1.
He likes it when I call him William. It seems a little weird, I know – I mean, he practically spits at anyone that tries to call him William the Bloody instead of Spike, but when we’re alone and I call him William, he purrs. Literally – I never knew that vampires could purr until I told him I loved him, but they can growl too, so I guess it makes sense that they can purr. When Spike does it’s all sweet and rumbly and gives me tinglies all the way down to my toes.
Anyway, yeah, he really likes it when I call him William. I’m not exactly sure why. Maybe it’s because he wasn’t really accepted as a human? Or maybe because it’s my way of showing that I love both sides of him, the man and the demon. It didn’t start out that way, at least not consciously. I remember the first time – I was leaving the house and he was lurking behind his tree. I called him William and snarked at him, and he snarked back as usual, but his eyes kinda lit up.
And then it just evolved into a couple thing without me realizing it. He’s got all these names for me – love, and pet, and my favorite, darling girl – and I call him William, and rub my palm over his belly, and he melts.
2.
My vampire’s a poet. I know – go figure. I had to pry it out of him, but after three hours of…well, let it never be said that I don’t know how to get my way with him. He finally told me about being a “nancy-boy ponce” and his family and writing god-awful poetry for some woman named Cecily, who’s actually Anya’s demon friend. Huh.
We all thought that he was just some street rat that Drusilla picked up, but it turns out his family was pretty well-off. Like, titled and everything, and he went to the same university as Giles. I had to swear up and down that I wouldn’t tell anyone. I think it embarrasses him a little; he believes it clashes with his Big Bad image or something. But he still has stacks and stacks of tattered poetry books stacked in the back of his crypt. He can rattle off all sorts of stuff, too – Wordsworth and Donne and Dickinson and lots of other dead guys.
I probably could tell without him telling me, though. I remember when I drug him to The Bronze to pry out of him how he killed the other Slayers, and how he knelt in front of me and rattled off, “Death is your art. You make it with your hands, day after day. That final gasp, that look of peace…” Well, you know the spiel. That was the first time it occurred to me that he has a way with words. Talk about waxing poetic – I mean, sure, he was talking about death, but boy did it have cadence.
Don’t let him try to convince you that the Kama Sutra is a book of poetry, though. It's not. I learned that the hard way.
3.
And while we’re on the topic of hidden talents – all that fancy gypsy stuff that Dracula can do? Turns out Spike can too. I mean, I haven’t tried staking him lately, and I don’t know if he can turn into a bat, but he can make his teeth come out without the bumpies. He says it’s all about controlling the demon or whatever, but it’s pretty hot, although apparently impractical for ripping people’s throats out.
Then it turns out he can do the thrall thing, too. I guess he learned it from Drusilla (skanky ho-bag that she is), except I don’t think he has the patience to use it. He’d rather punch someone in the face than take the time to overpower their free will. He probably thinks it’s cheating, too – god knows it doesn’t count as a real fight unless he’s beating the crap out of someone. Heaven forbid he win because he outsmarts someone; even though we all know that he’s not stupid, he likes to keep up his street thug act. So he’s not really into brainwashing people.
Except for when I asked for a demonstration. It was pretty funny to watch Xander walk around eating bugs again.
4.
Spike’s a people person, too. He was always hanging around my mom before she died, and he’s a big brother to Dawn. He even has these weird moments of solidarity with Giles. (I think they’re a lot more alike than either one of them wants to admit.) But if I had to say who his best friend is, I’d have to pick Tara.
Yep, Tara – sweet, meek, Wiccan Tara. They talk about cars and magic and I think they watch girls together. She likes to play cards too, and they share an entirely incomprehensible passion for Monty Python. They can act out whole scenes from memory – I know this because it happened at our last Christmas dinner. They used a hunk of ham as a dead parrot, and the glaze got all over the tablecloth.
5.
He’s a damn good fighter, too, my vampire, but his best weapon is the truth. He can cut with it, dazzle with it, blind with it. When he was teamed up with Adam, he had all of us at each other’s throats in hours. Maybe even worse than how well he wields truth as a weapon is how clearly he can see what nobody else can – he’s always the one with the poignant observations. It’s probably what makes his sarcasm so cutting and so funny, too. (Don’t tell him I said that.)
But yeah, his insight – it’s really pretty amazing. And it’s just one more thing that completely goes against his thug persona. Even when we were enemies I couldn’t fool him; he was the one that told me that Angel and I could never be friends. He’s the one who whispered that Willow was a little too controlling with her magic, that Dawn needed to be noticed, to feel real, that Giles only left because he was afraid of loosing me again.
There’s a flip side, though: the man absolutely cannot lie to save his unlife. I mean, for someone who’s supposed to be this monstrous Slayer of Slayers from a revered line of vampires, he comes unglued when he has to tell an untruth. Those big blue eyes of his about pop out of his head, and he starts fidgeting, and his head tilts to the side – but not the way it tilts when he’s watching me, or sizing up an opponent, or doing that whole see-into-your-soul thing, or trying to remember the lineup for Manchester United.
So I know, with complete faith, that when he tells me he loves me? He’s telling the truth.
The End
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