Title: Close Your Eyes

Author and Email address: Jessica Walker

Summary: In the midst of Dru's madness, Spike contemplates the unthinkable.

Distribution: If you have anything of mine, take it. If you don't, take it, but please send me the URL.

Rating: PG-13 (maybe R) for language, self-mutilation, psychological baggage, angst.

Spoiler Warning: None.

Couple Pairings: Spike/Dru.

Disclaimer: Spike is MINE!!! (Oh, I wish… pant, pant, drool…) The plot is mine and nothing else, blah blah blah, Joss is God and the "Grrr, Arrrgghh" monster could kick my ass. I don't own "Close Your Eyes," which is by Jump, Little Children, or Barney and the Teletubbies. Don't sue, I'm broke.

NOTE: I included the song lyrics I based it on but it's not really a songfic.

I cannot overemphasize how much feedback does not suck.

CLOSE YOUR EYES

By Jessica Walker
*~*~*~*~*

*Tell me you had bad dreams last night
'Cause you were rolling in your sleep
Tell me you hate those bright street lights
Sometimes the shadows give you the creeps*

*Please
Close Your eyes
Please
If you don't want to say
Please
Close your eyes
Please
What keeps you awake*

*Tell me the air up here's too thin
You can't feel the wind when it moves
Tell me the stars are made of tin
And that they're banging on the roof*

*Please
Close Your eyes
Please
If you don't want to say
Please
Close your eyes
Please
What keeps you awake*

*The sun will rise
And keep your mind at ease
So close your eyes
Please*

-Jump, Little Children, "Close Your Eyes"
************

We’ve been awake for six days.

Well, *she* has. I’ve drifted off a few times, I must confess, only to be awakened by her screaming.

Now, vampires don’t *have* to sleep. There are very few things that are fatal and, frankly, sleep deprivation is hardly one of them. Like many habits of humanity, it’s no longer necessary once you turn. But unlike breathing and eating, most vamps don’t give up sleep, not entirely. It’s pleasant. It gives you something to do during the daylight hours when you’re stuck inside. And it helps pass the time. I was born in 1825, turned twenty-six years later. That’s a hell of a lot of time to pass. No, we don’t *need* sleep. But six days awake will begin to grate on anyone’s nerves, whether they need it or not. The constant screaming doesn’t help.

She’s got her hands pressed against her ears, eyes screwed tightly shut, big tears rolling down her cheeks. She doesn’t know her own strength sometimes and I vaguely wonder, with the hazy disorientation of sleepiness, if she’ll manage to crush her own head. I find the idea mildly amusing and not quite as disturbing as I probably should. I love my Princess and I’d bash anyone to a pulp in order to protect her, under normal circumstances. But after six days of screaming, I’m a bit inclined to crush her head in myself.

A human would have gone hoarse by now. Her screaming could wake the dead- literally, as it turns out.

The moon is talking to her again. What it’s saying isn’t entirely clear, but this time it won’t shut up and its words are upsetting her badly. She’s weak and delirious and she needs to eat, but I’m afraid to leave her alone and she refuses to leave the house. Why, I’m not sure. Every time I ask her, she starts to cry and tells me that the spiders are angry with her. Hell, I don’t know. She won’t let Miss Edith leave, either. She tied her up two days ago to prevent her escape. Mummy’s been neglecting Miss Edith’s tea-time, too, so she’s probably just as hungry as I am- dear God, I can relate to the doll. That’s it. I’ve been with Dru too long. I am finally cracking up. First I am going to untie Miss Edith and chuck her out the window, and then I’m going to get in the car and drive somewhere away. Far. Far. Away.

Except I won’t. She’s a bleedin’ lunatic and I want to throttle her into silence right now, but I won’t. She’s my Princess, and she’s frightened.

Eventually her screams subside into tired sobs and I drift off into sleep again.

I awake not much later; she's shaking me, her nails digging into my flesh. She's crying, tears running down her face in big droplets. "Spike," she whispers. "Spike, wake up. We have to find her."

"Who's that, pet?" I answer, forcing my eyelids open.

"Miss Polly. She's missing."

