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This couldn’t be happening.
Spike still remembers the day his first mark faded for good. The red crest of fingerprints which lay over his heart for a hundred years… gone.
It had been fading for a while.
He had always thought it must mean something – his heart, that was the first place she had ever touched. For a Romantic, there was surely no better place for the mark, no firmer proof that your bond was an eternal one.
Maybe it would have been, if they weren’t eternal themselves. A hundred years, that would have been good enough for a human. More than enough.
But even when he was hers, even while her fingers shone red with their bond, and his heart thrummed under the mark they left, he was never truly enough for her.
The first time, the pain had been so blinding that he hadn’t noticed Angelus’ beating through the all-encompassing haze. When his grandsire’s attempts to shut him up hadn’t worked, he and Darla had carted the writhing Spike through the streets of Madrid until they came near enough to Drusilla to calm him.
He had learned, since then. Even marked, one could stray.
It took time. A century. But he managed, shoving and swallowing down the pain until it actually worked. He no longer tried to run into sunlight just to get close to her, wherever she had run off to this time. He no longer came around on tavern floors, wiping bloody crescents from his palms.
Maybe that was why he ran into so many losing battles. Why he lived for the rush of fighting a Slayer, chasing the hope that perhaps she was the one being in this world who could still make him hurt.
The ability to ignore a burning soul bond is not something most are unfortunate enough to acquire.
Which is why this could not be happening. Not again.
The last mark may be gone, but after a lifetime carrying it, he’ll never forget.
This one is wrong. His mark goes on his heart, not his hand. Drusilla was the one with a marked hand.
Except, neither of them belonged to the other anymore. That’s what she used to tell him the mark meant. What his upbringing taught him, too. Nothing was more swooned over among the young Victorian ladies than the mark which would one day appear to claim them.
They spoke less about the nasty business of what would happen to them once their husband bound with another. Or when they found themselves suddenly inseparable from the stable boy, and their outraged family had them both locked up, apart, and left to sink into madness.
Spike had stopped believing. He refused to belong.
It started out faint. Like Drusilla’s mark had been, before it vanished forever. It had burned him to the last day.
When the new one doesn’t leave, he drinks. When he sobers up and the mark is stronger still, staining his palm like some poetic symbol of all the blood he’s spilled over the years, he takes the next logical step, and runs.
~
It isn’t as easy as the movies, figuring out where the first place someone touched you was. Ash had barely dwelled on it the first time she caught the mark in the mirror. Light, barely there, on her upper arm. Maybe she had slept funny, maybe it was from yesterday’s demon punch-up.
She hadn’t expected this.
Now, a few days later, the mark stands out starkly, wrapping around her arm. She’s rooted to the spot, staring into the mirror.
Isn’t she supposed to feel like a fairytale princess? Not that she knows what that feels like, but it’s what they all agree on: the older generations, raised on the ideal of soul bonds spelling out destiny (or, marriage), and the new progressives with their wacky ideas of soul bonds meaning all types of things, from strong friendship to life-long companions. No matter what you’re supposed to do with your soul bond, it’s meant to be a revelation. The beginning of your life. The moment the hero sweeps you off your feet, and the stars stop in the sky to smile down at you.
It isn’t supposed to leave you confused.
Most people have at least got to know their soulmate before the bond appears. Isn’t that how the whole thing works, anyway? Once your relationship passes a certain point, the bond begins?
This must be some Hellmouth-related magic – someone’s messing with them, making fake soul bonds. Right?
She hasn’t even kissed anyone. Not lately. Martin Brooker definitely doesn’t count, and anyway, she remembers their first touch. Had fantasised about it. They brushed fingers in geography, when he turned to lend her a pencil. She grimaces, remembering how sweet she thought it would be, seeing that smudge everywhere she went, a mark that would mean him in such a prominent place.
This one, she can hide. That’s good, because she can’t face her friends getting all excited, asking after the lucky person, and not being able to give them an answer.
And why has she suddenly lost the ability to remember anyone who has ever touched her on the arm? It happens all the time; why should she notice? She’s been thrown around enough by demons during fights, but everyone knows you can’t form soul bonds from beyond the grave, so they’re out.
