Glory sliding cruel fingers under his skin and tugging, tearing, gouging pain into places he didn't think it was possible to hurt and he'd meant to say "Dawn. Dawn is the key." 

Dangling from the ceiling, bones in his face collapsing, little pulsing splinters of pain, he'd been ready to tell her everything, anything. "Dawn." One word and he'd have offered up Dawn herself, would have gone and gotten her, dressed her up and put a bow in her hair, if only Glory would have stopped, just for a second or two, long enough for the agony pulsing through him to grow strong enough to kill him. 

He would have done it. Given her up. 'So long, niblet. Nothing personal. You understand.' Dawn wouldn't have but she probably would have smiled anyway, sunny slightly crooked teeth little girl smile. And so he opened up his mouth to speak and these...other words... came out. A babble of stuff that would have made Dru proud, nonsense that she would have been able to pick through to extract the shiny truth of underneath. 

Dawn and him watching 'The Price is Right' once, Joyce in the kitchen making sandwiches, calling out that they were out of mayonnaise, never mind that he didn't really even need a fucking sandwich or that he could have (and he would have, if only he could have) ripped little Dawn's throat out and made Joyce watch. Sandwiches sitting on a tray all neat in a row. Three of them and his with a toothpick in it because he'd once told Joyce he hated tomatoes and she didn't want to accidentally put them on his sandwich. 

Watching 'The Price Is Right' with Dawn, feet up on the coffee table, and the faint line of strain on Joyce's forehead making him feel bad, fucking bad, remembering that she'd been sick, really sick and then leaving; running really, and sitting on the sad ass crypt that is his home, remembering that he was a fucking demon and that he wasn't--he wasn't--he wasn't.

He isn't beyond help. He isn't what Dru said. Not lost. Just himself still, and only a little messed up.

He rubs his chest right over the area where his heart used to actually beat. Dru went through a period, in the 50s, after the war, where she liked to listen to hearts before she stopped them. Spike always listened too because she loved it so and because he lived for that light in her eyes, that look, all sparking and turning on him with joy and the edge of abandon. He listened and hated it, hated the sound those hearts made, and after a while Dru's eyes dimmed, a little, and she made tick-tocking noises when he held her until he broke her arm. She stared at the bone, all protruding and not white and gleaming like he'd thought it might be but a dim pale and almost yellow and she'd smiled and purred into him. "Mine," she'd said. "Your heart, I know." And then she'd gotten confused and lost and her eyes faded more and she'd screamed "Stop beating!" and ran her little fingers down his chest over and over till he bled and her eyes weren't so distant and her pointed tongue licked over and around her mouth. 

Dru, always babbling and looking him in the eyes and seeing right through to those little hidden parts no one else ever saw. Dru was right, is right, and now he's dying, no, not dying but bruised, battered, broken. Pieces of his face have strange cracks in them, he can feel them with his fingers, and the bones in his ribs grind together when he breathes and he doesn't have to do that, he doesn't have to breathe, and yet he can't fucking stop, he's been around humans too much, too often. He didn't know he had this much fucking blood in him, it's still oozing out of cuts and broken places and how could he have this much blood when all he gets is scraps and handouts? He lives worse than every demon he kills and that's why he kills them all or tries to. He wants to.

Lost, Dru was right and he is. Lost, not like Dru is, not in a beautiful way, but something inside him, aided by that sodding chip, spreading and festering and he doesn't recognize anything anymore. Demon raging for blood, beautiful slippery tangy-smelling blood, that's him. Raging for death and killing and pain and thinking that yeah, Glory knew what she was doing and yeah, maybe he could find her and talk to her and she'd tear Sunnyhell apart and take Buffy with her. 

Buffy. His insides have been all Glory decorated and for what, for what? And Buffy's mouth, her real mouth, her real warm wet blood-filled pulsing under skin mouth was on his, for real, and she's still all inside him. All inside him, everywhere, and even Glory couldn't get rid of her. Dru said he wanted Buffy dancing through him, all over him, all around him and ...

No. Not like that, he never wanted that. He'll heal. Bones will mend, his insides will shift or fall or migrate or something back to where they are supposed to be. It'll be better an hour from now, better still later, and tomorrow, and the day after that. And he'll still want Buffy dead. Oh yes, he will. Want her like he's always wanted her. Wide, sightless eyes staring at him, skin flushed, muscles twitching, trembling, saying his name in surprise and shock and fear and knowing she's not going to get away, not this time, not ever. On the verge, yeah. 

Just like he's always wanted her. 

END