lovetobrag:

He’d done chains before.  For fun, you know.  Open Dru’s chest o’ toys and you’ll find a few things used to have whole different meanings.  Chains like these were near the top of that list.  And there’d been times more recently, looked on less fondly, when he was restrained for safety.  The Watcher’s bathtub.  Buffy’s basement.  A couple days in the cave of soul-searchin’, as part of one of those bloody trials. 

Spike didn’t want to be in any of those places again.

But this was by choice, wasn’t it? ‘bout as much as something can be chosen with a crossbow pointed at your chest, sure.  Make friends with a Slayer, see how long you last with blood on your mouth.  Get a soul, see how long you can handle screamin’ at the walls after, losing your sodding mind.  That’s what he told himself last night—or was it two nights ago? or was it three—when he hoisted the chains through the little hooks in the walls.  The iron clinked against the stone to make sure he couldn’t block it out.  Pay attention, mate.  This is you.  It’s not too late to ditch.  But it was.  It was. 

Made it comfortable as he could: mattress under, chains long enough to move his arms and legs out of the way.  Knew he’d need that.  And when the cuffs were hooked on, cold cuttin’ into his wrists and ankles, he tossed the key just out of reach.  Bit his tongue damn near straight through after that one.  Went a bit bonkers tryin’ to take it back, tugging and stretching and groaning.  Not good ‘less you’re cursin’ yourself soon as the cave entrance slides shut.  You’ve got to get what you’re doing just before it starts.

And then he woke up.  His wrists were bleeding where he’d pulled too hard, and the first thing he did was try to lick it off.  Stale, dusty.  Like ashes, she’d said.  Worse now.  No matter.  His tongue wouldn’t flatten between the metal and his skin, wouldn’t get at the bit that opened and spilled.  Spike rolled his nose onto his forearm and closed his eyes. 

Woke up blurry, stomach a mess.  He rolled over, arms behind his back to keep the chain from curlin’ under his chest, and fluttered eyelids real slow.  Reached for his pack of cigarettes—one of six or seven he’d left lyin’ about—and knocked the whiskey over instead.  It was uncapped.  It sloshed out onto the floor.  He couldn’t think to pick if up.

Woke up snarlin’, yellow-eyed and mean.

Woke up, woke up, woke up.

The sun was comin’ in through the windows in streaks.  Spike’s tongue was dry in his mouth, heavy and dull.  He kept his eyes closed long as he could, so he wouldn’t have to see, but there was blood in him now; had he got out? was it real? was it his?  And there was something else, too.  Could’ve picked her up when she was at the far gate in—hell, maybe he had.  Maybe that’s what woke him up.  Maybe this was the first night, the first time she’d come, or maybe she was what kept him shiftin’ at all hours.  He couldn’t remember.  Eifa and the fire.  Faith on the shards. 

“Been doin’ well, right, Slayer?” Spike needed the wall to sit up; he needed the leverage of the chains.  One of the weaker points.  Came and went, surely.  He wiped the damp off his temples and tried to look real stable like.  “Graduation’s not far off now.  Here to fit me for my cap ‘n gown?” 

Spike had been chained up in his crypt for coming up on two weeks. But, it took about that long for human blood to finally leave a vampire’s system. A week and a half until feeding again was a must. She’d heard from somewhere (maybe Giles?) that if they went long enough without the stuff they’d sort of just freeze, that it’d be like watching a corpse decay in front of your very eyes. The image repulsed her though, and she was fortunate enough to be able to say that she hadn’t seen one that far gone. Not yet, at least. Two weeks wouldn’t do it to a vamp, it took months and even years for such a process to occur. But one detail that she always remembered was the fact that a vampire couldn’t actually die from not feeding, just pour some blood into their mouth and voila! Instant revival. Well she wasn’t actually sure if it was instant, but it was sort of beside the point.