I suppress a groan. Miss Polly- a golden-haired doll in a blue dress, if memory serves me correctly- was smashed into little-bitty pieces by a very angry Angelus back in 1895, and Dru knows this. Except right now she doesn't. She's been doing this more and more lately, forgetting what year it is, forgetting events and people that she's known for decades. Some days she doesn't remember that Angel is ensouled, or that her parents are dead, or that she's no longer seven years old. And it's impossible to explain these things to her; it only makes her cry.

"Miss Polly went to get help," I tell her. I hate lying to Dru, but there's nothing else to be done for it. "For, you know, the spiders. She'll be back soon."

Living with her is like being stuck inside one of those sodding children's programs on the telly, like the one with the big purple dinosaur, or the scary little wankers with televisions in their stomachs. It's all singing and dancing and make-believe. Until someone falls down and gets hurt. She's so fragile, so small. A hundred-and-sixty-year-old little girl... her hands won't stop shaking and she hasn't slept or eaten in six days. So I tell her what she wants to hear.

"Promise, Spike?"

"Cross my heart." I sit up and wrap my arms around her, rocking her back and forth, humming softly in her ear. She's weeping softly. "What is it, pet?" I ask, stroking her hair softly with one hand.

"My Mummy's dead."

"Yes, pet. I know. But that happened a long time ago."

"I miss her."

"I know. But you've got me. You're safe here."

She shakes her head violently. "No. Not with the spiders out there."

"Out where? Where are they?"

She points to the front door. "Right outside. Waiting."

Now would be the time to simply walk her to the door, open it, and point out the conspicuous absence of eight-legged arachnids on our front stoop. However, it's not an option. For one, it's three o' clock in the afternoon. And for another, it wouldn't do me any good. If Dru says they're out there, then as far as she's concerned, they are, and no amount of convincing will persuade her otherwise. "What do the spiders want, ducky? Maybe we can make them go away."

"They want me to go back to my Angel," she says passionately, "but I won't go. Never, never, not ever. He hurt me terribly and I'd miss my little Spike. Don't let them take me, Spike. I don't want to go back."

"Never," I say firmly. "Those bloody spiders won't lay a finger on you. Well, an antennae- a leg. Whatever. Point is, you're safe. I'll pound 'em into the ground."

"But there's so many terribly many of them, Spike. Hundreds and hundreds."

"But they're small, pet."

"They could pile up on top of one another and attack. A big spider-blob monster," she exclaims, gesturing with her hands. "Like the rats in the vampire picture, Spike, you remember them?"

I groan inwardly, wishing I had never taken her to see *Bram Stoker's Dracula.* "Yeah, well, they're still no match for ol' Spike. Are they vamps?"

"Who?"

"The spiders. Are they regular spiders, or vamp spiders?"

"I'm not sure." She furrows her brow in concentration, and that's good, because it focuses her attention away from being frightened.

"'Cause if so, we're in luck. We just won't invite 'em in, is all."

"Then we can't go anywhere. Not until they go away."

"Princess," I say patiently, "you need to eat. Please let me go out and get you something."

"No!" she cries, horrified at the suggestion. "Spike, they'll hurt you."

"I can hold my own, I promise. Please, baby, you're hungry. You're making yourself sick. Just stay inside, I'll be back soon." I don't believe for a minute she'll let me go, but it's worth a try. Besides, I can't well leave her alone, she might hurt herself. I could tie her up again. I hate it when I have to do that. Well, I hate having to do it when she doesn't want me to.

"No, no, *no*, NO, *NO*!" she screeches, starting from my arms and pulling viciously at her hair. She starts to scream again, no words, just incoherent yells.

"Baby, calm down," I say helplessly, trying to pull her back into my arms. It's no use, she won't even let me touch her. She goes to the other side of the room and sits by the heavily curtained window, whimpering under her breath, moaning occasionally. I stand up and light another cigarette, leaning against the wall in utter exhaustion. The room seems to be tilting at an odd angle. That's no good, I can't help her if I'm going batty too, from sleepiness and malnutrition.

She quiets down eventually, arms wrapped around her chest, rocking back and forth, keening softly. Since I don't think she's going anywhere soon, I go to the kitchen to make another pot of coffee, almost overcome by a wave of dizziness as I make my way towards the percolator. This can't go on much longer. I don't know how long either one of us can last.

