Remember Me - Chapter 2

I do not think I can bear this any longer. I bore one hundred years of the torments of hell. But I cannot bear this. He's been here four days and he won't speak to me. Well, he will, if asked a direct question, he will lift his head and not looking at me, give a monosyllabic reply. But that's not the bit I cannot bear. He won't talk about that night. Or about anything else important. If I try to make him, he walks away. If I follow, he leaves. But even that is not the part I cannot bear.

It's when he comes back.

That's the part that seems worse than anything I suffered in hell. Because when he returns, he…when he comes down the stairs, I can smell…oh God. This is too much. This is too much to bear, or to relate.

The first time I didn't believe it. He'd been gone about four hours. I had tried to push him to talk about what had happened on that first night. I wanted him to talk about the chip. I wanted him to talk about anything. I wanted him just to talk, to say something. To stop just sitting there like a…dead thing. Because that is all he has done since he got here. He just sits there. All day. No change. No movement. Just that awful keening sound I realise now he doesn't know he is making, getting louder every time I appear. The loudest when I try to talk to him. He doesn’t eat, he doesn't sleep. He just sits there. And I think I am going mad. I want to make him move. I want to force him to be loud. I just want him to be himself again. But I have no idea how to help him. So I kept trying to make him talk to me, and that's when it happened for the first time.

Four hours. Not long, but long enough for me to worry about him. I kept coming down to see if he had returned. And at last he had. But I smelt him, before I heard or saw him. It was indescribable. The smell. Layer upon layer of human cum, mixed with human piss. And the unmistakable smell of fresh, human blood. All of it: on his clothes, on his skin…inside him. I couldn’t believe it. I don't know what shocked me more, the smell of cum, or of blood. I flew down the stairs, ready to accuse him of feeding again. Ready to accuse him of lying about his chip. But when I got downstairs, all I heard was the sound of retching in the bathroom. I watched from the door as he vomited what seemed like pints of blood and…other stuff, into the bowl. He was on his knees. Filthy. Dishevelled. Silent but for the sound of his retching and the never-ending screaming. I went over to him, ready to hear an explanation, ready to be forgiving, but when he saw that I was there, when he realised I had been watching, he flew at me, in full game face. He almost bit me. He almost came alive for one second and became again the Spike that I remembered. The Spike I want. But it was not to be. He stopped. He face reverted to its human form. He lowered his head and wiping his mouth on his sleeve, he resumed his habitual place on the couch. Not moving. Silent.

I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt, not to rush in and make this awful situation worse. I sat down beside him and put my hand out as if to touch him. He moved quickly enough then. He flung himself off the couch and stomped over to the corner of the room. I followed him. He moved again. Never meeting my eye. I begged. I pleaded. Just talk to me. But when there was nowhere left to move to in that room, he made for the stairs and…left again.

I waited downstairs for him this time. It was only an hour and he was back. But the same smell was on him. The same smell! For the briefest of moments, he gave me a look. I think it was a look of triumph. I don't know why, but in that awful moment, he gave me a look of triumph. But then nausea overtook him and he stumbled to the bathroom, barely making it in time before falling to his knees again. I am completely lost. Nothing in my past life or unlife has prepared me for this.



I'm not here, so it's no good trying to talk to me. I won't play that game. I won't respond. Cus if I do then I must be real. And I can't feel this bad and be real. So I've put myself somewhere else and that is a much better place than this. That's a place where I am loved and needed and cared for. Loved for being me. Needed for being me. But I wish it weren't so fucking noisy here. That bloody screaming just follows me around. I'm beginning to wonder if it's the sound of my mind unraveling.

He won't leave me alone. He wants to talk. He's had three fucking years to talk to me since I came to Sunnydale. Well sorry Mate. I'm not here anymore and I ain't gonna talk to anyone.

Remember me?

Hah!

He don't even remember himself.

