Spike growled as he paced the waiting room, his fangs flashing
under the artificial lights. He wanted to hit something. Anything.
In fact, the only thing stopping him from starting a fight with one
of the other beasts in the room was the Clint Eastwood look the all-
too-human receptionist was giving him. Now that would be soddin'
embarrassing. His ego was taking enough of a beating without the
added humiliation of getting his arse kicked by a mortal just because
he couldn't hurt the git. He just wished he could have met the
uppity little Happy Meal with legs without the bloody chip in his
head so he really could have made the bastard's day.
And of course, this was the moment one of the more annoying of
the voices in his head chose to put in its two cents. {That's what
you wish? Not that we weren't having mushy dreams about the effin'
slayer? Not that we weren't turning into our prancing poof of a
Sire? Your priorities are completely buggered, you know.} The blond
turned his best snarl on himself. {Shut up. Shut up! SHUT UP! I do
*not* have a bloody soul. I am *not* bleedin' Angelus. And I am
*definitely* not in love with the bloody slayer.}
All this mental rant accomplished was to give Spike's internal
voices a good laugh at his expense. {I didn't say anythin' about
*love*, mate.} smirked the voice that had spoken before. {You added
that all by your lonesome.} chuckled another. "Leave me the hell
alone!" shrieked the increasingly tormented vampire. Then, borrowed
blood turned his pale face blue as he realized he had spoken out
loud. {Talkin' to yourself's the first sign of going 'round the
twist, innit, Spike? Always knew we'd be followin' in Dru's loony
footsteps.} This, in turn, made yet another little voice laugh its
metaphorical arse off. {Followin'? You really think she's still
ahead of you? She's just shaggin' a Chaos demon, mate. You're the
one who wants to get a leg over on the slayer.} Grr. Sometimes he
could really get to hate his sarcastic alter egos.
{Shut up, self. I do *not* want to get a leg over on the
slayer.} This pronouncement had every little voice in Spike's head
laughing hysterically. The cruelest of them managed to speak. {Oh,
that's right. *She* was the one jumping *you*.} The blond vamp
finally gave up on arguing with himself and just started banging his
head against a wall. He was so focused on that activity that the tap
on his shoulder came as a complete surprise. Startled from his
reverie, Spike turned and caught the hand that had disturbed him,
intending to remove it not only from his own shoulder but from its
owner's arm. A sharp warning from the chip made him reject that idea
immediately. Muttering rather inventive obscenities directed at the
now defunct Initiative, the much chagrined vampire turned to the
human annoyance.
"What do *you* want, mate?"
The human's eyes dipped to the clipboard in his free hand.
"Mr. The Bloody?"
"Who wants to know?"
"The doctor will see you now."
Spike's expression changed to what could almost be called a
smile.
"Well, it's about bloody time."
He let the mortal lead him out of the waiting room and down a
hall, steeling himself for the inevitable confrontation, but he was
totally unprepared for the sight awaiting him in the office at the
end of the hall.
* * * * * * *
The young girl behind the desk smiled up at the startled blond,
brushing her chestnut hair back from her face.
"Oh, good. You must be my three o'clock. Come in."
Oblivious to the vampire's distress, the receptionist spoke up.
"I'd be careful with this one, D. He's been acting like he
wants to rip somebody apart."
The young woman favored her receptionist with a dazzling smile.
"He probably does. Don't worry about me, Stephen. I can take
care of myself."
Blowing a kiss to the departing receptionist, the petite
brunette turned her attention to the thunderstruck vampire in her
doorway.
"Now how can I help you today?"
With considerable effort, Spike managed to say the first thing
that came to his much-troubled mind.
"Isn't it past your bedtime, pet?"
Green eyes gave way to gold as the irritated vampiress sent the
blond a steely glare.
"You should seriously rethink that remark."
A severely startled William the Bloody staggered back a pace,
crashed into the doorframe, and landed unceremoniously on his arse,
shifting to his human features in the process.
"Bloody hell!" {The little chit was a vampire!}
The now-bemused vampiress rolled her yellow eyes heavenward,
indifferent to the irony inherent in the gesture, before moving to
aid her fallen client.
"Why do they always react like this?" she asked herself as she
helped Spike onto the leather couch which dominated the decor of the
office. She figured she had better alleviate the worst of her fellow
demon's confusion, starting with returning to her human face. "All
right, I'm going to give you the short version. A: yes, I am a
vampire, B: yes, I am a psychiatrist, C: yes, I do specialize in
demon psychology, and D: I'm eight hundred and twenty-four years old
so E: you had better dispense with the annoying endearments, and if
you don't feel you can do that, you can go F yourself."