Huffing, she turns to rifle through her clothes for something she’s sure won’t slip. The gang are going to the Bronze. If she catches up, she can prod around, see if any of them have a new bond mark. It has to be one of them. There aren’t many other people she knows well enough, and she supposes a bond with one of her closest friends might be nice.
She still winces at the idea. Maybe it was seeing Buffy suffer at the hands of her mark once Angel lost his soul and used it to torment her. Watching your friend catatonic with agony because her soulmate got ripped not into the next city but the next dimension… yeah, that’s bound to leave you wary about the marks. Buffy seemed pleased more than anything when her mark faded, even after Angel returned. Ash secretly hopes she isn’t subjecting Buffy to a brand new one so soon.
Ash tugs her jumper on. It’s impossible to tell from the outside that her life has just changed, perhaps forever.
Is she going to have to move in to Xander’s basement? They may not be far enough away for it to be necessary, but it is kind of the done thing–
Okay, enough thinking. This is ridiculous. She doesn’t know the first thing about this mark. Best not get ahead of herself.
At the Bronze, the dance floor is full, the tables crammed. She almost misses Willow and Xander huddling on a bench by the stairs.
“Ash! Come join!”
“Hey, we were hoping you’d show!”
“Good to see you guys! …is, uh, is one of you more pleased to see me than the other, by any chance?”
The two of them exchange baffled glances, before Xander cracks a smile.
“Ah, is this where we’re supposed to argue over you?”
“D-did someone make you feel outta the limelight-y?” Willow asked. “Because we can fight, if it’ll help.”
“Or we can fight them,” Xander offered.
Chuckling nervously, Ash wishes she could laugh with her friends as easily as normal. She sinks into the little space left beside them.
“Don’t worry about it guys. So, what have you been up to? Anything new going on? Anything… big?”
Xander shrugs, looking around.
“Uh… the Buffster just ran off after some vamp. Other than that, just a quiet, Sunnydale night.”
Right. No new soul marks. Hysterically, Ash wonders if she’s the first freak ever to develop one on her own.
No. She still hasn’t seen Buffy. Maybe she didn’t mention it to the others because of her history with the mark? She wouldn’t exactly be keen to share if she had a new one; it makes sense.
“Ash, you want a drink?”
Blinking, she finds Willow standing beside her, gesturing to the bar.
“Oh, I’m good for now. Actually, I’ll go see if Buffy wants one!”
Barely registering her friends’ nods, Ash leaves them for the crowd. Pushing between people dancing, she tugs distractedly at the collar of her jumper as her eyes flit between faces. Most don’t spare her a passing look. Where’s Buffy? The music presses on her ears the longer she searches, like everything is underwater.
Maybe Buffy is outside already. Squinting through the dizzying swirl of bodies, Ash goes for the door. She stumbles.
It takes her enough by surprise that she stops, stubbornly planting her feet. Frowns at them. And why is the floor suddenly swaying like a sinking ship? A shoulder knocks her off-balance again, the jolt of it grating through her bones.
Her hands shoots up, curling around her upper arm where it hit. It’s burning.
Breathing heavily now, she shrinks into herself, trying to sidestep the kaleidoscope of dancers, but her feet drag uncooperatively behind her. The clamour of voices, drums, guitars shriek like feedback in her ears. A dense wave of sound rises, howling around her. She’s hot, too hot, she needs to get out, needs air, can’t breathe–
Staggering now, she crashes into a faceless body, losing the floor. She’s dimly aware that she’s shaking, but it’s far away. Everything is.
Only one thing is left. The way it burns.
She screws her eyes up, hand tightening over her mark. There are people, talking to her, there are hands on her but they aren’t right, and the music goes on but she can’t hear it.
It burns. Something is searing under her skin, fire crawling into her chest, heart deep. Soul deep. It’s tearing out of her and god, it burns. Make it stop, she wants it to stop, but the pain only claws deeper. Burns, burns, burns…
Everything goes white, and she screams.