He watches me. He follows me. He wants me. Well you're watching a ghost. You're following a shadow. You're wanting a empty place.

I am so lost even he cannot find me.

But he won't leave me alone. Can't he see I'm not here? Why won't he just fuck me, suck me, beat me or piss off and leave me. Why fucking talk? I've got NOTHING to say. And what I do say don’t matter, cus I'm not here. So piss off, Angelus. Let me rest in peace. Let me take my life and bury it in a hole six foot deep.

I can't bear this any longer. I have to leave. I have to play my little game for a while. I want to feel better. I want to be here for a few moments, to feel real. So I leave.

Oh yeah. Feeling better now. Feeling really loved. And needed. Oh yeah, really needed. They couldn’t need me more. No one else'd blow 'em kneeling in this piss and shit. But they love me. For that minute or two it takes to do 'em, they love me.

I can hardly remember how I started my game now. I had almost disappeared completely I think. I turned up at the Watcher's one evening, broken from yet another demon beating. Bleeding. Cold. Alone. I don't know what I wanted, or expected. Blood would have been nice, but kindness better. I just wanted someone to be kind to me. I just wanted someone to notice me. But if they did, it was only to laugh. So that's the day I started my new game. I was crossing back through the park and saw him standing in the shadows by the public urinals. Not a good place to be after dark in Sunnydale, or anywhere else I'd have thought. But fuck, what do I know? I'm not here anymore, so don't matter what I think.

I stopped to look at him. He looked at me and offered me money. It was so easy and somehow, so familiar. I seemed to remember doing this before. Where or when I couldn't have said. But a shadow of a memory ghosted across my brain. When I told him what I wanted for payment he looked surprised. For the fraction of a second it took him to get himself out that is. When I'd finished, I stood up and asked him to pay me. He tipped his head back and pulled his jacket away from his neck, exposing the smooth, white, human flesh. Invited thus, I started to feed. I got about fifteen seconds of bliss before panic made him flinch and the flinch sent rockets of pain into my head. He scurried away and left me kneeling in the piss, in agony. But I felt a lot better. Yeah. He really needed me and for a second there, as he came in tiny, pathetic spurts into my mouth, he really loved me. Guess it ain't easy getting laid when you're old. And fat. So he needed me, and I think I'm not so invisible now. He saw me alright. He kept his eyes fastened on my face the whole time. He watched every second that his cock was in my mouth. He studied me avidly while I swallowed him.

Before I had even stood up, another came in. He let me feed for twice as long before he chickened out. But five or six of them later and even I was beginning to feel full. And oh, so loved. So needed. So it was pure luck really that when I got back to my crypt, just thinking about all that love and all that need made me puke. Lucky, cus it meant I got to go out and do it all again.

And lucky me now, cus now I'm in LA. And there is an eternity of love and need for me in this city. I ain't ever gonna run out of people to love me.

So I found the nearest bar and made my way into the bathroom. It never takes long. Maybe they see me coming in. Weird, seeing I'm not here. Maybe I'm just a very, very lucky Vampire, cus it's never long before they start to follow me in. And funny. Not one of them has ever balked at my charges, or forfeited on the deal. Not till he felt my fangs descend into his vulnerable neck that is. Then most of them pull away leaving me in agony with the merest taste of paradise on my tongue. But that's okay, just means I get to be loved even more. Get to be loved till I feel full. Oh yeah, the feeling of all that blood in my body makes me feel real. I love myself then, as it goes in.

Love myself even more as it comes out later though. That's the best bit. Cus then there's the anticipation of doing it all again. Never going to run out of love now.

But he's going to be a problem. I can see that. He was watching me.

I hoped for one minute that he might actually do something. That he would connect with me. That I would prove to be real without the vomit and the shit and the blood and the cum and the endless piss. But I think he decided to be non-judgemental.

Well judge this, fucker.

I went out and did it again. It was worth it for the look on his sanctimonious face when I got back.

