paradisalost | 029; dictated

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spike spiegel

029; dictated

[Jet used to say life goes in cycles, but to Spike, here it's more like a spiral. Lose everything you never really had until you're left with the nothing you started with -- all those ways of thinking that make you a productive member of society. Just wait around for the next suicide mission to pop up and spend the meantime catching up on some sleep. As it happened, Brock's cabin was conveniently left up for grabs, and Spike found his nice little getaway to not give a damn in.

After briefly getting cheered up by the mischief of the 'new gang' in town, he returns with a case of beer to the only place that has nothing but solitude to offer. Sure, it could still use a big TV and a fridge full of food, maybe a decent fan to get some of that musk out of there, but he isn't in the mood to be picky.

It's only after he makes himself comfortable on the couch that he hears something off to the side... Movement catches his eye, and he automatically draws his gun. In the shuffling that follows, the journal falls out of nowhere and opens just in time to pick up a screeching animal and the hollow sound of empty cans scattering to the ground from a nearby pile.]

Hey! [Gunshots fire, but from his shouting, it sounds like he only succeeded in scaring something away.] Sonofabitch... Raccoons now.

[So he'll admit to some drawbacks in this brilliant plan. Maybe the castle is trying to make a point with that journal he sees on the ground and reluctantly reaches for. Everything's always got to be complicated.] Might have had better luck with a tent. Can you wish up bear traps, or is that against the rules?

[Good job checking in, Spike.]

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[Spike closes his journal and sits in the silence of the cabin. The weight of her arrival, of finding him, finally begins to sink in. Numbly, he picks himself up and quietly leaves for the castle.

Walking there, he entertains the idea that he's either drunk and hallucinating or that he's lost his mind. It's possible; seems more possible really, even when he reaches her door and he's staring at the name etched beside it.

He thinks he knocks, but he could be imagining that too. He'll sort out what's real and what's not later. Right now he just needs to see her.]

[Nothing has seemed real to Julia since she practically crash-landed in this place. If 'real' is the right word for it; it's one of those many things that lost its meaning a long time ago. But, here, there's a distinctly different quality of un-real. She has no sense of time. Her days continually bleed into one another, with nothing to separate them. And nothing makes sense.

Maybe she'd been wrong. Maybe this was the dream, and that was... something else. Something....

The sound of someone knocking on the door sets off an almost automatic response from her. She feels herself rising, her feet moving her toward the door, her fingers curling around the doorknob before slowly turning it. All driven by the hope that maybe, just maybe, something will start to make sense again.]

[Spike isn't used to feeling nervous. So much so that he briefly wonders if he might be sick when his stomach forms a neat knot in his gut. Watching the handle turn from the body on the other side that could very possibly not be an illusion, he finds himself wishing beyond hope that seeing her face will snap everything back into place. The part of his soul that was ripped out of him would suddenly fill in and he'd understand...

It's the kind of thing that makes anyone a little dramatic, and desperation that had built up over the past year nearly made him believe it could happen.

-- All of which leads to him looking like a lost fool standing by her door once she finally opens it. Just another reason why you should never carry your expectations too high on his shoulders; he's clumsier than he seems.]

[That's the funny thing about expectation. It always has a way of letting you down, no matter how much you want to believe that this time, this one time out of the millions, you'll get your way, and you won't leave with a spirit more broken than before.

But for half a second, one beautiful half a second, Julia feels like she's hit that one shot in a million. She'd almost began to wonder if she was hallucinating that voice over the journal, but her doubts erase immediately when she opens the door. She knows it with everything she has. It's him. It's really him.

She wasn't usually the one for the romantics, really, but impulse would dictate that she throw her arms around him and never let go. Just to feel him, to get confirmation with another sense and make any last lingering shred of doubt disappear for good. She's ready to give in to that impulse when something suddenly stops her.

It's that lost look in his eyes, his entire demeanor now that she can see it more clearly. That wasn't what she was expecting at all.

... She's at a complete loss for words.]

[God, he wants to remember her.

He swallows the lump forming in his throat to keep from looking as crestfallen as he feels. She's beautiful. And he'd swear he's never seen her before.

Someone out there is laughing. All of his answers put right in front of his face, and he can do nothing but stare dumbly ahead. -- That's an easy way to make her feel awkward. For someone so good at hiding, he makes it obvious that there's something wrong with him. When she doesn't speak, he's quick to try and recover.]

Can I come in?

[He couldn't hide from her; she knows him too well for that. And the fact that something is wrong is more than painfully obvious.

She doesn't understand. Her mind races at a thousand miles per hour, trying to come up with some kind of explanation, but it's useless. All she can do is mimic a similar expression, only extending what has become an equally painful awkward silence.

His voice suddenly cuts into her thoughts again, and that's when she remembers that her vocal cords actually still work. She wills them to make some kind of sound, to break that silence, despite that sinking feeling in her stomach threatening to overtake her with a vengeance and paralyze her completely.]

