Never pegged Giles for suicidal. If I’d thought about it, and I hadn’t much; too taken up with chasing after his Slayer to see him as more than an easily jumped hurdle, I’d have admitted that he had a strength to him that made me wary, but that was all the more reason to expect him to be the one who held them all together after she was gone. I expected some weird reactions from them all once the shock of the Slayer dying wore off; was prepared for the Bit sobbing all over my shoulder, Xander raising his game from sarky comments to downright vicious jabs...expected all of that and got it. Not like it really mattered any more. I helped out with the killing, got drunk, picked fights – and spent more nights than I want to remember sitting in my crypt waiting for her to kick open the door and tell me I was a bastard and she needed me.

No one needed me then and yes, fucking self pity was just oozing out all over me, but I didn’t give a shit. Somewhere between the smashing stuff and the drinking – I knew how you mourned the dead, even if they didn’t - I’d realised what I’d lost when she died. Not a lover, no. I’d dreamed of that but would she have ever been weak enough to want me and if she did, would I have still wanted her? She was unattainable, a princess to my ploughboy, and I was long past believing in happy endings. I was stupid, yes, but not so stupid that I couldn’t see that I was repeating old mistakes. I always went for what I couldn’t have, moth to the flame, just waiting to smell the burning wings and feel the pain. Got off on it in fact. So, no, not as a lover that I missed her. Not even as a friend; don’t think she ever really trusted me enough for that. No, I’d lost a chance to change her mind about me. Wasn’t sure why it mattered so much what a Slayer thought of me, but it had and it did and now it was set in fucking stone and nothing would ever alter it. Beneath her for ever, just as she lay beneath the ground, and the longing for her changed somewhere in the endless nights to be a loneliness I couldn’t shake. Emptiness scared me. A century of being part of a group and these last few years I’d been so alone. The chip had sealed the deal. Now no one wanted me; not my own kind, not the humans.

Giles, though, he was always there, holding them together, doing the grown up act, making sure life went on, looking at me as if he couldn’t quite work out why I was there but he wished I wasn’t. That didn’t help with the feeling that I wasn’t needed and I’d have gone, don’t know where, if it wasn’t for my promise to Buffy that I’d take care of Dawn. Of all of them, really. She loved them and that came to mean I cared too, enough that irritating as Harris was, I wouldn’t have watched a demon take him apart on patrol, enough that I shoved back my own feelings and got involved with their plans, just as if she was still there, still in charge.

After a while, when the hints that they could manage fine without me got broader and the shoulders colder, I pulled back. I still watched them some nights to make sure they weren’t getting in over their heads, still stayed with Dawn until Tara took over and gently showed me the door. Wouldn’t have been surprised to have called by and found myself needing an invitation to get in one dark night.

Hurt a bit. Silly really. Buffy dying hurt more of course, but that was different; she’d died all heroic, done just what a Slayer should, and I couldn’t grudge her that ending. Going out killing a hell goddess and saving a million dimensions; that’s classy.

But I missed her and I felt guilty and I got drunk and I was lonely. Pathetic sodden heap of misery and no hope of things getting better in the near future. Not the only one in town with that problem though. On my way home one night in June, I ran into Giles. He was surrounded by vamps; must have been five or six of them, and he had a stake in one hand that looked like a splinter with delusions of grandeur and was only alive because they were laughing too hard to go in for the kill.

Felt something then, felt it break through the bubble walling me off from the world, suffocating me slowly. Anger. Disgust. Pity? No. He didn’t need pity. Needed bloody saving though and I waded in and did the job, picking up a nice collection of cuts and bruises, insults and curses. Mostly off him. Seems he didn’t want fucking saving and certainly not by me. Didn’t help to calm me down, though it was no more than I was used to from them all.

“Get up, Giles.”

He gave me a stubborn glare and shook his head, curling up, arms wrapping around his knees. I thought about just grabbing him and hauling him along but it seemed like too much effort. Wasn’t exactly sober myself, though the fight had cleared my head a little.

I tried being subtle. “Got myself hurt saving your arse. Least you can do is slap on a plaster or something. Back’s killing me and I can’t exactly use a mirror to see the damage, can I?”

