Title: Demon Hunter part 2

Author: Socrates, aka vampyr64

Email: [email protected]

Disclaimer: Joss and ME owns Buffy and co. I own the original characters I created for this story, as well as the crazy idea that not having a soul might actually make one evil. Oh yeah, I also have this lovely jar reserved for Spikes ashes. I'll them with you TC.

Warning: There is something of a new medium called Spike bashing that will be present in this story, though it will be for a reason.

Summary: It would be kind of difficult to tell you what this is about since I myself don't really know. I just right what I feel. I promise to let you know as soon as I figure it out though.

Rating: R for violence, some swearing and possible sexual situations. Nothing worse then what's on the show though, (insert evil laugh here!)

Spoilers: Up to 'Wrecked."

Feedback: It would be greatly appreciated.

Authors notes: My apologies to those who are awaiting the continuation of my other stories, but this is what is being dealt with on the show right now and so this is what I felt I should address.




Part 2



The night air swept down from above and was charged with a fierce energy that emanated from the troubled and broken man who made his way quietly down the darkened streets. Clutching at his coat with a white knuckled grip, he shivered with a chill that had nothing to do with the weather. His soul had been pierced by a fierce blow from a blade that he had not seen since his junior year in high school.

It had been that day. The day that he had learned that She had made love with that vampire. The day that his heart had been shattered.

He knew that he really had no right to feel this way. She was her own person and free to do whatever or whomever she pleased. He had no ay in that. But another part of him screamed . It was a feeling that penetrated to the deepest recesses of his being. It cried out at the injustice of it all.

his more cynical, and by proxy realistic side answered.

Try as he did, he couldn't come up with an answer to that.

He recalled with stunning and agonizing clarity the day that she had torn his heart out. Not that he could really blame her. She was in no way obligated to return his feelings. But that didn't make it hurt any less. He had remarked that a guy had to be undead to make time with her, and she replied that had been a rather harsh thing to say. For the life of him he couldn't understand why. It had been the truth hadn't it?

At the thought struck his skull like a hammer, he smiled. If only.

It seems fate had an even more depraved sense of humor then he had originally thought.

In retrospect he should have seen it coming. All the signs were there. Try as they might, they couldn't keep her from withdrawing from them. She started patrolling all the time, and spent most of her time with 'him'. He couldn't even bring himself to say the name. It brought all the pain and memories of rejection back, flooding across his wounded soul like scalding water. He had been too busy with Anya at the time to really notice her slowly slipping away. He tried to analyze why he hadn't seen it coming, why he hadn't been close enough to her. Then it hit him.

The memories of the night two months after they had buried her that he awoke in a cold sweat came rushing over him. The pain had been so intense. He had felt dead without her, and so he had taken Anya's revolver and placed it to his temple, his finger slowly squeezing the trigger, ready to end the pain and send him to meet her. He hadn't though, the sounds of weeping had caused him to lessen the pressure on the trigger. He had struggled to determine where the sound was coming from, then the realization had hit him like a blast of hot air. It was him. HE was crying.

He never cried, it just didn't happen. He hadn't since the night that his father had… NO! He wouldn't think about that! He just hadn't cried since then. Even when Jesse had died, he had simply gone up to his room and sat for hours just looking at an old photo of them he kept in his wallet. He had been devastated then. But he never cried. There he was though, sitting on his living room floor, pistol in hand, bawling his eyes out. He hadn't done anything that night, just cried until he had no tears left to shed. Then he had put away the revolver and crawled back into bed and gone to sleep. He mad a decision that night, unconscious or otherwise, to let her go. He knew that was what she would have wanted and he would honor her memory by doing so.

It hadn't been easy, but he succeeded in letting her go. He was happy that she was finally getting the reward that she so richly deserved, and though he missed her deeply, he knew he would be able to live without her. To know that he loved her and that she cared for him had been enough. He was content to allow her her eternal rest

Suffice it to say, things didn't work out that way.

They brought her back because they felt they had no choice. They tore her out of paradise and she was embittered toward them. Even through all that, the connection there had once been between them was gone. He didn't know why at the time but he finally understood.

He had let her go.

Those were not mere words. He had really and truly let Buffy Summers go, from his heart and his mind. He would never forget her, but he also wouldn't pine away for her.

That said, it isn't a simply thing to let someone go and then garb hold of them again. Buffy had died and he had moves on. He couldn't just force himself to care for her as a friend again. It would take time for the connection to reestablish and it did indeed take time for that.

In the meantime, Buffy was left to establish a connection with the one person she never had one with. Him. That was what led them to this.

