My last minute entry to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ladyoneill's S/B Ficathon
Apr. 24th, 2004 02:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rabid1stHope you all enjoy it...and then go read everyone else's fic, too.
Nights in White Cotton
A Rain on Dust Interlude
Author: Rabid/Raeann
Beta Babes: Caia and Zyrya
Rating: PG-13
Couple: S/B
Disclaimer: All characters, situations and such belong to ME...the dirty parts are my own.
This is an S/B Ficathon Entry For:angelchicken
Timeline: Season 2
One or Two Things AngelChicken Wanted to See in the Fic: Acknowledged attraction,
Quipping
One or Two Things AngelChicken Don't Want to See in the Fic: Dropped 'h's ( 'orrid)
Where this fits: As some of you may remember my fic, Rain on Dust, is the Spike P.O.V. tale of how he fell in love with Buffy. Spike tells this tale to Joyce just after the barrier is erected against him in Crush, two days before Joyce’s death. This is part of that story but you don’t need to read RAIN to read this part.
Joyce took a tiny nibble of her gingersnap. It crumbled in her mouth and she made a face at the stale taste. The cookie was store bought, part of an assortment of flavors she had arranged on a china plate. She wasn’t a sweets eater as a rule but she’d provided snacks as a courtesy when she brought out the second serving of tea. So far, Spike hadn’t sampled the bounty. He was too involved in his story. And Joyce was well on her way to being won over by his passion.
Despite borderline exhaustion, sleep was the last thing on her mind. Her arms were folded across knees, pressed close to her chest under the tent of her fluffy white robe. Her hair had a bedroom disarray. She looked twenty years younger. Spike’s tale of love, loss and high adventure had done wonders for her complexion.
“Then what happened?” she asked, breathlessly, when he paused in the narrative to gather his thoughts and light a cigarette.
“About then things started to get interesting,” he said, exhaling a cloud of blue smoke. “You remember Lloyd from the taco stand massacre?” He waited for Joyce to nod her recollection before continuing. “Turns out, he’d been a radiologist back in his living years. So, him and me took a little trip over to Sunnydale General to get a gander at my inner self.”
“Do x-rays work on vampires?”
“Sure, it’s like a photograph, idn’it?”
“I wouldn’t think you could have your picture taken, either,” Joyce said, her brow furrowing in concentration. It was late and she was tired but something about the idea didn’t track for her. “I mean, isn’t there a little mirror inside the camera lens?”
“Is there?” Spike muttered. At a loss, he looked toward the Mueller house as if expecting help from that direction. “Thought it was all…” He waved a vague hand. “Magnetic plates or…digital…or something.” They both frowned over the puzzle for a second before Spike declared. “Right, I don’t know how it works. And I can’t say I care. I’ve never been one for the lore when it had no practical purpose. Hold up a mirror and see if I flinch. But I do know we’ve always shown up on film…straight back to Nosferatu.”
“Was he really a vampire?”
Spike snorted derisively. He took one more long drag on his cigarette before flicking it toward the driveway. “Yeah…but not much of one. Now, there’s a story for you…bit of high comedy really. How you people ever managed to…”
“Anyway,” Joyce interrupted, dragging out the syllables of the word for emphasis. She sounded so much like her daughter that Spike gave her the head-tilt and took a moment to drink in her charms. She really was a remarkable lady. Joyce wiggled her cookie at him, impatient with his aside and his hesitation. “You were saying…?
“What was I saying?” He murmured in an ultra-sexy voice, cocking up on the balls of his feet and flashing a sliver of tongue at her with his smile.
Joyce huffed in exasperation and recapped. “You saw Buffy at the warehouse after the fire…the light hit her just so and you knew…she was the one…the girl in the prophecy from that …sorceress?”
“Seer,” Spike corrected, giving up on suggestiveness. What would he do with the Slayer’s mum if he landed her? Buffy would deliver his ass into the next world before he got in the first shag.
“Seer,” Joyce granted. “Whatever! The blind woman with the visions? You got all tingle-y and thought her predictions were coming true and you were determined to escape the…” She hooked her fingers in the air to indicate a quotation, “…’fate worse than death’ otherwise known as falling in love with my daughter.”
“Right,” Spike nodded. He swept up the tail of his coat and settled on the step beside her. After nabbing a lemon cookie off of the plate between them, he took a bite and spoke around the mouthful. “So, it turned out not to be my imagination….
“Using our supernatural stealth and cunning, Lloyd and I managed to break into Radiology at the hospital. He wrestled me into one of those cotton hospital gowns and levered me up onto a table. I was pretty well numb to the whole procedure but after I was there for a while Lloyd popped out of an ante-room and told me the x-rays showed my spine was on the mend. I counted this good news as there was a chance the tingle in my nether parts was from the nerves regenerating and had nothing do with your lovely daughter.