He stared at me, sighed and let me help him up, guilt being a good motivator to a man like him – and I noticed the reek of whisky. Well, I wasn’t going to deny a man his poison of choice, and I was a long way from being teetotal myself, but –

“Giles, why the fuck are you out here, pissed out of your skull and with no more sense than to run into a pack of vampires?”

He looked at me as we went into my crypt. “You’re so smart; you work it out.”

Took me a few minutes, but I managed it. “You’re trying to off yourself without it being obvious.”

I was sitting cross legged on the stone slab in the centre of the crypt and he was dabbing at a nasty slice down my back with a wet cloth and making it hurt twice as much as it had been because he wasn’t steady handed enough to do it gently. Or didn’t care.

“I suppose I am,” he said.

Took me by surprise. Normally, he’d have shared his toothbrush with me sooner than admit that he’d given up. Made me realise that he hadn’t just been grieving these last few weeks; he’d been digging his own grave beside her. Eternal rest just around the corner. But I was thinking he wasn’t feeling all that good about himself either; it wasn’t just losing his Slayer that was getting to him. I knew who’d killed that doctor bloke. Helped drop the body down one of the cracks left by the opening of the portal and I’d seen Giles’ face when Xander wondered aloud why Glory had changed to Ben after Buffy killed her. Didn’t blame him – shouldn’t have thought any of them would, but it had to be troubling him, no matter how necessary it’d been.  

If he’d sounded angry or sad when he admitted he’d tried to kill himself, I’d have kept my mouth shut, but he laughed when he answered me. Fucker laughed and I turned around, grabbed him by the hair and tilted his head back. Done that so many times and then gone in for the kill; couldn’t use my fangs, but words work fine as weapons too.

“Why don’t you just let me bite you, Giles? How a Watcher should go, right? One on one with the enemy. Guess I spoiled that tonight, but I can make it up to you.” He didn’t even twitch. “Oh, Christ, at least look scared of me!”

Don’t know why I said that. I wouldn’t have bitten him if I could, not even then when I was angry with him for giving up and a little scared. If he went – I couldn’t watch them by myself, couldn’t take care of Dawn the way I’d promised. No; I wouldn’t have drained him, but I didn’t mind trying to jolt him out of it, the way seeing him close to copping it had jolted me.

“You can’t hurt me,” he pointed out. His hand came up and tapped the top of my head, the drink making his movements exaggerated and over-precise. “Chipped and rendered harmless.”

Even drunk, he didn’t mess around.

“Suppose I could?” I said, letting go of him. He was standing in front of me, between my legs, and I didn’t think I’d been this close to him before. Oh, fleeting moments, when he’d been chaining me up in his fucking bath, or the time he’d grabbed me and threatened me after Dru and I had taken Buffy ...but he tended to keep his distance from me. I hadn’t realised how worn out he was. Tired, sick eyes that told me he’d given up running. I’d seen them before, many times, but there was always one last little struggle, one final spark when I bit down. I wanted to see if I could get that out of Giles.
 
He frowned. “I don’t understand.”

He swayed a little, put his hand out to brace himself and ended up groping my thigh. Could have been an accident, but his fingers gripped and held me. I glanced down, said nothing, and smirked. “Always wanted to know if I could feed from someone who let me. Might end up writhing in pain; you might end up dead, because to be honest, if I started, I don’t think I could stop.”

Wondered if he’d buy that; I wasn’t lying exactly; I’d dreamed of it in the early days of the chip; finding a vampire groupie – plenty of them around in this town – getting them drunk, taking my time...never gone through with it though. Knowing for certain it wouldn’t work would have taken away the pleasure of imagining it. Stared at his neck, just where I’d bite, and smiled slowly.

He looked at me then, a question in his eyes, and I put my hand over his where it lay on my leg, not pressing down, because I didn’t need to, and answered the unspoken query. “Wouldn’t stop because you look fucking tasty, Rupert, you know that?”

He tried to move away but I followed him, step for step until his back hit the wall and he was out of places to run to. “Spike...please...”

Pleading and that wasn’t right. Giles shouldn’t – I saw him tortured and he didn’t beg then, no matter what Angelus did to him. I didn’t touch him; you didn’t interfere with Angelus when he was playing, but I watched. I saw. Took it all and still had enough guts left to stick two fingers up at Angelus and now he was giving up?  I felt anger rise and spill and let it out, enjoying it because it was real and raw and red and a world turned grey was no place for me.