The younger vampire took a moment to assimilate that information.
"So what am I supposed to call you, then?"
"Doctor. Either that or Damiane. That's my original name."
"Great to meet you, doc. My name's-"
Damiane cut her patient off in mid-sentence.
"Actually, if you're planning on saying anything . . . personal,
it'll be easier for both of us if I don't know your real name."
Spike shuddered inwardly. {She's right. If another vamp knew I
was thinking about this, I'd stake m'self.}
"What are you goin' to call me, then?"
The ancient vampiress looked the blond over critically.
"How about Slim?"
Thoroughly nonplused, Spike glanced down at his own body. {What
the Hell? I'm not that scrawny, am I?}
"Was that supposed to be a crack about my size?"
The older vampire shook her head.
"I was thinking more of Slim Shady." Seeing no spark of
recognition, the psychiatrist pressed on. "You know, Eminem?"
The bottle blond arched one eyebrow at her.
"I don't mind bein' compared to chocolate, doc, but I'm
definitely *not* bite-size."
The undead doctor sighed.
"I was talking about the rapper." Damiane paused to change from
her natural accent to the nasal tones of the subject at hand, "As
in, 'Hi, kids, do you like violence? Want to see me stick nine-inch
nails through each one of my eyelids?'"
Spike just had to smile at that one.
"Never heard of the bloke, but he sounds like my kind of people."
"All right, Slim it is. Now, is there something that's been
troubling you?"
For the second time in less than five minutes, William the
Bloody was speechless. He was somewhat reluctant to admit his
problem to the girl in the same way he was somewhat reluctant to take
up sunbathing. {More like you don't want to admit it to yerself,
mate.} Ignoring his inner voices, the blond vampire summoned the
courage to speak.
"I- I think I'm in love with the slayer."
The frown on Damiane's lips was a mixture of confusion and
concern.
"Well, is she the type you'd normally be attracted to?"
An image of his dark princess formed in Spike's head, followed
closely by the face of his sire. Then, the sudden thought of Harmony
made him wince.
"Me attracted to the blonde bint? God, no!" he spat, "I 'appen
to prefer brunettes."
A troubled look crossed the older vampire's face.
"Have you recently been in possession of a soul as the result of
a curse or other majickal influence?"
Spike blinked at this apparent non sequitur.
"What? No! Why the hell would you think *that*?"
"Sorry," apologized the dark-haired vampire, "I just had a
patient a couple years ago with the same problem, and *he* said it
was because he'd been stuck in the same body with a soul for too
long."
Groaning, the blond slumped in his chair. {Oh, this was
brilliant. Why did I have to pick the same bloomin' shrink as the
soddin' ponce?}
"Maybe because I'm the only vampire psychiatrist in Sunnyhell?"
At that, Spike's blue eyes sprang wide open in shock. {The chit
read my mind! But that's-}
"Impossible? Hardly. There's more things in hell and earth
than are dreamt of even in *your* philosophy, Slim. Since it seems
to bother you so much, I'll stop directly responding to your
thoughts. Does that sound all right to you?"
A sullen Spike nodded. He didn't like people mucking about in
his head. {That's what got me into this soddin' mess in the first
place.}
Much to the blond's annoyance, the telepathic vampire seemed to
pick up on that thought.
"If you don't mind my asking, just how did you get into such an
interesting situation with the slayer?"
Spike sighed.
"Well, it all started when the government put a bloody chip in
my head . . ."
* * * * * * *
" . . . and then, I realized that not only is the effin' chip
*still* in my head, but I've pissed off the slayer yet again. If she
hadn't been busy savin' her little boy toy, I'd be dust right now."
The psychiatrist looked up at her patient.
"I have to tell you; so far I'm not seeing love in any of this.
Lust, sure, but since you're male and not dust, that's pretty much a
given. Even when you were talking about the "will be done" spell, I
was just getting a lot of disgust. Unless you were doing some "the
demon doth protest too much" thing there, I don't know what you're
worrying about."
The younger vampire smiled painfully.
"That's because I haven't told you about the dreams yet."
"The dreams?"
Spike's blond head sank into his hands.
"I've been having these *dreams* . . . about the slayer."
The brunette vampiress raised an eyebrow.
"These dreams would be of a . . . romantic nature?"
From Spike's reaction, that question had never been asked.