As I'm waiting for it to brew I turn to find a coffee mug and suddenly everything goes black. I wake up on the kitchen floor sometime later; the whole world is spinning and I don't know which way's up. I've *got* to get something to eat.

I grope my way to the coffee pot and pour a boiling-hot cup, knocking it down in one swallow and singeing my mouth badly in the process. The pain is intense, but at least it wakes me up. I make my way back to the living room to check on Dru.

The smell of blood hits me first and I rush into the room, my chest tightening in terror. Her dress, a simple white one I bought for her in Holland several years back, is soaked, streaked red. Her sharp fingernails and encrusted with blood and there are long, deep, ragged furrows in her arms. She chokes back a sob and raises her clawed hand again, slowly, deliberately. She wants me to stop her; she knows that I will. Drops of blood hang form the tips of her fingernails.

Vamp blood flows slowly... because it's so cold. I feel so cold.

"Dru, no." I spring forward and grab her wrist before her nails can slice again into her flesh. She dissolves into hysterical tears and buries her face into my chest, muffling her sobs against the fabric of my shirt. My hands are covered in blood. Dru's blood. Angelus' blood, the same that flows through my veins. My blood. I'm bleeding to death. Loving her drains me a little more every day.

This can't go on much longer.

I'm not sure why she does this, but I suspect it's just a distraction technique. The pain gives her something to concentrate on besides the awful voices echoing inside her head. She's shaking so hard, a starved, frightened little bird trembling in my arms, hot tears and cold blood soaking into my skin.

"Sssshh, Princess. It's all right. Your Spike's here. I won't let anyone hurt you."

It's no good; I'm no match against the monsters in her mind, and she knows it. I've never felt at such a loss in my entire life. There's nothing I can do for her, no one I trust enough to leave with her while I go find her something to eat, no way to make the horror inside her head silence itself and let her sleep. I reach up with one hand and stroke her hair gently. "Ssshh, kitten," I whisper. "Don't cry. You're safe here with me." The words are nothing, meaningless, so helpless against the black terrors that lurk behind her eyelids. I'm fighting an enemy that only Dru can see.

She's talking again, her voice broken with tears. Something about Angel, Miss Edith, the spiders, the moon. It's nothing, gibberish, even she doesn't know what she's talking about anymore and all I can understand is how frightened she is. I've spent almost every moment at her side for nearly a century and a half, lain cheek and jowl with all her misery and madness. There's almost nothing I don't understand about Dru, what she loves, what she hates, what she fears, the way she works. But I can't imagine what it's like to feel the way she feels right now, what it's like to live inside that world a bleak terror that threatens to eat her alive. I don't scare easily- although right now I'm frightened to death- and that's why Dru loves me, why she keeps me around, to balance out the constant terror she lives in. She's a broken-minded child who doesn't understand any of the things she's hearing and seeing right now, doesn't understand that this, too, shall pass. All she has is this moment and her fear. And here I stand, arbitrator, diplomat between the worlds, her only link to sanity, trying like hell with all that's in me to lure her back to reality again.

We’ve been awake for six days. God, I'm tired. I'm so bloody tired.

A stupid and careless fledgling, several decades back, suggested that I simply put her out of her misery. It was the last suggestion he ever made, but it is his words that come back to haunt me now. Because behind all the cold, unfeeling logic of his statement lurks the love and tenderness I feel for her that might one day drive me, in spite of myself, to do that very thing. The longest this ever lasted was three weeks and she doesn't show any signs that she's getting better. Every passing year finds her drifting farther and farther away. Someday she's going to fall into that madness again and she won't be able to crawl back out, and the only thing to do- the only right, merciful, and *loving* thing to do- will be to give her the release and the silence that she craves. This is all that lies at the end of the road for my beautiful mad Princess- darkness. Eternity. Somewhere that even the moon can't find her. A peace that only I, in the end, will have the ability, the right and- yes, the *responsibility* to provide.

That is my greatest fear.