~
Buffy is tucking her stake out of view, slipping in through the side door of the Bronze when she hears it. Eyes widening, she’s already sprinting to the source of the scream.
Shoving dancers out of her way, she keeps her eyes ahead. Someone needs help. Did she miss one? Her vamp senses aren’t sounding the alarm yet. Something else, then, something unknown.
She doesn’t love the unknown.
Over by the bar, Willow and Xander whirl around with matching looks of shock as the sound rings from the dance floor. There’s a slow sort of shockwave among the partygoers, looking around in curiosity as the screaming intensifies. Drinks forgotten behind them, the two friends race towards the noise without looking back.
Buffy gets there first, and stops dead. Ash is lying on the floor in the centre of a crowd, flinching back from anyone who tries to touch her.
“Get off her!” Buffy commands, stepping protectively in front of her, glaring at the group until they shuffle a reluctant step back.
Ash screams again.
Spinning back to her, Buffy drops to her knees, holding up her hands. Watching intently, she tries to dip into Ash’s line of sight, but she won’t look at her, won’t even open her eyes.
“Ash?” She speaks urgently. “Ash, what’s wrong? What’s happening?”
Ash only curls into herself, a gut-wrenching cry tearing from her throat. She’s shaking furiously. One hand is shielding her face, the other gripping at her sleeve.
“Buffy?”
At Willow’s breathless voice, Buffy looks up. The three of them share a look of horror over their friend’s body.
The music has stopped by this point. Some people are trying to push back, away from the hysterical girl on the dancefloor, others trying to peer over heads and get a glimpse.
“What’s going on?” Xander asks, shaken himself.
“I don’t– she won’t talk to me,” Buffy frets.
Casting her eyes over Ash, she’s left powerless as the pain ravages her friend.
“Something’s hurting her,” Willow worries, “she could be cursed, or-or poisoned, maybe we can find–”
Buffy’s eyes go wide. She draws in a slow, gasping breath as a paralysing realisation stalls her. A familiarity that had loomed over this scene from the start. She doesn’t hear the rest of Willow’s sentence.
“It’s a soul bond,” she whispers.
“What?” Xander asks, urgent.
Buffy makes herself look up, dragging her eyes away from the agony she can still feel herself, some nights. A bone-deep pain she wasn’t sure she’d ever shake off.
“A soul bond,” she repeats. “She’s been marked.”
~
Even Buffy struggles to contain the writhing Ash as they rush her outside. She grips her friend tight, heaving and shoving to keep her on course, holding her stubbornly up as she bends double and staggers from the weight of it.
Buffy grits her teeth and does it, ignoring the lump in her throat from the knowledge of what it feels like. The knowledge that she’s making it worse, having felt how wrong it is when anyone else but them touches you, having been so lost that the world is nothing but fire and craving.
They finally reach the cooler air of outside, and she lets Ash down gently, even though she knows nothing will feel gentle to her right now.
The door falls shut on the subdued club. Willow and Xander hover worriedly while Buffy stays crouched beside Ash.
“It’s on her arm,” Buffy says quietly. She longs to ease Ash’s fingers away from where they’re clawing at her sweater, but she can’t put her in any more pain than she already has. “She covered it up.”
“She never said anything about a soul bond,” Xander adds. “Maybe… maybe she’s not happy about it.”
“About who it is?” Willow suggests, looking glum.
Ash cries out again. Her head lolls and her eyes flicker, her face straining from the invisible sting.
“How long until she passes out?” Buffy asks. That’s one thing she can’t remember: how long the pain went on. She lost time in there. Everything felt like hours, years, eclipsed by the burning.
When the others stay silent, she shakes herself and looks back up at the others.
“What do we know?”
“Nothing,” Willow shakes her head.
“No clue.” Xander agrees. “She was fine when we saw her. Bit distracted, maybe?”
“Wait, that’s right!” Willow exclaims. “She was acting weird. A-and she asked us who was more pleased to see her!”
“And if anything big had happened!” Xander adds.
Staring ahead of her, Buffy’s frown only deepens.
“So she… was trying to figure out if one of us has a new mark?”
“She doesn’t know who she’s bonded to?” Willow asks.