She drove to the butcher, the place where she usually got blood for this type of situation. As she drove it donned on her how ironic this all was. She was supposed to be killing vampires left and right, but on more than one occasion she’d taken the role of caregiver to a vampire. It wouldn’t make sense to an outsider and it hardly made sense to her. She’d decided long ago that she couldn’t go to a butcher in the city where everyone was in the know about vampires, especially not with her face. It would look bad on Slayers in general, something she’d had to start worrying about. She’d found a butcher an hour or so outside of the city in the phone book, which seemed so old school in the technological age. They didn’t even have their own website.

She pulled into the parking lot and turned off the car. She hesitated getting out for a moment, this was the first time she’d gone out of the house without a glamour in a long while, and then rushed into the tiny little shop. She pushed open the door and it responded with the tired jingle of a bell, everything in the store was old. The man behind the counter looked to be about her father’s age and wore a paper cap in an attempt to hide the bald spot that peeked out from beneath it. He had a friendly vibe which she hoped wouldn’t be ruined by the fact that she was asking him for pints of pigs blood. The vibe didn’t change, but he shot a confused and curious look her way when she made the order.

“Just pulling a prank on an old high school friend, you know how it is.” She said with a forced chuckle. She tried to explain herself a little further. “Have you ever seen Carrie?” she asked, hoping he’d get the reference. His eyes lit up at the mention of the movie, he recognized it. Which of course he would, it was from his time after all. He smiled at her and let out a chuckle, laugh lines forming around his eyes.

“Now Miss, you better not be up to no good!” he said as he handed her the blood. Hopefully she wouldn’t be back there, but if she was she knew who she’d ask to help her. Bob was his name. Very generic. She smiled once more as she paid for the goods and then left the shop. She drove about ten miles above the speed limit all the way back. It was getting later in the day, and the few other times she’d checked on Spike she’d found him completely passed out by nightfall. The starvation so to speak was making him unsurprisingly weak. She let herself in and hurried to where he was chained up.

He wasn’t awake, but he seemed to stir when she entered the room. Looking upon him wasn’t exactly pleasant and he smelled horrible. Two weeks without a bath would do that, but he’d gone longer when he lived under the school and she found his scent to be something she could at least manage to stand. His eyes were sunken in and there were dark bags beneath them blacker than any living being would have. He looked like something out of scary movie at first glance, but when she looked harder he seemed more like himself. It was the same old Spike; but with curly hair that was matted to his head in places from tossing and turning she supposed, and lips the same unsettling white as the rest of his skin. She took one of the pints and heated it for a few seconds in the microwave, stowing the others in the refrigerator that had nothing within (it was obviously meant for blood alone, a gruesome thought she didn’t linger on for too long.) She opened the container and a gush of the familiarly metallic smell of blood wafted up to her nose. She wasn’t really bothered by it, but she was surprised that he didn’t wake up for that either.

Not wasting any time, she walked over and rolled him onto his back. He’d been sleeping curled up in the fetal position which was something she’d never seen before. He’d never been quite this fragile. She opened his mouth and poured the blood in, stepping back as she waited for it to take affect. Within a minute or so his eyes opened and he sat up against the wall, she would’ve helped him but could tell he didn’t want it. He wanted to feel like he had some semblance of strength she guessed, that’s what she would want were she in his place.

He greeted her with snarky remarks about his “graduation” and she knew he was on his way back, the blood was doing what it was supposed to. She didn’t respond to him right away, instead she went to the second bag she’d brought in with her and pulled out one of the straws she’d purchased a few days ago for this purpose. She tried to ignore the question of whether or not she was okay. It felt almost like a slap in the face in many ways. Was she okay? No. Would she let him know that? Absolutely not. One of them had to appear to be strong.

She knelt down next to him, having stabbed the straw into the plastic lid that covered the white Styrofoam container. She offered it to him as she spoke. He’d probably be able to drink it on his own in a day or so, but she could tell he wasn’t strong enough yet and didn’t want to wound his pride by offering him that option.

“I think another week, maybe less and you’ll be a free man. Just gotta make sure it sticks is all.” She replied. She didn’t know if that was really what he wanted to hear. Maybe he wanted to be out sooner, maybe longer. She couldn’t read him at that moment, but he seemed so drained that she doubted there was really much to read anyways.