breakmychest | Entries tagged with you always hurt the one you love

[Action spam for anyone Spike would want to say goodbye to personally.]

[Spike's ready to go home, but he's not leaving without saying goodbye. He'll spend a few hours walking through hallways and knocking on his friend's doors before he leaves.]

[Public video]

[After his private goodbyes are said, Spike turns on the video feed.]

Right, so, my inmate's graduated, now I'm going home. I'll probably be back. So, uh, goodbye.

[ooc: He'll stick around long enough to reply to people, and I'll be backthreading through my hiatus. For the action spam, if your character's got a very close relationship with Spike, he'll stop by. Otherwise, they can run into him in the halls or reply to the post, of course. See you in August!]

Anyone want to spar in the gym? I'd also be up for getting very, very drunk.

[Locked from Buffy]

People generally are different during the Breaches, right? Even more so then during floods or ports?

How different?

[Private to Bruce and Elric separately]

Did you speak to Buffy during the Breach?

[In this particular circumstance, "speak" means "have sex."]

[Private to Fred]

You get through the madness in one piece?

[Private to Elphaba]

How goes your quest for friendship?

[The camera turns on to reveal a frail-looking old woman in Victorian garb. She seems rather confused by the contraption, but she does understand how it works thanks to the general Barge run-down she's received. When she notices that it's recording, she smiles and sits back. She's on a beaten up looking couch and trying to look as if she's not uncomfortable with how old it looks, or how very modern the room is. She partially succeeds.]

Hello, I am Mrs. Anne Pratt. I hear my son William is a Warden here. [She frowns for a moment.] Though I can hardly believe this is his room. He seems to have... adjusted. [Her face smooths over, and she smiles again.] I'm very proud of him, even if I--

[She stops and coughs into a handkerchief for several seconds.] Excuse me. [She sips from a glass of water, then continues.]

It's not the direction I'd have expected, but I am certain he's doing good work.

[She smiles again, then turns off the camera.]

[Spike is sick of being in the infirmary. He's not really feeling healthy by any definition of the word, but he didn't get where he is today by letting things like that get in his way.]

Right. Checking myself out, doc!

[He doesn't wait for an answer before swinging his legs out of the bed. He gets hit by a wave of dizziness, but he puts a hand on the wall until it subsides. Then he grabs his coat and starts making his way slowly out of the infirmary. If any doctor tries to stop him, he will glare. He's not really over his death toll, but he's going to spend the rest of it in his own room with his own Passions DVDs. And he will make it, even if he has to stop a few times and take the elevator.]

[ooc: Open for replies over the journals, for which we can assume some elapsed time because he isn't responding until he reaches his destination, or spam from anyone in the medical room, near his room, or anywhere in between. Also, of course, open to horribly awkward hugs. Or non-awkward hugs, but those seem less likely.]

God, the incessant nattering from all of you, especially lately. All these stupid complaints and general whinging. Makes a bloke want to rip out all your throats.

And just like that, no more Dru. Can't say I'll miss her, exactly, but I'd have liked it if she could've graduated. I mean, we had fun, back in the bad old days. Not saying I'd go back to being an evil killer. There's the soul-crushing guilt keeping me from that, and besides, I like being a hero. I'm way better at it than I ever was at being the Big Bad.

[He's quiet for a moment.]

Still, before she turned me, I was a bloody pathetic poofter. People were calling me "William the Bloody" started before I died, you know, and it wasn't because of anything violent. It was because my poetry was so bloody awful.

[Why did he say that? Spike doesn't tell anyone that. He had more to say, but he just shuts off the journal before he can. He's afraid of what might come out.]

From the sounds of it, I should be glad I missed the latest port. Desert wastelands aren't exactly vampire-friendly. Maybe if we get a particularly cloudy port or something. Still, would have been nice to get out for a bit.

I'll be in the pub if anyone needs me.

[Elphaba]

Check in, love. How's the making friends and influencing people going?

