Picture This Author: Elsa Frohman Spoilers: Through the end of the series Rating: R Summary: Written very quickly, while I'm at work, unbeta'd. But it
wouldn't leave me alone.
She wished she had a photograph. There were none -- that she knew of.
She'd never had her picture taken with Spike. And as far as she could
remember, she'd never seen a photo of him by himself.
All her photos were gone now, of course. They'd been swallowed along
with Revello Drive. But if there ever had been a picture of Spike,
maybe she would have had the presence of mind to stick it in her
pocket before they left the house the last time.
Maybe.
Maybe not.
There had been a picture of her with Angel. It was taken at the
Senior Prom. She'd insisted, he'd acquiesced. He was standing next to
her, his posture stiff and unsmiling, one hand awkwardly behind his
back. He'd looked uncomfortable in his rented tuxedo -- as if the
unaccustomed formal wear was a metaphor for his soul. After more than
a hundred years, he still couldn't wear his soul with comfort. She'd
seen that during their brief recent meeting. It still sat on his
shoulders like a yoke. So different from Spike.
Spike had been discomfited by his soul -- at first. But those last
few nights...
Somewhere mixed into the rubble of Sunnydale Canyon there were a good
number of photos of her with Riley Finn. There were pictures of them
at the fraternity house where he lived -- clowning in the lounge.
Pictures at the beach, clutching a beach ball together and squinting
into the sun. Pictures from a picnic, with Xander leaning in and
holding a hot dog on a roasting fork over Riley's head. There were a
couple of pictures of Riley and Willow, sitting on her bed in her
dorm room, and studying together at the campus library.
There even used to be a picture of her with Parker. It showed them
sitting on one of the love seats at the Bronze, their heads together
in serious conversation. Willow took that one -- she was practicing
with her new digital camera. That was before Parker ...
That one ended up shredded, stomped then flushed down the toilet.
But she didn't have any pictures of Spike. The only one she'd ever
seen wasn't even a photograph. It was a sketch in one of Giles'
Watcher books. It had been surprisingly evocative. She'd known who it
was before she read the block of text by its side. It showed him
standing with his legs spread wide, his game face in a feral sneer.
That was one way that he looked. But it wasn't the Spike she'd
finally come to know. There were so many different faces. He was
changeable as a chameleon.
If she had a snapshot, which face would she want it to show? The
casual sneer? The steely determination as he raised his guard to
fight her? The puzzled head tilt? The innocent and bewildered look in
his eyes when she kissed him after he endured Glory's torture to keep
her secret? The sly, worldly smile as he suggested a new game for
them to play in his crypt? So many faces.
When would she have had a picture taken with him? They were never
together in front of anybody. If there had been a picture, it would
have been one of those self-timer things where you set up the camera
on a tripod and rush over to get into the frame. When would they have
taken such a photo?
Maybe one of those times when he was sitting back and having a
cigarette after...
She blushed slightly. Those awful, humiliating times. She'd never
have wanted a picture to remind her -- except, now she did.
What would the photo look like? They'd be naked, of course. The
clothing never lasted long after she arrived at the crypt. Maybe
she'd be handcuffed to the bedpost, her back to the camera, kneeling
and looking back over her shoulder, her hair loose around her face.
And he'd be sprawled back against the headboard, his knees wide, his
posture indolent, a cigarette dangling from his lips.
She'd be asking him to let her out of the cuffs now, and he'd laugh
and say he wasn't finished yet -- just taking a break.
Or maybe it would show them sitting on her back porch -- like the
night she found out about her mother's illness. Or after she came
back from the dead. Perhaps it would show them just walking through a
cemetery, his black, leather duster swirling around his lean body.
But there were no photos. Why would she have taken a photo? Before he
went for his soul, she left each of their encounters wishing she
could forget it completely.
And after -- it would have been awkward. "Xander, get the camera and
come down stairs. I want you to take a picture of me with the vampire
who lives down there..."
There should have been a photo, though. She wondered how long she
could keep his face, with its sharp, chiseled cheekbones and intense
blue eyes, clear in her mind. Sometimes she had trouble remembering
exactly what her mother looked like -- and she had plenty of photos
to remind her.
She wished she had a picture to keep in her wallet and take out to
look at whenever she felt the memory fading. The memory of that
moment, when they clasped hands and she felt what he felt. She felt
his soul, and his love, and his ecstasy as the purifying light burned
through him. That's the picture she wanted to save. The light
flooding out of him, his skin brighter than the sun.
The others didn't see it. She alone had witnessed the beginning of
his end. They'd been alone again -- as they'd always been. Alone and
together -- more together than they'd ever been.