Naturally, I didn’t. How could I? Injure somebody already so hurt in body, mind, and now, I guess, soul? That would make me more of a monster than any of the ones I’ve fought.
But I wanted to. I wanted to batter that lost, unhappy face into an unrecognizable pulp kind of like I did before in the alley. I’m sure that makes me a monster too.
Know what? I don’t care. Because I didn’t ask him to do this. I never said, “Gosh, Spike, if only you had a soul, we’d settle down and be happy ever after.”
I never asked him for any of it, not to show up in Sunnydale with Drusilla, not to get chipped by the Initiative, not to fall in love with me.
Yeah, I used him to help fight Glory – the world was going to end which would have affected him too. Plus, which one of us jumped off that tower? Here’s a hint. It wasn’t him.
I used him when I came back too. So shoot me for trying to find a reason to not walk in front of a bus. I knew it wrong while I was doing it, but for once, I was simply too weak to care. He knew it was wrong as much as I did. I never lied to him, never said it was love, and he was happy enough to take what I offered. Even when I got my head together enough to stop it for good, Spike didn’t want to. Boy, did he not want to.
I told him not to love me. I warned him, and it wasn’t like he didn’t have examples of what happens to men who get involved with me.
I can still see Riley beat his hand into the wall, hear him explain how he can’t have his surgery because it would make him too weak to hold my interest. I can still see Angel heading away into the night for my own good.
Fuck them. I didn’t ask for any of that stuff. I didn’t want Riley to be Superstud or Angel to leave. They came up with those ideas by themselves, like Spike and his soul, but somehow it’s all my fault and I have to deal with the fallout.
Good old Parker. At least, he just took off without making me responsible for everything that happens his life.
‘Can we rest now?’ News flash, Spike. I was resting. I was finally over being resurrected, Dawn and I were getting along, and I had a job that wasn’t grease-intensive. My life was as stable as it ever got. Now, you’re back and everything is very not restful.
Oh, you offered to leave if I said so, putting whatever happened after that on me too. And now I have to worry about you and your brand new soul. The one you got for me. The way I didn’t ask you to.
The ghosts in the school blamed me for their deaths. Everyone else blames me for their lives. Am I a monster for not wanting this? Probably. But I can't seem to care.