"Breathing in His Sleep"
by Maisie (maisierita@comcast.net)
copyright 2004
(AtS, implied A/S, rated PG-13 just in case)
Website Address: http://home.comcast.net/~maisierita/index.html
Disclaimer: These guys aren't mine either. Rats.
Warnings: Some angst, a little slashy (what a shock!)
Notes: Oh, yay. My first (completed) Spike fic. Although I guess it's not really a Spike fic at all. 500 words. Don't know if there's a category for that. :) Spoilers for Damage. Written to get rid of tiny little plot bunny that took up residence in my brain.
Feedback: Please! Anything but flames gladly accepted at maisierita@comcast.net
Website:
Voyager fanfiction at:
http://home.comcast.net/~maisierita/index.html
Highlander fanfiction at:
http://home.comcast.net/~maisierita/hlfic.html
*****
Spike breathes in his sleep. I've never known another vampire who does that. The rest of us breathe, of course. To talk, to smoke, to scent, to pass for human. But we don't breathe when we don't need to, and we don't breathe in our sleep. Spike's the only vampire I've ever known who does that.
Back in the days before the soul, when Spike was just a fledgling and I was bored, I'd tie him up and cover his mouth and nose, just to watch him struggle for breath he no longer needed. It's impossible to suffocate a vampire, but if I cut off Spike's air for long enough, he'd pass out. He'd come to game-faced and furious and then we'd have some fun, he and I.
I used to think Dru had screwed up his Turning, or that he got a defective demon. But that wasn't the case. Spike is as much a vampire as any other I've ever met. It's just that somewhere deep down inside, there's a part of him that has never really accepted that he's not human anymore.
Once you know that, Spike's a lot easier to understand.
He's sleeping now, restless and uneasy, but not thrashing about like I know he usually does when the dreams aren't good ones. He won't really be able to move until the drugs wear off, which they tell me will be in another few hours. It's ridiculous, really. Intravenous shots shouldn't have affected Spike at all. Vampires have no heartbeat, no circulation to speak of. The only way to dope a vampire is to dose some blood and trick him into drinking it. But Spike's not your normal vampire. Sometimes I wonder if he has a pulse.
The bandages around his forearms are crisp and clean and white, matching the starched linen on the bed in color if not in texture. There's something incongruous about a vampire in a hospital bed. After all, he's already dead. But Spike's got his hands back, and he won't even have a scar to mark where they're been taken, and if the price of that is a few days' rest in the hospital wing, I'm sure he won't complain. Much.
I should go. I don't want to be here when he wakes up. He wasn't surprised I came to check up on him, but if he wakes up and I'm still here, he might start to think I actually care. That's unacceptable for a whole host of reasons. So I'm going to leave, and try not to think about how close that blade came to his neck. I'll try not to think about how Buffy doesn't trust me anymore, and how Spike's the only thing in my life that's currently making sense. Because he's got a soul. Because he seems to know what to do with it.
I dim the lights and leave the room. In the silent hallway, the only thing I can hear is Spike breathing in his sleep.
~~~~~ Fin ~~~~~
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