“No offense Joyce. You have to understand. Vampires and Slayers have a straightforward kill or be killed relationship. It’s been that way forever, Angel not withstanding. He’s a deviant, always has been. But the sudden shift in my priorities had me worried. One day all I’m thinking about is putting Buffy in an early grave and the next I’m holding Dru back so the Slayer can take out Angelus. It wasn’t natural behavior.”
“What is natural for you people? Do you…date? Court? Go dancing? Or is it always roses and cattle prods and eternal devotion with you?”
“I tell you, once you take the plunge into death you’re pretty much signing on as one of the committed.”
“I suppose,” Joyce conceded.
“And the Slayer and I…we’ve danced.” Spike sighed and, with a far off look in his eyes, asked, “Have you ever watched her fight? Not counting the night we met, I mean. Have you ever settled back to study her in action?”
“No,” Joyce said and there was a rich resonance of regret in the word.
“There’s something to do before you die,” Spike advised. He finished his cookie and reached for another.
“Anyway, once Lloyd helped me back into the wheels of steel I used the edge of an instrument table to take off his head.”
“You killed him?” Joyce squeaked. But in the pause before Spike rolled his eyes at her she remembered who and what he was and shook her head. “No never mind. Forget I asked…of course, you did…on with the story.”
“If it’s any consolation I regretted it almost immediately,” Spike said.
Killing Lloyd was a rash and impetuous act and I’m man enough to admit it was the wrong thing to do. Blood doesn’t always rush to my brain in a moment of crisis. When he saw I was healing up, Lloyd was all a-twitter about breaking the news to Drusilla. That started me thinking. I could easily envision Dru yapping to Angelus. And Angelus knowing I would be walking soon wasn’t any part of my plan. But on sober consideration, I should have had Lloyd help me into my pants before offing him.
Also, I might have remembered I had no idea how to get back to the parking garage.
So there I was, along about three in the morning, wheeling up and down the empty halls of Sunnydale General. This on the surface of it might not seem like a trial to a creature of the night. But I was sore and tired and hopelessly lost. Beyond that there was no one to ask for directions. Not a soul at the nurses’ stations, no doctors making rounds. I tried a couple of doors and found them locked. I was starting to think Tim LaHaye was right and it was Miller Time for my team when I picked up a whiff of the sweetest scent in the world.
Someone, somewhere in the building, was deathly afraid. It was youthful, abject terror…and lots of it.
Oh, yes…and her! She was the undercurrent…the seasoning…the lingering aftertaste…my Slayer.
And I just could not believe I was thinking of her that way. Even as I mentally called her my own, I cringed at the very idea. But the bitter taste of my secret shame wasn’t enough to keep me from following her scent to the source. I don’t think I was consciously aware of the urge to see her. I didn’t analyze. I just found an elevator and took it to what my nose informed me was the correct floor. As the doors dinged open, I inhaled, drawing her to the back of my throat. She was close.
I listened and heard her talking to someone, kiddies by the pitch of their voices. They were a good distance down the hall to the right and seemed to be wrapping up their conversation. I took a minute to straighten my hospital shift, tucking it around my thighs and cinching up the string ties. I wanted to be presentable. That didn’t necessarily mean anything, though. Professional courtesy, see? I’m not generally modest. But when it came to a run in with the Slayer…well…I didn’t want to appear comical. There’s a fine line.
Once I was satisfied with what I could see of the invalid look, I piloted my chair into the hallway. I spotted Buffy straight off. She was several meters away but headed in my direction.
She didn’t notice me at first. Her eyes were fixed on the floor, scanning it ahead of her sock clad feet. She kept a hand on the wall as she shuffled toward me, her short bathrobe loose and shifting like a cape in her wake. I didn’t know then what was wrong but she didn’t look healthy. Her skin had a sickly sheen to it and she was swaying on her pins. Her dimpled knees wobbled with each step.
I parked in the middle of the corridor and waited. I was the spider to her fly, let her come to me. She got quite close without the Slayer senses kicking in. I’m not sure they would have. She just happened to glance up before she was on top of me. She did a double take and stopped to stare. I gave her the slow once over and then broke the ice with a casual observation.
“You know there’s a bint in Naughty Nurses 6 who starts out wearing that exact outfit, sexy little ankle socks and all. ‘Course she doesn’t stay in it very long.”
“Tell me I’m hallucinating,” she said, wearily.
“You’re hallucinating,” I said. Cocking my head to one side, I continued drinking in the sweet spectacle she made as I added, “Are you enjoying it?”
“I’ll enjoy the killing you part.”
I smiled lazily, unimpressed by her kittenish bravado. “You and what pointy wooden implement?”
