Title: Lotophagi
Pairing: assumed Spike/Buffy, but it's not the point of the fic
Warning: Possibly disturbing Spike violence of the unredeemed kind
Word Count: 1,195

Author's Note: This fic...is an odd one. It's really a pretty meta-type fic as I wrote it after a run-in with someone who had a not-so-complimentary opinion on Spike's character. This fic was my way of attempting to understand their point of view.

A few things about the fic (that are implied in the actual fic, but I'll explicitly spell them out here): This takes place 1 year after NFA in a world where Buffy and Spike got together after AtS, and then they died together in battle. This fic appends its own version of Heaven and Hell to the series. These are not the Christian Heaven and Hell. And this fic isn't at all speculating on the canonicity of these afterlives. It's just the setting.

Very special thanks to both drknit and pennydrdful who beta'd this fic and gave me valuable feedback on it.

I wrote a commentary for this fic if you're interested.



"They started at once, and went about among the Lotus-eaters, who did them no hurt, but gave them to eat of the lotus, which was so delicious that those who ate of it left off caring about home, and did not even want to go back and say what had happened to them, but were for staying and munching lotus with the Lotus-eater without thinking further of their return..."
- The Odyssey, Chapter IX

The joint pops and tendons snap as brutal forces rip the arm from its place. The girl shrieks with pain and terror. His visage is animal, but his laugh is all human. It's Spike's laugh. He garners amusement from the girl's tears as he sinks his fangs into her throat, shaking his head from side to side to cause her further panic.

Drusilla stands behind the pair, watching and idly licking her lips. A gurgle rises from the girl's mouth as she's drained.

"Spike, don't kill her yet. Let me play with her!" Drusilla bounces.

His head snaps up, revealing bloodied teeth beneath lips curled in a snarl. The girl's breath quickens in overwhelming fright as Spike roughly shoves her toward his lover.

The shudders won't stop. I want to look away, but I know they won't let me. They want me to see.

So I watch until the ugly scene comes to an end. I watch as the little girl is torn to pieces and her flesh and blood are consumed with the viciousness of animals.

"Slayer." The representative of The Powers sounds bored. "This is the creature you're attempting to defend. This is the demon that you want with you in Heaven."

I shake my head. "But...that isn't him. He's changed. He got a soul. He saved the world - "

"He spent 122 years without a soul, beholden to his demon, engaging in countless acts of savagery. You're asking us to excuse that on the basis of three years on the straight and narrow?"

Yes. Yes, I am. I have to. My eternity in Heaven isn't paradise if he's not by my side as he had been for the past year. Things had been perfect.

"Do you wish to see another scene?"

"No!" I don't ever want to see him like that again. "Listen, he's a vampire. He...that's what vampires do and it's bad. Bad, very very bad. Wrong. But...he got his soul..."

"Would that comfort that small child you saw him brutalize? Or her parents?"

"He was trying to be good..."

"He was trying to secure a place in your affections." The stone-faced judge pauses. "And it worked."

"He doesn't deserve to be in Hell."

"His past crimes suggest otherwise."

"What are you doing?" The young man looks confused. His face bears the distinctive traits of Down's Syndrome.

"Just turn your head, mate. You'll feel a bit of a pinch."

"I said I don't want to see this!" I protest.

"And yet you don't seem to understand his past."

Spike strikes. The man cries out, struggling in vain.

"Please...stop!"

The man succeeds in kicking Spike's shins. Spike draws back, face contorted in annoyance as blood drips down his chin. He punches the man hard enough to send his head back, snapping against the brick wall behind him.

"Be a good meal and stop kicking," Spike orders as he grabs his victim by the hair, yanking his head to the side again to expose his neck more fully.

The man sobs quietly as Spike feeds.

"Okay, yes, he was bad. He did bad things. But he changed. He became good," I say. My stomach feels upside-down after watching those scenes. My hands are shaking so I ball them into fists to try to stop the tremors.

"Getting his soul - "

"No!" I interrupt. "Not just getting his soul. Before that. He did good after he got chipped." I ordinarily don't think about it, because it was a time when I rejected every good thing he did. But I have no other way of convincing the Powers. Surely, they had to understand the magnitude of a vampire withstanding torture and taking care of young girls with no expectation of a reward. That had to count for something in persuading them that he was worthy.

The representative doesn't look impressed, though. "After he was implanted with the government chip? He assisted the creature, Adam, in his chaotic plans. He kidnapped a doctor and forced him to perform an operation, putting Riley Finn's life in danger to do so. With his ex-lover's assistance, he killed and fed off a couple in your city. He also chained you up and threatened to feed you to his ex-lover - "

I close my eyes against the onslaught. "Right, right. Okay! All bad things." I look up to the light shining through the high windows into the vast chamber. "But he tried to be good."

"He tried to 'win' you. His soul was earned through purely selfish motives."

I laugh without humor. "A vampire voluntarily getting a soul is enough to make me take notice."

"Another perversion. He contaminates the soul by exposing it to his demon. It's an abomination of the natural order of things to taint a soul with the evil yearnings of a demon."

"Don't Slayers also have a demon or some demonic power in them?"

"But Slayers are good."

There's something wrong with that argument, but my mind is too exhausted to figure it out. Everything I say gets shot down anyway. I think I'm losing. Losing the fight. Losing him.

"Spike died fighting beside me," I say. "He died fighting to save the world. I know he's done bad things - been­ bad. I know. But...does that mean he could never be good? That there's no coming back if you fall off the path of righteousness? I don't know about his 'motivations' in pretty much anything he did. But loving me, trying to be good because of that love...I can't see that as a bad thing." Isn't love all you need? I look into the representative's unsympathetic eyes. "Please?"

The purgatory waits in silence.

"Is that all you have to say in his defense?"

What else is there to say? I nod.

"Very well. We shall confer with each other and review Spike's judgment. We will give your words the weight they deserve, as a Slayer. In the meantime, we will return you to Heaven. You will be informed if we decide to honor him with an eternity beside you. If not...well...you'll be in Heaven. You will forget your grievance, as is customary in the land of lotus-eaters. It is your reward."

"No! No, let me stay here while you do the review! Don't leave me waiting in Heaven!" Heaven is an enforced paradise. And it can't be paradise when you long for your loved ones. So they will make me forget or not care or...just not think about him. The very thought makes me panic. Waiting without knowing about it. Missing him without remembering him. The sullied bliss of ignorance. "Please," I implore. "Don't make me forget - "

Heaven takes me. It doesn't matter anymore.