Just then, a fresh scream sounds, piercing as the first, except it rings sharper in the empty street. They all jump, staring helplessly as Ash’s back arches from the ground, her feet kicking uselessly.
Buffy’s hands tremble as she drops her head to rest in them.
“I can’t watch her like this.”
“We need to get her home,” Willow frets.
“She can’t go anywhere like this,” Xander says.
Buffy clutches her head, breaths quickening. The cracks deepen at every whimper from Ash. Restlessness bubbles in her chest, one leg bouncing as she watches over the taut, writhing frame of her friend. Another broken-off cry from her raw throat seals it.
She gives the gift she wishes someone had given her. She closes her fist, sets her jaw and slams it into her head.
Ash falls still. Willow and Xander are still gaping at her as Buffy stands decisively, scoops up their friend and sets off home.
~
The bike roars beneath Spike’s feet. It eats up the road, but he keeps his eyes ahead. Just a little further.
At first, he thought it was helping. His chest loosening, the thick, angry fog lifting. He was his own man, free and wild, tearing along the dark highway with nothing but his bike and the night air in his face.
Then it started.
Even after all this time, he can still recognise the start of the burning, though he seals it up and forces it down like he always has. He shouldn’t be surprised that it still comes easy. He’s been unbound for long enough, but it doesn’t compare to the length of his bond with Drusilla. The number of years he had weathered the pain eclipses these glorious, carefree ones of late.
A skill like his is hard learned; it doesn’t simply leave.
His panic kicks in then, harder if anything. That barb of fear like he’s an animal in a cage, and his only response is to maul his way free.
Driving faster doesn’t ease his denial.
The ache in his hand goes from a twinge to real discomfort. Not more than he can bite down, but after trying to weather it for a few more minutes, he sighs hard and pulls over.
Kicking the stand out, he leaves the bike and takes a few agitated strides onto the dry grasses which line the highway. Clamps his hands over his scalp and shouts into the abyss.
Sunnydale. He should never have bargained with the Slayer to stay there. Shouldn’t have got too comfy – better to be a traveller, never stop in one place too long, keep himself on the move and untethered. Not land himself chained to… someone.
Who? Oh, if that blasted Slayer has implanted herself in his life once again, he’ll…
Surely it can’t be her? He hardly spends time with the chit. The only people he sees most days are Clem or, god, Willy, or…
Crap.
Ash.
Spike blinks. His hand smarts, but he just balls it into a fist, letting it rest loose at his side.
He hates soul bonds. But, if it’s her… Somehow, the same irritation never comes the way it had for the others. Can’t extend that same anger and bring himself to truly be hateful of her over this thing.
Somehow, it doesn’t provoke anything in him. Not for her. For this whole sodding system, sure, but it’s… Ash. Just Ash.
He does know her well, he has to admit – literally has to admit it, because the universe has judged it. The bonds may be cruel torture, but they’re founded on something real, always.
He lets his hands drop to his sides. It’s a shock, but also… not. He’s comfortable with the chick, happy, even, when she shows up at ludicrous hours at his crypt. She’s not someone he associates with pain. Not like Drusilla. She makes him laugh, and she’s even stood up for him, human though she is. The only time she makes him crazy is when she throws herself into reckless situations alongside the Slayer and that scooby gang of hers.
Best not to get ahead of himself, though. Maybe it isn’t even her.
He stares back down the black length of road, reproaching himself already. Driving on isn’t an option. He knows that. Either he goes back, continues as normal, and the bond grows, or he goes back, staunchly ignores her and waits for the bond to die.
For now, he has to do it in Sunnydale. After what Drusilla did to him, he won’t be the one forcing another to go through the pain of separation, even if the bond is dying. Much further down this road and the pain will kick in for real. He’s been on the wrong end of that. Ash doesn’t deserve it. Hell, no one does. Not Clem, not the Slayer, not Willy.
He drags his feet going back to his bike, but he goes nonetheless. He doesn’t urge the engine into such a furore as he did before, but he gets it moving, and turns again towards Sunnydale.