[Drusilla]

Haven't talked to you in a bit. That Warden of yours treating you all right? Did you get caught in the port?

[Spike knows it's a flood, and he's not particularly happy about it. Still, so far he doesn't seem to be affected, as far as he can tell. He's sitting on his bed, smoking, and not looking at the camera, though he knows it's on.]

A flood again? That's bloody brilliant, mates.
What's this one, then? Not musical, thank God.
Guess I'll just watch and see when it abates.

[He glances over at the camera.]

Have people noticed anything that's odd?
The Barge can get so hellishly insane.
With floods and ports, and strange dimensions, right?
The Admiral must like how we curse his name.
How long till he drives vamps with souls to bite?

[He shakes his head, smiling a bit.]

Don't be alarmed, I'm nowhere near that place.
But who can know what horrors next we face?

[ooc: Spike's power, which he cannot turn off, is to speak in perfect iambic pentameter. He shall be answering in rhyming couplets, sonnets, quatrains, whatever I feel like. Also, he hasn't noticed anything amiss himself.]

[Text: Locked to Elphaba and Drusilla (but separately.)]

You all right? Where'd you land?

[Video: Everyone]

[Where Spike usually is, there is instead a surly looking boy with very sharp cheekbones and hair that's been bleached and spiked. His clothes are all black, but there are more chains than Spike usually wears, and the t-shirt is advertising some death metal band. He's touching his neck, right where his pulse is.]

Well. This is an interesting port.

[He drops his hand and puts down his backpack to rifle through it.]

I hope the Admiral isn't expecting me to actually attend school here. Because there is no bloody way. I've dealt with enough teenagers in the past few years to hold me over for an eternity. And I'm not amused by being one of them.

[He pulls out a wallet and starts going through it, pulling the cash out first by habit. Even though it's his wallet and he doesn't steal anymore.]

Right, so apparently I'm William Pratt while I'm here, though people still call me Spike, thank god, and--

[He stops, holding a folded-up photograph he just found in the wallet. It's not viewable rom the journal, but Spike's face is. It's a mixture of horrified, sad, and general surprise. The picture is of the kid he's become and... his mother. Looking just like she did in life, though in more modern clothes.

After a moment he remembers the journal and shuts it off. He has to look at this more closely. It's an impossibility, of course. They didn't take snapshots when he was alive, and when he was a kid, he didn't look like that, but it's still his mother. He stares at it for another moment, then folds it up and slips it into his pocket.]

[Guess who just reached School Hard in his Buffy rewatch? It was a weird experience. On the bright side, Spike comes off as very cool, and the part where he incinerated the Anointed One, well, he's just bloody badass. There's a small part of him that's flattered at the part where Angel talks about how terrifying an enemy he is. And of course, he and Buffy fight brilliantly together. Even if it's just actors, and it's... bloody weird. He's already decided that watching the commentary and such is more than he can take.

He also isn't crazy about seeing himself kill again. And watching Buffy with Angel, knowing how that'll turn out, seeing things he was clearly never meant to witness. Then there's Drusilla. The former love of his life, back when things were good between the two of them. Her being here is confusing and difficult and he wishes he weren't this affected. But he's always love's bitch, even if he's no longer in love with the woman in question.

God, he misses Buffy.]

So, who's found out they're fictional somewhere? And if you have, did you manage to find it? Did you bother looking? Was it... like your life?

[A pause.]

One of the new inmates, Drusilla, she's from my world. She's bloody insane and incredibly deadly. [It's one of those things he used to love about her.] I think she doesn't have a warden yet, so I guess you can talk to me if she gives you trouble. If anyone can help, it's me. Probably.

[Spike's voice is tight and a little wavery, though he's trying not to panic.]

Buffy's room is empty. What-- where is she? What happened? She can't just leave. We were just--

Please someone tell me there's another explanation for this. Tell me she's all right.

I need her.