He had gone to the crypt in order to find 'him' so they could tackle a new demon that had popped up out of the ether. They had been unable to locate her and so he had decided to seek out the nest most powerful fighter.

That was when he had found them.

Upon hearing the moans and wails coming from within the crypt he figured that fangless had found a new girlfriend.

He was right, sorta.

Upon breaching the doors to the crypt , his ears caught shouting of the expletive that would forever be ingrained in his memory.

"Buffy!"



And the answering cry.

"Oh, Spike!"



Then there were the other words,

"I guess a guys gotta be undead to make time with you."

"That's really harsh."



An uttered cry of surprise had interrupted his musings.

"Xander!?!"

He looked up to see Buffy crawling out from underneath Spike, her hands clutching the bed sheets in an attempt at modesty. Odd, considering she had none.

"Xander, I… I can explain-"

"Save it!" He had replied harshly. "I don't want to hear it! You don't owe me any explanations."

"Ya damn right she doesn't, Wanker. Now if you'll excuse us, we were in the middle of some-" The bleached vampire suddenly found it rather hard to speak, considering that his throat was being gripped In a rather strong hold.

"I don't want to hear anything from you Spike. Not one goddamned word!"

He threw Spike backwards onto the bed and turned to leave. Before he reached the exit he spun back around, a thousand questions and accusations on his mind. He had so many things he wanted to say to her, so many questions to ask, but he found that he hadn't the strength. As he stood there, staring at her, only one thing managed to emerge through all the feelings going on inside his head.

He looked at her, tears in his eyes, and said "You were my hero." His words held a question and an accusation. They were both a desperate plea to understand why she had destroyed his faith in her, as they were a brutal condemnation for having the gall to make people actually believe she was a hero. Hero's didn't do this. Not this.

His word echoed an eternity and by the look in Buffy's eyes they had shaken her to the core. Without another word, he spun on his heel and walked away.

That was what led him to now, walking down a sidewalk in the middle of the night, trying to figure out where he had gone wrong. Why the hell was he so affected like this. Sure he should be disappointed, but he felt like he had just caught Anya in bed with another man. Why was this affecting him so deeply?



He didn't even bother to argue with that. He knew it was true. It didn't require a complex explanation to satisfy the masses who were too naïve to understand. He knew all that had transpired and he knew that there was no reason in the world to still love her. He also knew that all that didn't mean jack squat. Love was love. It needed no explanation.

That was why he had been so devastated. The person he loved, the other half of his soul, had done something so immoral, so absolutely repugnant in his eyes, that it caused something inside of him to die After all, when you lose your hero, who can you look up to? She wasn't a hero anymore as far as he was concerned. Heroes didn't sleep with the enemy.

Yeah, he knew the argument that Spike was helping them now and that he had stuck around even after she had died. He just didn't care. He wasn't about to go psychoanalyzing the situation. He just knew what he knew, and that was that without a soul, one cannot be good. He didn't need anyone to explain to him how it could happen. That would be like trying to explain how pigs could fly, you could come up with any number of highly convincing arguments, but all of them required one thing. The suspension of reality. It just didn't work that way.

Spike was evil, he always had been and he always would be. There was no hope for him. Even if they restored his soul, he wouldn't be Spike. Her would be William. A nineteenth century twit who wrote crummy poetry. No, there would be no redemption for Spike.

There was one reason and one reason only why he was not a threat right now, Buffy. Oh, his chip kept him from attacking humans, but that didn't make him any less of a threat, as was demonstrated when he teamed up with Adam and tried to tear them apart. It was Buffy who kept him take, he did it for her. All of his actions for good were done for her, and then meant that they were meaningless. They always would be.

He knew that one day Spike would be a threat again, he would get his chip out somehow, then he would come after them. After all, he had once loved Druscilla but had fallen out of love with her and offered to kill her for his new love. What was to stop him with falling out of love with Buffy and doing the same to her?

He had to prevent that. He would NOT let that happen!

Movement in his field of peripheral vision brought him back to reality. He looked to his side only to be struck with a fierce blow that sent him staggering. He attempted to recover but was immediately hit with another jab, this one in his side. A moment later a third strike caught him in his temple and took him completely off balance.

As he swayed unsteadily, he felt two pairs of incredibly strong hands grip his shoulders and begin dragging him into a nearby alley. Though he was groggy from the attack he managed to get a good look at his assailants.



When they reached the back of the alley the vampires stopped and he felt himself being turned around. A figure loomed before him and he struggled to make out its features. Then the answer came to his like an ice pick driven into his skull.