Of course.

[She opens the door a little wider, allowing him enough space to step inside. They weren't going to accomplish much by standing out here and staring stupidly at each other, anyway.]

[Spike steps around her, doing all he can to make it seem natural. Instead of looking back at her, he takes in the room, still idly searching for some kind of trigger.

When he doesn't seem to find it, he turns around and smiles the way he always does to break tension, even if he's the one who caused it -- but he can't hold it for long. Too much that he wants to ask her and that he doesn't want her to know.]

Nice place. [... There's such a thing as forced casual conversation. He needs it until he can find his footing again.]

[She closes the door behind them, but makes no other movement. Her fingers are still touching the doorknob, even if she's barely aware of it. She's taken to just simply watching him, and all of her effort at the moment is being focused on that.

The tension in the room is thick enough to cut with a knife. Or a katana, maybe. She almost opens her mouth to break the silence a few times, but always thinks the better of it, never quite knowing what to say. When he finally does, it's a relief. Faltering smile and all.]

I've seen worse.

[Forced casual conversation is definitely preferable to nothing. Right. She can do this.]

[He'll bet she has, they were in the same circles. Everything after breaking away couldn't have been that luxurious either.

Spike keeps his distance, but with the way she's looking at him, he can tell he's not acting well enough to fool anyone. And part of him was hoping he could. He nods.]

That's the difference you get with magic. [Living in this kind of not-reality, it's hard to think of any of it as real.]

[... No, she can't do this. Avoiding the glaringly large elephant in the room isn't going to solve anything. Not this time. And the longer this goes on, the more uneasy she feels, for reasons she can't even explain.

Her grip on the doorknob finally slackens, and her hand falls gently to her side. That's when she suddenly wishes she could have something to do with her hands, something to busy herself with.

She takes a deep, steadying breath, steeling her resolve.]

Spike...

[... But that's all that comes out. She falters once again.]

[When has he ever been direct? Part of his stalling is not knowing how she'd react. Even without his memories, the last thing he wants to do is hurt her. Even if it meant never totally learning what and why he ended up the way he did, he'd suffer through it if he could avoid that.

Unfortunately, he's doing a fine job of being upsetting without saying anything. He just had to see her...]

I really hate this place. [He says it with a smile and a note of amusement, but he's entirely sincere for once. That they'd take away the one thing that could keep him from being happy; it was the kind of cruel joke that only someone like him would dare to laugh at.]

[She doesn't return the smile. Instead, it makes something in her chest ache just looking at it. Something she hasn't felt so strongly in a long time, not since....

... Not since Vicious slammed a gun down next to her with a sneer and offered her the worst possible ultimatum.

She takes a couple of steps forward, but then stops, as if she's thinking the better of it. Her gaze drops, and she's quiet for another long moment. When she finally does speak again, her voice is barely above a whisper.]

They told me it takes something from you. [She's hit the crux of the point without even realizing it.]

[It's unnerving how easy it is for her to piece together. When did he get to be so easy to read? -- But she is supposed to know everything about him, so maybe it's not that hard to believe that his year-long secret would be so obvious to her. Vicious had found out their very first meeting here. Spike almost killed him for information on the person in front of him now. (He would have, but Vicious was never that cooperative.)

Spike doesn't move, doesn't even know why he feels this much guilt when she hints at the real truth of the matter. But the truth is, he should have been able to hold onto the things that meant the most to him. He hadn't even bothered to protect them.]

Yeah. It does.

[There's something in his voice that causes her to lift her gaze from the floor again, to search his face. For what, exactly, she's not sure. Confirmation? Some kind of clue?

She'd always been able to read him fairly well by expression alone, a necessary skill in the kind of life she'd led. What she's able to gather from this one, and from that lack of movement, is that something about what she just said hit a nerve. It's a big hint.

... But she still hasn't quite put all the pieces together yet. Even if a far-fetched thought of hers is suddenly appearing more and more like a real possibility.]

There's always a price.

[In a way, it's not much different from home. Or whatever you'd call it.]

[Spike doesn't reply to that somber note, just finds a place to sit down. He keeps his eyes on her though, like he's afraid she might disappear if he looks away. That's one thing he couldn't handle. The castle might even know that, and he wouldn't put it past them to push him off the edge.]

Do you know what yours is? [He could write a book on the art of stalling.]

[Stalling isn't going to help him much. She recognizes the tactic for what it is, but even so, she doesn't have an answer for him. As much as she's wracked her brain, nothing has yet stood out in this massively confused blur she might now call her existence.

Her eyes continue watching him, still trying to get a read. Even though they're in the same room, she can't help but feel that there are miles separating them. Millions, maybe. There's a profound sense of disconnect, and that's what's starting to bother her more than anything.

She finally just shakes her head before steering the conversation in a different direction.]