The sobs and babbling escalate without warning into bloodcurdling screams and she bolts suddenly, trying to escape my arms. I don't know what's happening but it can't be good. I tighten my grip around her, holding her close, feeling her tiny, birdlike bones digging into my flesh. Her terror is palpable, contagious. I can't think straight, my head is ringing with her incoherent screams, with hunger and exhaustion and worry. I pull her back to me and press her to my chest, whispering into her hair. "Ssshh," I say softly. "It isn't real. It'll be over soon, baby. Please. Just close your eyes." This can't go on much longer, God, when is she going to stop screaming?

I realize that I'll probably have to kill her eventually. I realize that it's even for the best. But not today, God, please, not today. I'm not ready.

She collapses back into my arms, sobbing like a child. "Spike," she says brokenly, "I'm so frightened. It's so dark and horrible. I want this to be over."

"I know, kitten," I murmur. "I know."

I want it to be over, too. And I know how to make it end, how to make the nightmares stop forever. But I can't. Truth be told, I love her too much, I'm too selfish to let her go. Even if it's probably for the best.

She continues to weep. I don't know what to do, all I can do is hold her tighter. Sometimes I'm afraid she'll float away if I loosen my grip.

Her sobs are subsiding. She's very quiet, her trembling has stopped, and her eyelids are starting to grow heavy. She's tired now, on the cusp of sleep. If I'm going to get us out of this mess, I'm going to have to act fast, because she isn't coming back to earth until she gets something to eat and I can't get something to eat if she won't let me leave the house.

"I've got an idea!" I say, as brightly as I can manage. I'm so sick of this, of the lies, of the sodding games I have to play to keep her grounded. "We'll use the magic potion."

I revert to this trick almost every time, but she never remembers. She lifts her head and looks up at me quizzically. "What do you mean, Spike?"

"The magic potion. You drink it and it makes the spiders and all the other bad things go far, far away."

"How does it work?"

"Well, first you have to lay down, Princess. Can you do that for me? Can you lay down for Daddy?"

"I think so," she says softly. She trusts me so completely. Some days I can't remember whether she's a vicious killer or just an innocent little girl. I lean over her and lift her into my arms, carrying her to our bed. I set her down gently, her dark tendrils of hair scattering across the feather pillows. She's so pale. I turn to go, and she clutches my hand with desperate urgency.

"Where are you going?"

"I've gotta go get the potion, pet," I explain, pulling at my hand.

"Spike, no, you can't. The spiders- they-" She's starting to panic again.

"Dru," I say patiently, putting my hands on her shoulders, "you've got to trust me, ducks. The spiders are still outside, they're not gonna get you. The potion will make them go away, I promise."

She nods, looking up at me with tear-filled eyes. It still amazes me how much she trusts me to champion her in the face of such horrors. It's a daunting task. And frankly, right now, I'm not up for the battle. God, I've got to get some sleep.

I riffle through the liquor cabinet and settle on vodka, the strongest thing I have. It takes a lot to get a vampire smashed, but she's small, sleepy and hasn't eaten. Still, I find a coffee mug and fill it to the brim, staring at it with tired amusement.

Vodka. A magical potion to make all the bad things go far, far away. Don't I know it. In fact, I knock back a shot myself before taking the mug in to Dru.

She accepts it quietly and downs its contents with a grimace. She gazes up at me with the loveliest expression I have ever seen. She loves me and she trusts me and she believes me when I say I can make all the monsters go away. And I won't let her down. I'll keep fighting Dru's demons until the strength is drained from me entirely.

"Now," I say softly, reaching up with one hand to stroke her forehead, "lay back and close your eyes."

I watch as her eyelids start to flutter. Five minutes, and she's out. She'll wake up tomorrow evening with a vicious hangover, and then things will start to get better again. The sun is just starting to set; I grab my duster and head for the door. I'll drain the first human I find in order to get enough strength to stand, empty his wallet, and find the nearest butcher. Dinner for Princess will have to be takeout this time.

On my way out the door, I spy Miss Edith resting in a chair, still bound up with bits of rope. With a smile, I lean down and untie the doll, laying her on the bed next to my peacefully sleeping Princess. "It's all right, Edith," I say. "We got through it this time. She'll be just fine."

And I head out to get a bite to eat.

Finis