for me, but it's not like you actually care. Dru didn't even really care, y'know."

"And I care, damn you!" she cried furiously. "If I didn't care I would have let you dust after you fell off that tower. Everybody except for Dawn was ready to just let you die, but I couldn't do it, because I cared."

"But you're not real," he whispered, and there was fear in his eyes. Buffy suddenly realized that he wasn't afraid to die; he was afraid that she wasn't real. And he didn't want to live in a world where that was even a possibility.

"I'm as real as you are," she replied. "Besides, Angelus is a big liar, and you know it, stupid. I can't believe you'd actually listen to him."

Spike gave her a long look, and then glanced at the sky. It was beginning to lighten in the east. Buffy knew he had only a few more minutes if he didn't start moving, and she waited for his decision. "Then let's go inside, luv, because I'd rather be with an imaginary Buffy than a real Angelus anyway."

~~~~~

She'd had to leave him there, with his promise that he would not, under any circumstances, step outside. Buffy would have much rather stayed with him until nightfall when they could both leave together, but the sooner he got the antidote in his system, the better off he'd be for sure. And now he was back in her bed again, sleeping off the last effects of the drug.

He stirred slightly as she stroked his hair, his eyelids fluttering open to reveal dazed blue eyes. "Hey."

"Hey, y'self," he said, his voice still slurred with sleep. "Time is it?"

"It's after midnight," she replied. "You've been asleep for a few hours. Do you remember getting back here?"

He nodded. "Y'kept talkin' to me, makin' sure I wasn't goin' back." He didn't have to elaborate on where it was he kept going back to.

She swallowed. "How hard was it for you to stay here, Spike?"

He focused in on her, some of the confusion leaving his eyes. "Not hard to stay, luv, just hard to believe. I kept thinkin' maybe I'd never left that chair, and none of this was real. And after a while, it didn't feel as real as that other place, and I wanted to die."

It was said so simply it made Buffy want to cry. "This is real, Spike. This-thing between us, how I feel, how you feel, it's crazy and messy and completely impossible. But it's real. We'll have to deal with it at some point, I guess, when you get better or something, but for right now, I just want you close to me. You're one of the reasons I don't give up."

He smiled at her sweetly. There was no malice in the look, no cocky assurance. It was simply a happy Spike, and Buffy suddenly wanted to see him look like that a lot more often. "Didn't you know, luv?" he asked quietly. "You're my only reason for not givin' up." And there were no more words for the rest of the night.

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