"I was in my crypt, asleep in my chair."
"Do you usually sleep in a chair?" interrupted the doctor.
"Of course not," he growled, but in his mind's eye, he saw
himself tied to a chair in the whelp's basement. Even more
bizarrely, his own voice echoed in his ears: [I'm not having these
two shag while I'm tied to a chair three feet away.] {Why was that
again? I'd never been one to pass up a free show before.} Cursing
inwardly, the slight blond squashed that thought. Dreaming about
the slayer was one thing. Thinking about the bleedin' Slayerettes
was a whole new level of humiliation, especially inside the range of
a telepath.
"Slim? Is there something wrong? I asked you if you knew any
reason why you'd dream you were sleeping in a chair."
The less-than-patient patient felt his fangs descend as he
glared at the pushy head-shrinker.
"How the bloody hell should I know? Probably because I've done
it a couple of times. What does it matter?"
Against his will, the memory of one of those times came flooding
through Spike's brain. This time, it was the whelp's voice that he
heard in his head: [I happen to be very biteable, pal. I'm moist and
delicious.] The light-haired vampire licked his lips involuntarily,
hoping to Hell that the nosy doctor hadn't heard that.
Damiane gave him what was supposed to be a calming look.
"All right, maybe it doesn't matter. Don't get your shorts in a
knot. Go on with the story."
Spike let out a sigh worthy of his sire and tried to continue
talking about his dream.
"Then, the slayer busts in and tells me she'd have been there
sooner if she hadn't been cleaning up my mess."
"Your mess?"
"The thing with her little soldier boy. For some reason, she
blames me for that."
Even as he said those words, his mind conjured up the image of a
pipe pouring water in an uncomfortably familiar basement apartment.
A voice painfully similar to that of a certain dark-haired Slayerette
spoke up in Spike's fevered brain: [When you're done fixing that
leak, try cleaning up *this* mess.] The blond's face flushed blue at
the direction his thoughts were taking. {What the hell is this? Do
I have to fantasize about *every* white-hatted goody-goody I 'appen
to run across?} The disconcertingly familiar voice picked this
moment to whisper another little gem from his past: [You earn your
keep or you don't get kept.] The tormented vampire bit back a moan
as those words took on a less-than-innocuous meaning, sending
maddeningly delicious stirrings through his nether regions. Somehow,
he was no longer concerned about his *face* being blue. {You can
just stop that right now. We are *not* getting a soddin' hard-on
from thinkin' about being a kept man for the little wanker.} One of
the truly wicked denizens of Spike's mind took particular pleasure in
envisioning the literal interpretation of that last insult in lurid
detail. The British vampire shifted uncomfortably in his seat and
made a mental note to get larger trousers. {Because we are
definitely *not* getting all hot and bothered from picturing the
whelp whackin' off.}
"All right, then what happened?"
The bleached blond tried to focus on the topic at hand.
"So then, the little bitch pulls out a stake, and I can just
guess what she's aimin' to do with it."
The vampiress sent him a bemused look across the desk.
Something about it made Spike just a bit nervous.
"What?"
The bemused look blossomed into a full-fledged grin.
"Well, it's not exactly hot dogs and doughnuts, but I think I
get the picture."
Mortified beyond belief, Spike let his head sink into his hands
as the merciless inmates of his subconscious descended on that bit of
Freudian imagery like a pack of wolves. As a particularly graphic
visual of himself splayed out on his stomach with a certain dark-
haired mortal pounding into him caught the attention of the part of
the chipped vampire that was currently calling the shots, the tiny
fraction of Spike that was still thinking from above the waist hoped
to Hell that he wasn't giving a free show to the mind reader across
the desk from him. With that disturbing thought to act as a splash
of cold water, the sane part of Spike managed to take back control of
his brain. {Never should have lost it in the first place. I'm
really going to have to take m'self in hand.} Patently ignoring the
mental voice pointing out the second meaning of that thought, he
returned to talking about his dream.
"So then, I just can't take it anymore. I take off m' shirt and
tell 'er to just let me have it. An' instead of dustin' me, she
kisses me."
The older vampire's brow wrinkled inquisitively.
"Wait. Back up. You took off your shirt before asking her to
stake you?"
Spike's own eyebrows rose to mesh with his hairline. { I just
said the slayer kissed me and she's fixating on *that*?}
"Yeah. What of it?"
"Can you think of any reason why you'd do that?"