“You coward. You fucking washed up, pathetic coward. You let your Slayer die and now you’re going to leave the rest of them to get along without you, too?” I don’t know when I started shouting but I didn’t care. He blinked at me, his face puzzled and defenceless and it was maddening. Giles shouldn’t have been like this; shouldn’t have been sad and defeated, shouldn’t have come that close to dying and –

“You could’ve been turned! Is that it? Not death you’re after but a chance to stop feeling the pain, stop caring? Look at me! Giles, don’t you fucking dare think about it! You’d go straight for them, you’d kill Dawn, you’d, oh God, Giles, tell me that’s not what you were going to do?”

Fuck. Sounded like a girl, but I was seeing them, seeing their faces, seeing what he’d leave behind when he was through with them. Not long since I’d have been smiling at that but things change. I’d changed. Not enough to be socially fucking acceptable and God knows I’d have given up a decade of existence to be able to thump Harris right on his sneering mouth before he died, but they’d stopped being prey a long time since. Wouldn’t have killed any of them, chip or no chip. Can’t say the same for the other billion people on the planet but, yeah, wouldn’t kill them.

Giles shook his head, horrified, stammering. “I never – never thought they’d do – never expected - Spike, how dare you!” Oh, right, I thought. Work it around to being my fault. “Be like – like you? Bloody wouldn’t. Never. Goes ‘gainst every, everything, every lesson – filthy, evil bloody vampire? Me?” He was sobering up. “You self righteous little prick!” OK, maybe not. “How dare you lecture me? How dare you take it upon yourself to save me? She’s gone and I have no place here. I’m not needed and I can’t – I don’t want to feel that way.”

“Just told you you’re needed. Try again. Something’s got you going. I get that you’re tired; been a hellish month. Get that you’re worried, trying to keep on top of it with just the robot and God knows, the ‘bot’s more trouble than it’s worth sometimes. Get all of that but you’re strong-” I reached out and stroked his cheek, feeling stubble scratch at my fingers, “– stubborn and too mean to give up the ghost to a pack of vamps so new they still had dirt under their nails. Where’s your pride, Giles?”

He stood still under my hand and I couldn’t help it. I kissed him, no warning, no build up, just leaned in and tasted him, wanting to see what he’d do. And I wanted to kiss him as well, though I wasn’t sure why. Because I’d just come close to losing him and that bothered me maybe. Because he smelled good. Because there’d always been this curiosity about him, ever since I watched him suffer every twist of Angelus’ imagination, ever since the nights I spent living at his place. Chained me, fed me from his hand, well, mug, walked around half undressed while he took a piss and cleaned his teeth in front of me as if I didn’t exist.

He never did a thing back then; never let his hands stray, never looked below my belt, but I wasn’t so polite. Started out teasing him for my own amusement, but by the end it wasn’t much fun, knowing he was hard every time he came near me but would never touch me, knowing if I tried anything, mood he was in he’d stake me. Spent hours lying there imagining him in bed, what he’d fuck like, how he’d taste. Thought about feeding from him, how his blood would be almost as special as a Slayer’s, watched him shave hoping he’d tear his skin just enough that I could smell it; fresh blood, human blood, Giles’ blood. If he had, I think I’d have snapped those chains and gone for him, but he was too careful.

He scared me too, just a little. Most vampires would admit to being wary of the Slayer if they were being honest but we older ones, we know who makes her a killer, beyond the power, beyond the instincts. The Watcher was in the background. Didn’t mean he was insignificant. This one, it was a miracle he hadn’t staked me with all I’d done. Wasn’t quite sure why he hadn’t. Though I knew he’d been bloody pleased I’d helped run off soldier boy. Not so pleased about me chaining Buffy up though...

So kissing him was dangerous, was risky and I realised I’d been wanting to do it for months – and I wanted to do more than kiss. I wanted to grind against him, wanted to feel his cock jump under my hand, hear him moan. Got a knee in the balls instead and a backhand that sent me spinning.

“You don’t ever do that without –”

He stopped and I filled in the blanks. “Without what, Giles? Permission?” I reached out and ran my hand over his cock, felt it stir under a layer of denim. “Think this is permission enough, yeah?”