~
He knows he should see her at some point. If it is her. Whoever it is, he should find them, figure out why this has happened.
For the time being, he’s not so eager to show his face. It’s been barely a few hours since he short-circuited with panic, and small sparks still linger, fizzling through his veins. Coming back to Sunnydale is more than enough for now. Sitting and processing isn’t exactly his speed, but maybe he can beat up a few demons until it feels like his head is on straight again.
No such luck.
No sooner has his crypt come in sight than he catches a golden head of hair pacing in front of it.
Bugger. So it is the Slayer, then? His steps slow immediately, but it’s too late. A prickle goes up his neck, warning him: Slayer. Which means she can sense him too.
Sure enough, her hair flips around, her glare locking onto him immediately.
Blast. Aren’t soul bonds supposed to give you mushy feelings? Not in his book, he supposes, but why can’t she be a little more forgiving? With a gulp, he realises this is the chit who bonded with Angelus, of all people.
Please, let it not be her–
He holds his hands up, trying to appease her, but she marches right up to him without slowing.
She opens with a hard punch to the nose.
“It is you! How could you?!”
“Steady on–” He’s barely upright again before he’s ducking the next blow. Startled by her ferocity, he scrambles to block her onslaught. “Not like … I meant… for this to happen!”
“No one deserves that kind of pain!”
“What do you– oof!”
She shoves him against a tomb, her arm across his chest. His eyes widen at the look on her face. He’s rarely seen her this furious; it rolls off her.
Roughly snatching his wrist, she forces the mark in front of his face. Shakes it harshly.
“How… how dare you, Spike?! How could you use the mark like this?”
“Not like I bloody want it either!” He protests. “I got just as much choice as you!”
Her lips curl, fingers tightening threateningly around his wrist.
“You disgust me.”
Nostrils flaring, he shoves her off him, hard.
“You’re off your rocker, Slayer. Can’t control when they appear, can I?”
“Oh no, and you couldn’t help running off far enough to torture her either!”
Buffy springs at him, making him drop to the floor to get out of her way. Mind whirling, he pops back up with a frown as she turns to face him. What on earth does she mean? Torture…?
“Wha–”
A flurry of punches cuts him off. He parries, but he’s distracted, trying to keep up. One punch breaks through and he staggers under the force of it.
“You chose that! You made her hurt! You’re a monster!”
Blinking in shock, he presses a hand to his now-bleeding lip, frowning incredulously.
“Who–?”
“I’ve never seen Ash like that!”
He backs up hurriedly, stumbling, as Buffy storms forwards.
“It’s Ash?”
“And I never wanted to see it! What, did you get a kick out of it?”
“Out of what–?”
“Imagining her in pain like that?! Leaving her wasn’t enough, it had to be far enough?”
“Oi! I didn’ go far enough for it to hurt–”
“You have no idea what it’s like to hurt like that!”
Face turning stony in a second, Spike is there to meet her when she raises her arms again. Grabbing them, he throws her backwards with force. A small cry of surprise escapes her as she lands on her back.
Slow, menacing steps bring him looming over her. His eyes are steel.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Buffy closes her mouth in shock. Staring up at him, she doesn’t move. His voice, low, tense, dangerous, has her reeling.
“How could you know?” She tries, quiet. “You don’t have a soul.”
“Then how d’you care to explain this?” He holds out his reddened palm.
She looks at it, breaths coming shallow. She shakes herself. This is the mark which put Ash through hell. Pushing herself up, she comes face-to-face with Spike.
“Maybe… maybe you can be marked, but you clearly don’t feel it.”
A muscle pops in his jaw, but Spike doesn’t move. It’s infinitely more terrifying than any punch he could throw, any threat he could spit. He glares at her so deeply she can feel the dark rage simmering there, its presence in the air making goosebumps trail up her arms.
Then he rips his eyes away and turns on his heel. She’s left standing, winded without knowing why as she watches his black duster billow away into the dark graveyard.
After a second passes, she remembers how to breathe, hurriedly takes one and rushes after him.
“Spike!”
“Piss off, Slayer.”
