Archive of Our Own

You saw everything - every twitch of a trigger finger, every reflection, and every inch of movement - yet you were blind. When it mattered most, you stared straight through me.

I'll never forget your eyes. I'll never stop wishing I'd asked which one was real, which shade of brown could never have fully belonged to me.

Would you have stayed if I'd said I cared?

What if I'd said I loved you?

If I'd pressed that gun against my own head?

I've never killed a man, not in the way you have; it's the only reason I didn't shoot you. Accidents happen, self-defense happens, but most of the time... A good bluff is a girl's best friend, right? But you weren't a bluffer; you were a killer. It didn't bother you. It didn't matter to you. Nobody in this world mattered to you. All you cared about was a dream, a dream that could never be reality.

Fucking lunkhead.

Sometimes, I wonder if you didn't see or if you didn't look. You had this way of penetrating even the most convincing acts. A bluff, a scam, a lie: it didn't matter; you saw it for what it was. You knew others better than they knew themselves. When I dropped my guard, though, it was as if you no longer knew me. You should have seen, should have known, that I wouldn't have stopped you if I didn't care. I all but begged you to stay, and still you threw your life away.

You threw me away.

What happened to the man who told me the past doesn't matter?

I shouldn't care; that man was just a liar. (Wasn't he?)

Men are idiots. I should have remembered that you were no exception.

She changed you, though. That stupid blonde changed you, and I hate her for it. Each passing day makes me wish a little more that she'd survived, that I could have been the one to kill her. Maybe then I could understand the way you looked - the way you felt - before making a kill. And Jet could finally turn me in for a bounty. (It's not the same without you, Gaucho.)

I'm glad she died, you know - glad you knew it, too. At least I have comfort in the knowledge that you understood, that you weren't immune to the pain I feel now. Somewhere in that thick skull and black hole of a heart, you felt shattered. Worthless. Ripped to pieces. (Welcome to my world.)

It hurts to know someone you loved is dead, doesn't it?

The sick part is: I understand why you walked so willingly to your death. You had no reason left to live. I wasn't reason enough to keep you alive. And, really, in the end... it's all the same. You hurt, I hurt, you die, and I die (on the inside).

I wish I was strong like you.

Faye waited for the clerk, eyes cast toward the countertop. It was all she could do to avoid betraying her emotions. (He just had to have brown eyes, didn't he?)

He checked the system - and double-checked it, too - then returned with a solemn expression. She wasn't sure whether he looked pitiful or full of pity, but neither was a good sign.

"This means a lot to you, doesn't it?"

She sighed. Everyone seemed to play psychiatrist around her, and it only made her feel worse.

"Just... tell me how much."

He was hesitant, thoughtful, uncertain; she could tell by the way he wrung his hands together in the silence.

"I'm sorry, Miss. According to the records, his personal affects were liquidated to cover burial expenses."

She just stared at him, wide-eyed and unable to think. All she could comprehend was that someone had sold his things - sold Spike's belongings.

He tore apart a goddamned crime syndicate, and nobody could find the money lying around to fund his burial?! Did anyone even care to realize he wasn't one of them? Doesn't anybody have a heart anymore?!

Faye's teeth ground together, and for the first time in her life she felt there was only one answer to the perceived injustice. There was no pause to think - no real awareness that she'd drawn her Glock at all until her gaze rested on its sight. She didn't think, she felt; and what she felt was insatiable rage.

"Look, Miss, I'm just the messenger. You know the phrase..."

"Shut up," she screamed - both at the small shred of conscience which tried to stop her and at the clerk - and curled her finger around the trigger.

"Please..." He was begging for his life: something he'd never expected to do. But he'd also never expected to have such an intimate view down the barrel of a gun. "Please, Miss... Miss uh... Spiegel? Mrs. Spiegel? God, please... Please, just don't kill me. I have a wife, a daughter, a dog..."

Spiegel? Mrs. Spiegel?!

It had a nice sound, but the bittersweet juxtaposition stilled her conscience and propelled her trigger finger nonetheless. Brown Eyes had a woman that cared about him, a kid, a dog...? Yeah, she knew a man who'd had those things. And they probably didn't mean anything to this man, either.

Nobody in this world cared about anyone else. Nobody except her, and that was probably because she didn't belong in this time. She really shouldn't have ever met Spike, shouldn't have ever fallen in love with him. That had been a choice made without her consent, too. Just like his suicide mission, she'd also had no say in whether she was tossed inside a cryogenic chamber and turned into a real, live zombie.

His things were gone. Her last hope of holding onto him had been destroyed. The whole damn universe was starting to piss her off just by existing.

Someone had to pay.

If she couldn't kill Vicious, couldn't torture Julia, then someone else would have to suffice. She was angry. She hated this man for what he'd done. Or what some other guy had done. Or what Spike had done. Fuck it; she hated the whole galaxy and every single thing living within it (as well as several of the dead ones). Why should she care who'd caused the problem, when it was so easy to ebb her frustrations?

"Shut up and die like a man!"

A dark (and familiar) smirk spread across Faye's lips. The man's eyes widened with fear - realization, perhaps, that his pleas had fallen upon deaf ears. Her pulse raced; her eyes glimmered with twisted satisfaction...

Bang!

A part of you survives within me.

I am the beast you forced me to become.