He whispered, “Don’t...” and made it sound vaguely threatening. I did it again and this time got the moan I’d been waiting for.

“Giles – let me – Look, it’s bad for all of us, not just you. Stop fucking hiding it.” I tried to kiss him again and when he turned his head away I put my palm against his face and turned it back. He didn’t resist much and I kissed him, trying to be gentle but not doing it well. He smelled of blood and he tasted of tears and it was enough to make me push him too hard. For a moment his tongue met mine and he kissed me with an edge of desperation that stopped me cold – then he pushed me off him violently.

“Now what?” I said. “Going to pretend you’re not fucking hard? Going to add it to the list of things Giles feels guilty about and wishes he hadn’t done?”

Low blow, bringing up Ben but I was past caring about hurting his feelings. I watched his face, waiting for him to stare at me with disgust or hit me again. Either would have been better than the emptiness I saw.

He closed his eyes and when he opened them again his face was filled with a calm I’d seen before. It was what came after that final struggle, when the human I was holding sensed that the swallow I’d just taken had been the last I needed to drain them. He brushed past me as if I wasn’t there and made straight for a bottle I’d left in a corner.

“It’s empty, Giles and haven’t you had –”

I was getting worried. He wasn’t acting the way I’d expected. I’d wanted him angry, not still lost in despair. That’s what had got him in the graveyard, drunk, in the first place. Didn’t like him like this and he was scaring me. A Giles who’d kiss me back, even for a moment, wasn’t in his right mind, couldn’t be. Then I heard the bottle shatter and I swear I heard his skin rip open, heard the sound the glass made as he brought it across his wrist. Spray and drip, spatter and stain. The air was drenched in the smell even before I got to him.

I swore, cursing him, trying to get him to hold still, and he pushed me away as best he could, beyond speech, silent and determined, clinging to the pain as if it was all he had left. Eventually I stepped back and held up my hands. “Fine, Giles. Bleed to death. Mind dripping into a bowl so I can at least have a taste?”

He glared at me and shoved his wrist in my face, offering himself up. My fangs came out and I grabbed his arm, holding it steady. If I was careful...if I didn’t bite...then I sighed, drew back my fist and thumped him. We both hit the ground together but I got up first and he stayed down. Paid for it with a headache that stayed with me for hours, but I made the punch count and the state he was in I had time. Managed to get him bandaged up; the cut would need stitches maybe, but it’d stopped bleeding. He opened his eyes and looked up at me and then winced; his arm must have been throbbing and hurting like hell. Served him right.

“Spike?”

“Should get you seen to, Giles. Think you can walk?” He sounded less like a sleepwalker and more like himself which was something.

“No – I mean, yes, but not just yet. Need to rest.” His face was a nice match for the grey, stone walls but I wanted to get him to a doctor. Didn’t have much on hand in the way of supplies.

“You can rest later,” I said, trying to sound firm.

I went to pull him up, but he stopped me. “You didn’t feed.” Not a question. “I thought you would. I even wanted you to. Why aren’t you letting me die, Spike?”

Simple question that I didn’t have an answer for, not then. “I don’t want you to die, that’s all. Be a waste. Besides, sort of used to you after all this time.”

He arched one eyebrow. “You’d miss me?” He laughed. “I must be hallucinating.” He glanced up at me. “I’ll do it again, you know.”

Shook my head, looked as bored and indifferent as I could manage. “Doubt it. You’d have regretted this in the morning, when you woke up dead, I’ll bet.” Not very funny but I was still shaken up. Blood and violence and sex. They went together too well for a vampire, even one like me. Especially one like me. Giles had offered me his blood and no matter how much I tried, I couldn’t forget that. Made me feel close to him, linked by more than grief and past hatred. Nothing mystical about it, just a bond of sorts.

 “You think?” He tried to stand up, made it and then leaned back against the stone slab. “Do you know the statistics on Watcher deaths, Spike? No, of course you don’t. The average life of a Watcher after their Slayer dies is five years. That’s useless as an indicator though. Simpler to say that we fall into two camps; those who shrug, take a desk job and forget and those, like me, who want nothing more than oblivion. We try to go out being useful of course. There’s always some way of dying a hero.”

The bitterness was there but he still sounded detached, distant.