“Spike, listen– okay, I don’t know what’s happened to you before. But that doesn’t change anything right now!”
“Don’t wanna talk about it.”
“Just tell me why you did it!”
“Got nothing to tell.”
Reaching the doorway of the crypt, Spike wheels around, one hand on the door, poised to shut her out.
Buffy reaches out a palm to stop it.
“I’m not naïve enough to think that people don’t hurt the one they’re bonded to. But you and Ash? I’ve seen you jump into hordes of demons to defend her! How many times have you carried her to hospital? Do you really want be the one to put her there now?”
Through the lingering heavy cloud of anger, Spike has the wherewithal to look totally blank.
“If it’s Ash I’m bonded to, fine. Don’t wish her ill or anything, just… tell her I need time, alright?”
He makes to close the door, but Buffy shoves back this time.
“And yet you gave her no choice before leaving her collapsing in debilitating pain!”
Spike pauses. Blinks.
“She what?”
Huffing, Buffy shakes her head at him, exasperated.
“Ever heard of a little thing called soul separation? Famously the worst pain one could wish on another on this planet?”
“Sorry–” brows furrowing, he shakes his head, a mirror of her confusion. “Soul separation? I just went for a drive… Wasn’t meant to…”
“Your little drive left her writhing like she was being tortured!” Buffy spits, eyes suddenly thick with tears.
Stepping back as if she’d landed him a real bow, Spike stares into mid-air with horror. Buffy’s saying something, but he can’t hear it. Slowly, he lowers his hand. Face slack, his eyes stay wide, lost. He closes his lips and swallows, parts them again, and again, words failing the enormity of this as it consumes him.
“Where is she?”
“What? At my house, why–?”
“Sod it all.” He’s already striding past her.
Whirling around, Buffy hurries after him.
“Where are you–? Didn’t you hear what I–?”
“I need to see her.”
Buffy practically jogs at his heels the whole way home, none the wiser as to his abrupt change of heart.
He pushes inside Revello Drive. By the time Xander has jumped up, Spike is already past him, halfway upstairs. Gaping like a fish, he turns to Buffy, who stares back helplessly, just giving him a small shake of her head.
Hearing the footsteps, Willow’s voice comes from one of the bedrooms.
“Buffy! She stopped a little while ago, but–”
She opens the door, and freezes when she finds Spike there instead. In the face of her wide-eyed stare, he says nothing. Just moves past her, pushing the door aside and going in.
Ash is asleep on the bed. The covers are twisted and only one of the pillows is in place, the others strewn on the floor. The bedside lamp is on its side, broken glass spewing from the smashed bulb.
She’s not thrashing anymore, but she must have been.
He remembers that part.
Shoulders sagging, a ragged breath falls from his lips. He forces himself to take the last few steps, hardly daring to go near her but needing to be close. There’s a washcloth at the bedside, small flecks of moisture shining on her face. He’s grateful she’s resting. He imagines he can still read the strain on her face, her skin paler than normal, her breathing fast.
God, he did this to her.
Staggering the last step, he drops to his knees beside the bed. Can’t do anything to stop the first sob cracking through his chest.
Then he’s collapsing onto his arms, mattress shaking beneath him as it all spills out of him in great, unrestrained tears. His mortified shame, the bitter resentment, the pain of his first bond. It’s not just him breaking open, it’s William, his old self mourning the denial of the mark’s promise, all the layers stripped away as he sobs through his teeth, the years of pain, the haze even after it subsided, the countless bottles drained as he learned to tune out the last thing which made him human.
He gave that pain to someone else. To Ash.
Behind him, still rooted to the spot, mouth agape, Willow comes back to herself. Slowly, quietly, she closes the door on the moment she was never supposed to see.
Treading carefully downstairs, she finds Xander and Buffy arguing in whispers by the door.
“You just let him come back?”
“Of course I didn’t– he just came–”
“Why aren’t we kicking him out right now?”
“He… I don’t know, he… changed when I said it was Ash. When I told him she had been hurting.”
“He ‘changed?’ What’d he say?”
“He… didn’t really. He just seemed... Look, I’m just saying, we don’t know what’s happened to him. I… I think he’s been marked before.”