But he is going to be a problem. Yep, I can definitely see that. He's going to ruin my new game. And at the moment, it's the only thing keeping me here. The tiny, physical bit of me that has to stay here.

So I guess I'd better start including him. Cus I just know there's gonna be a lot of extra love for me from him. Yeah, I'll get loved real good from Angelus. Always did. Always will.

Maybe this time he'll remember to look at me afterwards.

I wait till I sense that he is asleep. It took him hours. Fucking broody git.

I undress and stand beside the bed looking down at him. He is more beautiful than when I loved him. His new hair suits him. Maybe I'll tell him that if I need a chat up line. I'll see. Always good to compliment 'em. Gets it over with quicker. Makes 'em cum quicker. So you can move on, get more love.

I kneel on the side of the bed and wait for him to waken. He opens his eyes. And fuck, I think he's been awake a while, cus he ain't startled at seeing me here, naked, on his bed.



I awoke the minute he came into the room but I sensed enough pain, to pretend I hadn’t. Through my half closed eyes I watched his quiet approach.

My father once found a deer cornered in the end of our orchard. It was only a young fawn, but albino. Pure, milky white like a small, quivering ghost. Its eyes are staring at me now. Echoes of memories down centuries of pain.

I try to open my eyes gradually, gently so as not to startle this ghost.

‘What do you want me to do?’ he asks, in a voice so flat and toneless it even sounds like a voice from the grave.

Although deep down I sense that this may be one of those life defining moments upon which future years of pain are founded or avoided, I act instinctively, hoping that what I do is right.

I reach out my hand and pull him slowly but surely into my embrace, spooning him to me: his back to my chest, tight and secure.

For long minutes he lies like a coiled spring. There is tension in every muscle, a highly evolved flight or fight response evident in his posture. But gradually the tension eases. Imperceptibly, the awful, endless keening lessens to a more acceptable...mewing. I dare not move. The fawn is still at last, not quivering. But it’s wary. Oh, so wary. There is no threat to you here little one.

I am completely flaccid against his hips. There is no threat for you here, Childe.

I can smell his soft hair. He smells like the Spike I remember. My face is inches away from the soft, blond hairs on the back of his neck. Did I once lift other, longer blond hair away from another neck and wish it his?

My hand rests on his hip. The bones are sharp and dip down creating intriguing hollows. His skin is flawlessly smooth. His body fits to mine like pieces in a child’s puzzle.

I can just see the sharp angles of his cheekbones and the long, dark outline of his lashes framing his deeply troubled eyes. There is almost no noise now, he is actually...softening in my embrace. I squeeze him tighter to me. The only movement I feel he will tolerate.

But my body betrays me. I have been celibate too long. My cock stiffens against his hips.

His eyes fly open and, like a drowning man reaching the surface, he takes a huge, unexpected gasp of air. It’s like he is returning to his body and found the pain too great. He wrenches free of my arms and stumbles to the door. I don’t follow him. I don’t blame him. I have betrayed him. Again. But, oh! The smell of him: the feel of him. The need of him is overwhelming.



The fucker, the fucker, I hate him...just for a minute I came back. Just for a moment I felt kindness. I wasn’t expecting it, I was expecting cock in my mouth, I was expecting to sweat, I was expecting blood and pain, but I got kindness. For a short while I came back cus there was kindness. Not for long though. It was just foreplay. Can’t be much fun fucking someone who ain’t there. I fucked a dead body once. I’d just killed it, so it was real fresh. Still warm, still pliant. I thought it would be fun. Weren’t. It was awful. Guess that’s what I felt like.

So he brought me back.

The fucker, the fucker. I hate him. Well it don’t matter cus I know where I can find love. All I need is another bar, another bathroom, another kind stranger. The kindness of strangers.

Don’t take me long to find one either. And they always follow me in. Am I sending off some sort of signal? Do I have ‘easy lay’ tattooed on my forehead? Would they have followed me in here when I was still here? When I was the Big Bad. No. They ran from me then. But not now. Can’t run when I’ve their cocks in my mouth. Can’t run when I’ve my fangs in their throats.

