Prompt # 362 - Malleable - Malleable - BTVS - comlodge

[comlodge.livejournal.com]

Title: Malleable

Author: comlodge
Charachters: Spike
Genre: Fiction - Angst
Rating: MA. For mention of death, burial alive, violence
Words: 1470
Prompt: tamingthemuse Malleable
Disclaimer: Charachters belong to someone cleverer than I. Just having a free for all play with them. The sandbox is big enough for all of us.
Summary: A one shot set in Season 6 Dead Things, after the alley.

Spike woke up in agony, lying on the floor of his crypt, beside his worn, but much loved, easy chair. He rolled over and groaned aloud. His face was on fire. Felt like every bone in it was broken. He wasn't sure how he'd managed to get his broken body from the alley beside the police station, back to his crypt, last night. He remembered the journey had been slow and painful, but the details were lost in the painful fog of concussion. Why the hell a vampire got concussion when their bloody circulation was stuff all and their brain was supposed to be dead. 'Course he'd been pummeled by the best. If anyone could give him a concussion, it was her. He sat up, waited until the world stop spinning, then hauled himself up into the chair.

His left eye wouldn't open at all and his right was swollen and sticky with blood. He pulled his shirt up to gingerly dab at it, clearing away enough of the congealed blood to allow him a little dim, blurred vision. His hands ran across his face, feeling the bones, pushing a little to realign a cheek bone. Bloody nose was broken, as usual. He put his thumb one side and fingers against the other and twisted the bone back into place. Fuck! No matter how many times he did that, the sharp pain still set his teeth on edge. He felt gingerly along his jaw. Broken, though in one piece, so it would heal fine without any intervention. He sighed and dropped his head against the back of the chair. Bloody, buggering fuck, but unlife was getting to be more than he could bear. He closed his eye and waited for the strength to gather enough, for the trip across to the fridge.

He'd always been malleable, a trait that had allowed him to cope with the unpleasant side of life when he was a lad in good old Queen Vic's day. Even for the minor houses, life was hard if you were a young, good looking boy of slight build. He'd grieved when his father died but, it had meant that he was able to leave boarding school and be home tutored instead. School had been an endless round of fagging for the older boys and fending off unwanted advances. He was quick witted and had always been able to talk his way out of unnatural demands. He'd learnt early in life, when to stand his ground and when to give in and run or at least look like he was.

His adaptability became an even more valuable trait, when he'd had to learn to deal with whatever unlife had thrown at him, from the night he rose, alone, in an unmarked grave. He'd been put their by his insane sire and future paramour and raison d'etre.  She'd buried him in a pauper's grave dug for some impoverished denizen of the London slums. Dropped him in and covered him with a thin layer of dirt. Enough that the grave workers didn't notice anything untoward when they dropped the grave's proper occupant in, early the next morning, and filled the open grave.

He'd woken, three days later to utter blackness, a heavy weight on his body, and panic in his heart. He'd have screamed himself hoarse, except the first opening of his mouth, was filled with cloying soil. His hands scrabbled in the dirt as he struggled to hold the last meager vestiges of air in his lungs. When his hands met the other occupant of the grave, he forgot himself and opened his mouth to scream again. The wet, clogging clay pushed to fill it instead. His terror was absolute. He pushed at the soft obstacle above him with all his strength. It moved a little, enough that he could turn half on his side and get both hands to the soil there. He began clawing at it, pushing it under him as he went. His digging took him from under the rag wrapped figure that shared his tomb and up, towards the surface.

Fortunately for him, London grave diggers in this poor cemetery, were none to particular with their workmanship. The soil had been loose and easily moved, the lack of a coffin aided his escape. He'd dug frantically, furiously, all the while waiting for the burning in his chest to become so great that he would be forced to gulp for air, when surely he would suffocate, as his mouth filled with the dirt that still surrounded him. The thought spurred him on and he'd felt his hand break through to the surface. His other had followed quickly and he'd begun to pull himself from the sucking soil, when someone grabbed one of his hands and lifted him, as though he were a small child, pulling him from the ground that had so recently been his grave, to instead dangle over it. He'd choked and spit up dirt all the while struggling to be released and regain his feet.

"Stop yer struggling, yer stupid daft bastard. I'm jest helping yer into the world. Lucky yer dizzy sire remembered where she put ya." He'd looked up then, into the smiling, handsome face of a well dressed, young gentleman, much taller then he, who held him up by one hand, as though he weighed nothing at all.

"Um, urgh. Unhand me, sir. Please." He coughed and turned his head to spit the dirt laden

"None o' that laddie. Ye'll be doing what I tell ye, now."  With that, the man shook him like a rag doll, so hard that he thought he would pass out. As it was, clods of dirt and debris dropped from his clothing. "Ah, you're a bit worse for the wear, but nothing a good feeding won't fix. Feeling a mite peckish, laddie?" The man looked him up and down. "Let's see what Dru is bringing to the family, then." The man reached his free hand toward him and brushed away some of the loose dirt still clinging to his coat. "You're a small one then, aren't you? Might be something worth looking at, under the dirt, though, I'd be thinking. What would I be calling you, then?"

"Please, sir. Please, stop shaking me and p-put me down. I, I feel quite light headed and you're making me ill. P-please. M-my name is William Pratt."

"Well, well. A gentleman ye be, then? Lovely manners you have, boyo. Well, Willie me lad, I'm thinking you'd be wanting to get clean and maybe have a bite to eat, about now." The man lowered him to the ground, and he stood, unsteadily, on legs that felt as solid as the jello cook sometimes made. He reached a hand out to the headstone beside him and used it to brace himself.

"Come along, Willie, me boyo. We've not got all night to be waiting on the likes of you. Best be getting back home, afore the sun puts a halt to your new life." With that the man turned and strode off into the gathering fog. He watched him go, then looked around at his surrounds, deciding that perhaps he'd best go with his strange Samaritan before something else untoward befell him. Just then his stomach growled. He was, it appeared, quite famished indeed. He hoped this Irish gentleman was leading him to a nice warm home. He could do with a wash and some hot food and something to wash the taste of dirt from his mouth.

Spike shook himself. Fuck, he'd not thought of his rising for decades. Not till her saw her hands. Knew what the marks meant. Shivered and felt horrified as though it'd been yesterday when he'd crawled from his own grave. Horrified for himself and for her. He'd known exactly what she'd been through. Right then, holding her hands in his, he'd have killed those stupid Scoobies for doing that to her, even if his head exploded. The anger at their stupidity, at what they had done to her, still ran hot when he thought on it. Bugger, he was so messed up. He loved the bint. Loved her more than his unlife. She'd left him lying there in that bloody alley. He'd seen her leave the station house and she hadn't so much as glanced toward where she'd left him lying. Where he still laid. He'd be dust now if he'd not gotten out of the alley before morning. He should hate her. Just for that.

But he didn't. Couldn't. He struggled up out of the chair. Best to get some blood down and get healed, ready for the next round of kick the Spike or fuck him. Hell, he'd be whatever she wanted him to be. He was malleable. Always had been.

Comments

[slaymesoftly.livejournal.com]

Oh, what a poignant, sad use of the prompt. Love the look back to William's childhood and how he survived.

[comlodge.livejournal.com]

Thank you. :D