"Spike!"

The unsouled vampire gave out a little chuckle as he lit up a cigarette, and nonchalantly puffed on the tip.

"Wanker!" He called out with false enthusiasm, "So good of you to join us." Spike touched his hand to the bruise forming on Xander's temple , causing him to flinch, "Why, that's a nasty welt ya got there mate. Might wanna have it looked at."

Xander glared back at him in response, "What do you want Spike?"

All traces of humor left the vamps face and his eyes became steely cold, "You stumbled in on something ya shouldn't have seen mate. I can't have you jeopardizing things between me and the slayer."

"Things?" Xander gave out a little laugh, "What things? She's just using you for the sex you know."

"Maybe, for now. But eventually she'll come around."

Xander sneered at that, "You're deluding yourself pal."

The bleached blonde continued as if he hadn't heard him , "Especially after she loses one of her best friends to a nasty incident."

For the first time in a long time, cold fear gripped Xander's heart. "What are you talking about?"

The vampire smiled a wicked grin as he reached into his jacket and produced a wicked looking knife. He stalked slowly toward the pinned young man, a murderous gleam in his eyes.

Xander's eyes widened in terror. Something about this was all wrong, "You can't do this! Your chip won't let y-" even as he said this, Spike brought the knife forwarded and slowly pierced the young man's flesh. He opened his mouth to scream but his cries were quickly silenced by a hand that was clamped over his mouth.

Spike chuckled again as he continued to cut into the boy, "Ya mean the chip right? An interesting thing about that, I learned that it's a simple case of mind over matter. I don't mind, cause you don't matter" Saying this he gave a quick jab into the boys stomach that set off flames of agony in Xander's chest. He could feel himself growing weak from the blood loss. "You will never guess how I found that out. It was an encounter with Buffy actually. It brings back memories. I mean, it WAS the first time we fucked." Despite the pain he was feeling Xander felt another piece of his soul torn in two. he thought of the encounter earlier that night.

"it's a shame ya know", Spike continued as he began dragging the imbedded knife in a strange pattern, slowly cutting up the young mans stomach and slicing into his internal organs, careful to cause the maximum amount of pain possible while ensuring that the man would not die. After all, Spike was an expert at torture, "I kind liked you. I mean, ya were annoying as hell but ya kinda grow on a guy." Spike gave another sharp jab with the knife, causing Xander to scream, into his captors palm.

"Aww! Did I hurt the little Zapper?" Spike taunted in mock concern. "Does it hurt to know that I got there when you couldn't? That after all you have done for her she would rather sleep with her mortal enemy then you?" He leaned close in and whispered, "It must just eat you up that I got there first.". Those words stuck out at Xander through the pain and opened old wounds once again. Spike looked at him in knowing. "Those words sound familiar do they? Angelus told me about your meeting . You never can seem to catch a break can you." Tears of fear and pain leaked from Xander's eyes as he felt himself begin to grow ever more numb. He began to mumble something, struggling to form the words through the pain.

"Got something to say then?" The un-souled vampire asked, "Alright, lets hear it." he motioned for the other vampire to remove his hand from the boys mouth. As the hand released him Xander spat out the blood that had been threatening to choke him. He smiled a grim smile of resignation, his teeth stained red with his lifeblood. In a hoarse whisper he said, "Ya know what's so funny about this?"

Spike leaned closer in curiosity, No. What?"

When the vampire was right in front of him he spat blood in his face and said, "She'll never love you." The he started laughing a strange laughter that held a sick meaning, since he knew he was going to die.

The vampire leapt back in rage. Staring at the boy before him who was going to die, who was laughing. At. Him.

He snarled in rage and brought the knife forward, stabbing the boy in the stomach over and over until the knife and his hand were coated with sticky blood. Xander was too far gone to even feel the pain.

After a few dozen fierce jabs, he relaxed, the scowl on his face replaced by that wicked grin, "We'll see mate, we'll see." He motioned to the vampires gripping Xander and they released him. The young man slid to the concrete with a wet plop.

Turning to his companions Spike said, "Lets get out of here." He turned back to the bloodied form on the ground and gave a few hard, swift kicks into the boys skull, then said "See ya later Zapper." Then they were gone.

If there were any justice in this world, he would have been found by his friends. Buffy would come rescue him in the nick of time. She would whisk him away to the hospital where he would awake to find his friends huddled by his bedside, eagerly awaiting his awakening. Tears would be shed and the bonds between them strengthened. If there were any justice.

Instead, Xander Harris bled to death in an alley behind the bronze.


End part two


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