This was the point the newest voice in Spike's head chose to
speak up: [For one thing, that's my shirt you're about to dust.] The
blond vampire's mind went back to his ill-contrived attempt to end
his unlife. The words were out of his mouth before he could even
think about stopping them.
"Nummy wouldn't dust me with it on."
The vampiress's green eyes crossed in confusion.
"Nummy?"
Spike's blue eyes widened in shock. {Holy Hell, did I say that
out loud?} He searched his mind frantically for a halfway decent lie.
"The slayer."
The other vampire's green eyes turned gold as she tried in vain
to make sense out of that surreal concept.
"Why the *hell* would you call the slayer-"
Fortunately for Spike, that question was cut off by a clock
chiming the hour.
"Well, doc, it looks like I'm out of time."
And with that, the thoroughly relieved vampire was off the couch
and out of the office in a second. Only after he was reasonably sure
he was out of the mind-reader's range did he allow himself to think.
{Well, on the bright side, we're not going to be pickin' out china
patterns with the slayer anytime soon. That's good, isn't it?} One
of his internal voices chimed in. {And you can't say you're turnin'
into the ponce, now. He just went after the slayer. *You're*
looking at virgin territory, mate.} At that frankly gratifying
thought, the blond's erection made itself known by brushing against
the zipper of his jeans. {Bloody hell, I have *got* to start wearin'
skivvies.} Now that he had really thought about it, this situation
was better than the one he'd come in with. Only one creature of the
night had been dumb enough to fall for the slayer. Nummy Treat,
however, was a different story. {What was it that Red called him? A
demon magnet? Yeah, that sounds right. Doesn't take a genius to
figure out she didn't mean that they want to rip the boy apart.}
As he turned the corner into the cemetery, Spike decided he
liked that idea. He wasn't one to go against his demonic nature.
Smiling with his demon's face, he lit a cigarette. The night was
definitely looking up.
When he opened the door to his crypt, Spike let his cigarette
fell from nerveless fingers, and his mouth dropped open in shock.
Harmony had been thorough. The screen on his telly was smashed in.
The VCR looked like it had lost an argument with a sledgehammer.
His "Passions" tapes had been unraveled and then shredded. His Sex
Pistols CDs, repurchased after that nasty business with the Ring of
Amara, were in pieces all over the floor, and a message in lipstick
on the wall invited him to an activity he was reasonably sure would
be anatomically impossible even if he had ridden into town on a
horse. Chuckling softly to himself, he knelt to start cleaning up
the mess. {I never knew I talked in my sleep. To be honest, that
was one bird I'm not sorry to see the back of. Just wish she hadn't
trashed the place before she buggered off.} After returning his home
to some semblance of order, the blond settled himself for a good
day's sleep. {At least I know I'm not going to have another blinkin'
dream.}
* * * * * * *
Spike opened his eyes to find himself seated in a chair.
{Soddin' Hell! Not this again!} When the door blew open, he rose
from his seat, keeping his gaze fixed on the floor. {You don't need
to look when you know what's coming.} Now, what was his line again?
"Should have known it's you. Been nearly six hours."
"Oh, yeah? Well, some things are worth waiting for, blondie."
{What the-? That wasn't in the script! And the voice didn't
sound right either.}
The fair-haired vampire raised his eyes from the floor and got
the shock of his unlife when they met the chocolate brown orbs of
Xander Harris.
"Harris? What the hell are *you* doing here?"
The mortal's eyes sparkled in cold amusement.
"I think you know why I'm here, Fangless. We've had this date
with each other from the beginning."
Before Spike could figure out just why the whelp was quoting
Tennessee Williams at him, Xander was across the room and pinning the
Big Bad to the wall.
"Xander? What are you-"
"You know what, Spike? You talk too much."
Any further objections, not that the bleached vampire had any,
were cut off when the warm human mouth took Spike's own in a
punishing kiss. The blond leaned into that kiss, opening his mouth
to allow admittance to the mortal's tongue.
"You're *mine*, Spike," Xander growled into the vampire's mouth.
"God, pet, I love you."
* * * * * * *
The first thing William the Bloody noticed as he regained
consciousness was that something was poking him in the back and that
it didn't feel like anything good. Rolling over to look, he
grimaced. So that was where "Anarchy in the UK" had gotten to.
Clearing the remains of his favorite album out of his bed, Spike
turned his thoughts to his latest dream. A slow smile spread over
the blond vampire's features.
"I knew I preferred brunettes," murmured Spike into his pillow,
just as he slipped back into the embrace of sleep.
The Beginning