“And that makes him want to walk into excruciating pain?”
“That’s the thing! He said it didn’t hurt. He didn’t notice.”
“He didn’t notice,” Xander repeats, disbelieving.
Sighing, Buffy looks around to Willow as she reaches the bottom of the stairs. “How is she?”
“Better, I think. Kinda felt like, I should leave them alone, y’know?”
Buffy folds her arms, nodding quietly. All three of them are subdued as they share glances.
“I’ll tell Giles we found him,” Xander sighs, heading down the hall.
~
Spike’s sobs give way bit by bit. Raising his red eyes from his forearms on the mattress, he finally finds words in between sniffs, feeling bitter and pathetic as he watches Ash slowly breathing.
“I messed up, ‘s what I did.” He swipes at his eyes. “Never meant to hurt you… God, didn’ even wish it on Dru when we… Maybe she-she liked it, I dunno– But what she… what we had, should never have taken it out on you.” Gasping in a shuddering breath, he passes his hand over his stinging eyes. “I thought– it didn’t hurt… Had no idea, ‘n’ there I was prancin’ away like a great fool while you were… Urgh. ‘M a mess. Broken, aren’t I? ‘M too far gone to be bonded again, can’t even trust myself not to hurt you… Don’ know what I can–”
“Spike?”
Her voice is breathless, small, but hopeful, and it stops him dead.
Head shooting up from his hand, his face clears in pure, shocked relief. Her eyelids are sluggish as they blink, raising enough to look at him.
“Hey,” he breathes, voice still thick.
She takes a deep, slow breath, face pinching in a slight frown. He sits up straighter. He remembers how it felt, the first time. How hollow and drained he was after the blinding attack of pain, the way it echoed through him for hours afterwards, how his limbs felt faint, not connected to him.
“Take your time,” he murmurs as she tries to shift. “’S over now.”
Settling wearily on her side, she blinks around at the room. Her eyes are clearing. He hates that they had been burdened by such pain in the first place.
“Hold still, pet.”
Without thinking, he rests a gentle hand on her upper arm to calm her. Pauses there.
That’s another feeling Spike hasn’t forgotten. It isn’t all-consuming, like the other side of these marks, like the pain. It’s steady, calm but present. A presence he’s long been without. Like some small piece of you falls into place, somehow more certain than you were before. He can’t even see the mark, hidden under her sweater, but he knows this is where it is.
Ash opens her eyes, lets her gaze rest in his for the first time. Neither of them speak for a moment, just sitting with the subtle glow humming inside.
Drusilla hadn’t touched his mark when he came to her ravaged by the pain, he realises.
Once he sees Ash’s shoulders lose some of their tension under his palm, he slides the hand down a little, the glow dimming but the both of them more centred for its visit. He does what he originally meant to, and picks up the damp cloth Willow left on the dresser.
“I’m here,” he says, between presses of the cool cloth to her flushed skin. “And I’m sorry.”
“It’s you?” Ash asks, needing to check. Had she imagined that feeling–?
“It’s me, pet. I had no idea– I never meant to hurt you–”
“What happened? Are you alright?”
Eyes clearer now, she shifts to sit higher on the pillow. He can’t stand the concern she’s watching him with, even though his eyes are still red and sticky from crying.
“Am I alright?”
“Well… yeah. I’m sorry, I never meant for this to happen. I didn’t know what to do–”
“Listen pet, the first thing I wanted to avoid, and the first thing I sodding went and did was go and hurt you with this bond. So I’m the one who’s bleeding well sorry.”
“What happened?”
Spike swallows. Bringing the cold cloth away from her face, he toys with it in his fingers, watching the fabric intently.
“I went too far. Couldn’… I guess I couldn’t feel it as strong as you.”
Ash watches him, silent for a long moment. He turns his head to one side and chews his cheek, unable to look up at her. Just waits for her to kick him out, now she knows he’s the reason she went through what she did–
“It’s not your first one.”
Her voice is quiet, not angry. It’s not fair. Glancing up at last, Spike finds a sad, curious kind of look on her face.
