I'm not sure exactly what this is meant to be - funny or sad or a bit of both. It might even be the first of several. It all depends.

What it definitely is though is 400 words long and probably not quite what you're expecting from the title.

I disclaim. Joss Whedon used to be God - now he's been demoted to archangel (did you watch season 6?). Either way I owe the guy respect, adoration, several characters and Spike's cigarette lighter that I stole right before the Hellmouth went kablooey. Oops.

1

He knows he's dreaming, but he smiles anyway.

This is the night everything changed.

It's not the one you think.

Buffy's alive and so is Dawn.

Glory's off being a hell-god and that's later anyway.

They don't know about her yet.

If what he hopes comes true, they never will.

Alone in the dark, he smiles.

The Poof would smile too if he knew what was about to happen.

He let his best hidden side come to the fore.

It's been a while since he'd killed anyone, but even with the chip in his head, he has his methods.

Ben was glaring at him from the chair, but there was nothing he could do.

The hospital is quiet enough and the mental patients' restraints are holding him down almost as well as Spike could desire.

They're not hurting him, the chip won't allow that, but they are making him uncomfortable.

Spike props himself up on a bed and lights a cigarette, ignoring the sign that thanks him for not smoking.

He'll deal with Doc afterwards, punish him for the betrayal that lies at his own door, on his own soul.

Not that he has one.

"What are you going to do to me?"

The smell of fear on Ben is ambrosia to Spike's heightened senses.

This is what being a God is all about.

"You'll see."

The chip is sizzling his brain, a tiny reminder that the railroad spike he pulled up is not a permitted weapon anymore.

As if he needed it.

His smile is as big as the fall from Glory's tower.

His happiness is infinite.

"Every night I save you.

By Spike, K.E. & B.A.P.

Every night I see you

A beauty so effulgent that

My heart has grown a bulge in it

Every night I hear you

The sparrow speaks betwixt

Its little beak and calls

My love to your side

My goddess, my Yorkie bar,

My first, my last, my in between

You're my everything…"

On and on.

And on and on.

And on and on.

For forty-seven pages.

"…Every night I save you."

It is a little known fact that a hell-god can, with sufficient incentive, simply give up on life.

Three hours later, the chip short-circuited by the simultaneous intent to harm and lack of literary appreciation, Spike walked out of the hospital licking his lips happily.

"Every night I save you."

…Yes.