This one is good: his pain threshold is high. I get at least a pint before he pulls away in terror at his own boldness. What do they think when I make the deal? That I am some weird fucking human who wants to suck blood? Don’t they realise that they are dealing with the devil? Guess I’m not even here enough to frighten sad fucks in public lavatories these days.

Don’t care. When they wrap their arms around my head, when the dig their fingers into my hair, when they start to feel the exquisite pleasure of being blown by something that don’t need to breath, something that don’t gag, it’s all there is. It’s all I need. The fucker, the fucker, I hate him. This is all there is. I hate him. But there is this.

There were a lot tonight. Saturday night. Good for beer and a blow. Only...I didn’t like that many. Not all at once. Not when they realised I couldn’t fight back. But I don’t care. I’m not here, so it can’t be my eye I can’t see out of. It can’t be my fingers bent so far back they touch my wrist. Can’t be my face slit open with a razor to make me smile. Apparently I don’t smile much when they’re loving me. How did I know? I can’t see myself. But it’s not me anyway, I’m smiling where I am, cus it’s nice there. Thought I was smiling here. Sorry. I’ll do better next time. I’m learning new rules to this game. I’ll learn faster. Sorry.

Fucker’s up, in his chair, reading. Bugger. Ignore him. Get to the bathroom. What first? Vomit. Like that bit. Always best to go with what you enjoy. Strip. Getting good at that. Had to do that tonight. Well, I like to please an audience. Shower. One day, when I do finally stake myself, which I’m planning real soon, one day, I will miss this. Under this shower I do come back for a moment. Like being in the fucker’s arms again. I do come back. If it’s hot enough and long enough, I can create enough steam to make another world. I see myself as a vague, translucent figure in a swirling world of steam. And I like that. It’s natural camouflage for a pale Vampire. But shit, that ruins my illusion. Ain’t supposed to be red. Guess they cut me up more that I thought. There’s a river of blood running down my chest from the razor cut, a torrent of blood from between my legs. The stall is filling with a pool of my blood. It’s strangely hypnotic to watch. Wonder how much will flow before I become hollow. Where will it go? Will small sewer creatures sense it passing, amidst all the shit going though LA’s drains, will they still their furtive scurrying and think...'Vampire blood is passing'. Am I truly mad now?

How long has passed? Why am I on my knees? Again. I’ve been on my knees already tonight. I was hoping to stand for a while. To stand up for myself. But I can’t. I couldn’t even push the first one away. When he entered me, I pushed back, and as he fell I felt the searing pain that brings me to my knees. Angelus once drove a railroad spike through my wrist. Can’t remember why now. Think it was cus he wanted me, but who knows, it was all so long ago, so much pain, so much blood, so much fighting since. Was I Spike already then, or was that my inspiration? But even that didn’t make me fall to my knees. I thought no pain would ever be worse than that spike. But this searing in my brain makes me want to weep, like a child. It is the worst pain imaginable, and all I did was push him so he fell.

Why am I lying now in this pool of warm water-blood? It’s very, very, nice. Looks pretty, tastes good too. And still the steam envelopes me. Guess I won’t need to try and stake myself now. Won’t have to face even that failure again. Warm water’s gonna do it for me. I’m going wash right down this drain, fluid ounce by fluid ounce.

Fuck. What’s that?

Oh fuck, I knew he would ruin everything.

He’s been here all the time I think. He never leaves me. He is in this water. He is in my blood. He is my pain. He is God. He sees all. Even me, when I am not here.

Please...don’t.

Please...leave.

Please...don’t see me.

I’m not here.

Please...don’t bring me back.

| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | Home | Gallery | Spike/Angel | Spike/Giles/Angel | Spike/Giles | Spike/Wesley/Angel | Buttons | Poems