She reaches out, then, fingers softly cupping the side of his face.
“She hurt you. Drusilla.”
Spike looks down with a sniff.
“An’ it only made me hurt you–”
“Spike–”
“Pushed it down for so long I can’t feel it anymore… ‘m in no state to be bonded.” Ditching the washcloth, he scrubs his hands over his face. “Know you can’t forgive me pet, know what it’s like to hurt like that, an’ when I think…”
He curls his fingers around hers, pulling them down from his face to cup them between his own on the bedcovers. She grips his hand in return.
“I’ll be okay. I-I’m sorry, I didn’t want this to happen. To force you into this after what it was like for you last time…”
“None of us can help it,” Spike sighs. “Universe’s idea of a joke, it is. Bloody cruel, you getting a sorry sod like me as your first bond. Sorry, pet, I don’t mean I don’t… don’t… urgh. What I’m tryin’ to say is, I don’t need a stupid soul bond to tell me I care when you hurt, pet.”
“Maybe just to make us admit it.”
He chuckles, at last.
“Dunno why I didn’t see it coming. Was never meant to get involved, but here we are. Gods, what are we gonna do with this, pet?”
“What… whatever you want.”
“No. Not whatever I want, pet. What does this mean to you? I gotta know.”
The serious way he watches her, the way he clutches her hands like he’s praying, makes her stop. She hasn’t let herself go beyond this point in her mind: who is it? What do they want to do next?
But this is Spike. Spike who will accompany her on her worst decisions, just to be there with her. Spike who made her stand up for herself, to bullies, and demons, and… now, him. Spike, who has always given her honesty himself.
Spike who also has a stake in this. Who wants to do… whatever they’re going to do, together.
“I… I hardly know, Spike. I just… I like… us. Seeing you.” She bites her lip, picturing her fear, in front of the mirror earlier on. Having to move, having to change, not because she’s ready, but because the mark arrived. That’s how it works. That’s what everyone does. What she should do. Heart hammering, she goes on. “It… doesn’t have to be more.”
Spike just nods.
“Me too, pet. We get on, that’s clear enough. ‘S… easy, being with you. Maybe easier when I was still pretending it didn’t mean anything.”
“And I don’t want it to make things difficult. I know it does, anyway, but I think… I don’t need anything else right now.”
“Right you are, luv,” he says softly. “The mark doesn’t make decisions for us. Just don’t want one of us getting’ hurt. Which is rich, I know, shoulda come to you before anything else–”
“Stop, Spike. I just don’t want you to be trapped–”
He gives a dry laugh.
“What’s the furthest we’ve been from each other since we met anyway? Enough in Sunnydale to keep us busy, pet. Doesn’t have to be like anything’s changed, if you want.”
It’s not what most people want to hear when a bond forms, he knows. But Ash lets out a big breath, relaxing into the pillow. Squeezing his hand once more, she squeezes a grateful smile.
“I’d like that.”
Nodding, he looks down. His tongue pokes at his lips.
Ash tilts her head, watching him.
“What is it?”
“’M sorry, pet,” he sighs, shoulders dropping. “That all said, I still… I need time. For, y’know…”
“For the mark,” she finishes softly.
“Sounds stupid, I know, but it isn’t you. Just… I couldn’t bear it if I start resenting you, all because the universe saw that we fit well together and decided to tell us we should instead of sodding letting us get on with it ourselves.”
Of all the responses he expected, he didn’t expect her smiling. It spreads over her face, warming him all over again, as if he’s touched their marks together again.
“That tells me pretty much everything I need to know,” she says. “So… will I be seeing you around the graveyard then? Whenever you’re ready.”
He gives her a small smile of his own.
“Well… Maybe the time and space can start tomorrow. Still wanna make sure you’re alright, after all.”
Chuckling sleepily, she nods, shuffles across. He slides into the room she’s left, settling against the headboard. He lets himself breathe out, and slowly, tentatively, reaches his arm around her frame. Shaken, hurt, but here. His, in whatever form that might take.
He gives in, rests his hand on the spot where it fits and lets the glow lull them both into rest.