“Forget dying for one minute, you morbid git. You’re just bored.” Not the right word but I was hoping he’d correct me and take an interest in what I was saying. Boredom was the least of it, though I sometimes thought it’d be the one thing that would drive me to step out into the sunlight one day.

“Want me to take up a hobby?” He nursed his arm to his chest, glaring down at it as if it’d gone off and hurt itself.

I considered Giles knitting for long enough to smile and then said casually, “How about a bet?”

“What?”

“You need someone to give you an interest in life, Giles. You need to do some fucking instead of just getting fucked. You need to be aggravated, annoyed and pissed off on a daily basis.” I grinned at him. “And I need to be the one doing it, because you’re not dying before I’ve had you, Giles. No fucking chance.”

He studied me. “Had me? If you mean my blood –”

“You know I don’t.” Wasn’t going to let him get away with pretending. He’d been pretending he was fine for the last few weeks and look where it had got him.

“I’d lie and tell you I wasn’t interested but I suspect that would be futile.” I smirked at him and blew him a kiss just to watch him glare. More emotions, filling up the spaces...good to see. “What’s the bet? What are the stakes?” He grinned sourly. “If you’ll forgive the expression.”

I was used to thinking fast but I was definitely being put on the spot. Couldn’t tell him to come back another day though; if I let him leave here with nothing, he’d never make it home. So I thought about how to appeal to him, how to keep a Watcher from feeling he was useless. Put like that, the answer was simple. You gave him someone to train, someone to fight, someone to love. Or someone to fuck, because I couldn’t see him loving me. I was as strong as Buffy and as mean but I didn’t think I was all that lovable. Not given my past record. But if it was just sex, I imagined I could keep Giles happy without even trying after the dry spell he’d had the last few years.

“I bet in six months I can make you want to live again. If I lose, I’ll help you die; even fix it so you can go out against a real big nasty and I’ll lie to them all so they won’t know you did it on purpose.”

He nodded thoughtfully but I could tell he was just humouring me. “What if you win?”

“You let me have what I passed up on tonight; a taste of you. Might end up dead anyway if I take too much and then we can all have a good laugh, right?”

“Just how do you propose to make the skies turn blue and banish the rain cloud over my head, Spike?” He swayed slightly, but the stone he was leaning against kept him vertical.

“Oh, you’re feeling better. Sarcasm’s back. Old fashioned way, Giles. Show you a good time.” Shouldn’t have still been talking – he was getting paler by the minute - but I reckoned he was tough enough not to pass out on me. “I’m moving in with you,” I said.

“You bloody well are not!” That was automatic; his eyes told a different tale, sharpening with interest and making me smile to myself because you don’t need to be a fisherman to know when someone’s hooked.

“And we’re going to fuck the misery out of each other.” That shut him up. He gaped at me and I noticed that he still had enough blood left to get hard. Promising. “Now we can play this different ways but I’m thinking you’re not the sort to take kindly to being on your knees to me –” Flicker of interest but nothing else, “and we’re not equals, never have been, never will be –” and he could take that anyway he liked, “so that just leaves – this.”

Went to my knees, bowed my head and waited. Done that before, but never to a human. Felt just the same though. First there was the awkwardness, the fear that I would look like a total prat and he’d laugh – except I was ideally placed to see that amusement wasn’t his first reaction. Then came the struggle not to jump up, tell him to forget it, because the weight of it all was settling down on my shoulders and I wasn’t sure I could bear it, not the way I felt right then. I stayed on my knees though and Giles’ arousal, the knowledge of what me like this was doing to him, well, that was incentive enough to stay, stone bruising knees, as my own cock stirred and waited, remembering what came next.

Submission. The tension left me as the moments passed by without me being rejected, and I relaxed, waiting for an order. I could wait for hours if I had to. Done it before. Would he take it all from me, because he needed that weight of responsibility, was used to it in a way I never was and never wanted to be? Would he see what I needed and be strong enough to give it? How much did he still hate me for what I was and what I’d done?

How long was it before he touched my head, told me to look at him? Long enough for him to get his voice under control again, because it didn’t waver and he never asked if I was sure or if I wanted to change my mind, not then, not later.

I looked up, saw him for the first time if you like, and watched his lips shape one word.

“Mine.”

And I smiled up at him, and wondered just what he was going to do with me.


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