What about you? [Might as well hit the point head on; they've been dancing around it long enough.]

... [His mouth goes dry, and it occurs to him that he's in desperate need of a cigarette. Spike never did know what he'd do if he ever found Julia. Apparently it was to make her as miserable as he is.]

Mine wasn't hard to figure out. [To put it lightly. For all he lost, it's possible he's not even the man she remembers. He can feel it in the way she's staring at him now.

Unable to think of a way to delay it that would be fair to her -- if nothing else is -- it's still all he can do to get himself to say it out loud.]

It's you.

[There's the death knell.

Everything else running through her mind comes to a sudden, screeching halt. The air hangs with dead weight from those two simple words. She stands, numb, paralyzed, trying to process what she's just heard. It's her. It's her. He'll look at her and not know, not remember---

Somehow, out of everything she's been through, this hurts more than anything else. Her stomach clenches, and she can barely even breathe. It almost feels like she's been shot again, except now the pain is at least ten times worse.

But, at the same time, as the full, horrible implication of what he's just said starts to sink in, everything clicks into place. The lack of recognition she thought she might've been imagining, the lost look in his eyes, the disconnect. For the first time since suddenly appearing in a magic castle, something makes sense to her. In some twisted way, it's a small comfort. And oddly fitting, in another.

The longer she looks at him, the more that cool, untouchable facade that is her signature threatens to crumble. Her gaze drops back to the floor with finality. The only sound that can be heard is a sharp intake of breath, louder than intended.]

[It goes over as well as he thought it would. Seeing her face so close to breaking, he instantly regrets telling her at all. This is the woman you loved.

He stays where he sits, letting her get used to the idea. If she wants him to leave, he will, anything he can do to make it up to her.]

I've tried everything I could think of to get them back. [For some reason, he keeps talking.] It's like... selective amnesia. There's a lot of things that I wanted to understand, but all I can remember are flashes of events. Never the whole thing.

[She doesn't know what to do, much less what she wants, right now. There is nothing that could have prepared her for this. For once in her life, she has no plan, no way to spare herself from the pain she feels. She's just... lost and confused all over again. That one moment of clarity had been short-lived.

All she knows is that, no matter what, she can't break. She won't allow herself to break. No, there's no point to it. She's just going to pick up the pieces and keep going, like she always does. Returning herself to the conversation would be a good start.

She tries her best to swallow the lump forming in her throat.]

What do you remember? [Her voice is so, so small.]

[Spike frowns in contemplation. As jumbled as his memory is, that's not the easiest question to answer.]

I remember... stumbling out of some back alley after a shootout, thinking I was going to die right there on the street. [Somehow he didn't -- obviously.] Vicious. [He doesn't elaborate.] I remember how I left... And came back.

[How it ended just like he always thought it would. He remembers that being a lot more satisfying than it is now.]

[Even without elaboration, she gets the gist of what he's saying. That's the art you have to master when you're trying to get information out of Spike Spiegel: the ability to glean something useful from so little. (Not that she's much better.) As he speaks, the memories begin to play on a reel in her mind, like a silent movie, filling in all the details he's missing. If only he could see.

She just stands and listens quietly until he stops talking, and for a while afterward.]

Anything else?

[She has this one last stupid, irrational hope, even though she knows full well that it's stupid and irrational, that if she prods him, he'll come up with something. Not in any way that's forceful or accusatory (it's not his fault and she doesn't blame him), but instead somewhat gently.]

[He can tell what she's doing. If anything, he was hoping that being around her would invoke some kind of sleeping memory, but there's nothing left for him to grab onto.

He shakes his head.]

I picked up a little more from the journals, but not much. My own fault for not talking enough about my past, I guess. [There's some irony for you. If he'd thought to keep a diary the last time he was in the castle, all of this could have been so much easier.]

[So much for that.

Despite knowing that she should have known better, something in her deflates, sending her down a spiral of crushing disappointment. It's that very human part of her buried somewhere deep down, that vulnerability entirely too fragile for her comfort, that he always somehow manages to drag out, in spite of her best efforts to keep it at bay.

She nods her understanding, and it takes all the strength and focus she has to keep her face as impassive as possible. And, yet again, for what seems like the millionth time over the course of this conversation-yet-not-conversation, words fail her. The struggle with her emotions is too great.]

[There isn't anything she could have said said that Spike can't read clearly in the way she holds herself, away from him. The gravity of what he lost seems to be what he was always afraid it would be. Suddenly he feels like he should have told her over the journals after all to save her from having to keep herself together for his sake.

His fault or not, he can't help but think she'd have been better off not knowing he's here at all. But, like too many damn things lately, it took him by surprise. He'd already ruined her chances before he had a clue what was going on.]

I didn't want this. [Spike has no idea if that thought had occurred to her, so he makes sure that if she wants him to go, she at least knows that.] Some prices are bigger than others.

029; dictated

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