Work Text:
Gifts
by Lilithangel
Spike had a box full of gifts never given because he was pretty damn sure they wouldn’t be wanted or appreciated. It hadn’t stopped him collecting them though. Every time he saw something suitable he would be drawn to it and then he would add it to his box.
Lots of trinkets for Drusilla, pretty shiny things that reminded him of her pretty fractured mind. After she left him again he kept buying them in the hope that she’d return and he could shower her with the proof of his love.
Then things that would appeal to a young woman learning about her sexuality. Naughty things, dark things, even useful things with sharp edges and metal weight when he saw how her eyes lit up at the glint of purpose.
And things that would appeal to a younger girl still reaching for adulthood. Trinkets a big brother or a new lover would buy for youth and innocence struggling to find her place.
And a few things a son would give his mother. Two bright cheerful mugs to share hot chocolate at the kitchen table and a fine silk scarf that matched her eyes.
Even goofy presents a friend would buy to impress because nobody else remembered a castaway comment or a longed for item too frivolous to buy yourself, and things to remind a wanderer of home to share when the pressure of being a foreigner in a bright forceful land got too much.
All wrapped in simple paper adorned with names written in careful copperplate awaiting a Christmas chance that never came and finally destroyed in fire, collapsing earth and the final understanding that they would never accept him and could never love him.
It didn’t stop him starting a new box when a gift from a stranger gave him his body back. A box he thought this time he would be able to empty, but he was wrong again.
END