The question caught her off guard. She blinked in a dazed way before looking down at her white cotton ensemble. I allowed her a moment to come to grips with her complete lack of stake. It was beautiful to watch the thoughts play out on her face. She was guileless in a deadly sort of way. Her eyes narrowed and she stole a glance over her shoulder, obviously calculating how long it would take to make it to a room and find a chair or table to splinter. The nearest door wasn’t that far away but the short distance seemed to defeat her.
“You want to make a run for it?” I offered. We both knew, even with the handicap, I would catch her in a heartbeat.
Her glassy gaze flickered back to me. I didn’t like the resignation in her face. Then her gaze dropped to my chair and I saw a change, a triumphant glint in her eyes. Her mouth tipped up at the corners and, for a second, she resembled nothing so much as a cat with a bellyful of cream. I might be hell on wheels, she’d realized, but I wasn’t going to be much good without them. She checked the long stretch of empty corridor behind me. A thousand bright gold strands of hair caught the light as she tipped her head to consider me.
“You seem different somehow,” she said. “Less….” She stretched the single syllable into a long hiss. “Now, don’t tell me… co-dependent?”
“Such a smart girl,” I purred.
“So, what happened? Nurse Betty have a lucid moment and throw you over for Angel?”
That was a little too close to the mark to be strictly amusing. I bared my teeth at her. “Orrrrr,” I said, proving I, too, could linger on a word. “I’m just in for a check-up and Drusilla is out blighting the youthful bloom of your fair city while you’re laid up in hospital.”
“’Blighting the bloom’,” she quoted around a guffaw. “What’s with the poetic turn, Spike? Now that I’ve put an end to your dream of joining the Beetlejuice Ballet you’ve…what…? Channeled your creative energies into writing greeting cards?”
“That’s right,” I agreed affably. “I’m thinking of specializing in painful break-ups. Something along the lines of: So, you lost your virginity to a blood sucking fiend…but you still have your loser friends.” That wiped the chuckle off her lips and I decided to follow up with a clincher. “And don’t you fret, pet, doc says I will dance again one day.”
“And you’ve just stopped by to announce that?”
“Thought you might need cheering. I know how important a good partner is to you and Lord knows Angelus can’t satisfy. So I thought I would let you in on the secret. I’m on the mend.”
“On the mend? From a shattered spinal column?”
I offered a small shrug as I stated the obvious. “Vampire.”
“Right,” she drawled. She did one of her patent-pending head tosses of exasperation. “Hell’s cockroach. For every one I kill there are two hundred more lurking in the sewers. Cut off their heads and…okay, they poof…so cockroach maybe not the best metaphor but you know where I’m going with this.”
“We’re pesky?” I inferred, twinkling at her.
“Something like that. I should call Giles. Maybe all we need to do is tent the city.”
“And then what? Send in the clowns? Oh, wait…they’re already here.”
“That wasn’t very quippy,” Buffy countered. I thought I detected a hint of concern in her voice. “More quote-y, really. I think you may have lost your quip edge. Have you been banter deprived during convalescence?”
“Not so I noticed. But the quippage is a fickle mistress.”
Truth be told, I was starting to feel the strain of the long evening. There was an increasingly painful stabbing in my left buttock. I shifted to ease it and Buffy’s line of sight dropped to my inner thigh. Following her lead I glanced down and noticed my hospital gown had shimmied up as I squirmed in my seat. I was putting on quite a show for her.
“See something you like, pet?” I leered.
“You know, fish-belly white is out this season,” she remarked, forcing her eyes up to meet mine. She looked dazzlingly pretty in that shade of blush. “Don’t neglect the little things. A tube of Insta-Tan is every flasher’s friend.”
“Thanks for the tip,” I said. “Next time I’m polishing the knobs I’ll rub in a little bronzer for you.”
The allusion broke my concentration for a second. It was the opening she’d been waiting for. She feinted left and then lunged at me but fell, quite literally, short of target. I think her socks skidded on the polished floor. Maybe those beautiful legs just gave out. The net result was the same. She hit the terrazzo hard and lay face down a dozen centimeters from my right foot. I hastily put the chair into reverse and returned us to safe stand-off distance. Buffy didn’t move. After a few seconds, I rolled forward a little to peer at her.
“You look like death, sweetheart,” I said, trying for the friendly as opposed to the gleeful. “Got something chronic?”
Nose to the floor she mumbled. “I’s da’ fu.”
“It’s the Flu?”
She lifted her head and pouted at me, hair partially veiling her scowl. “That’s what I said,” she announced.
“Nasty little bug,” I acknowledged.
“Yeah…it kind of is,” she agreed mistily. “I feel like unwashed gym shorts…so you see you can’t really intimidate me,” she went on, punctuating the comments with a groan as she levered herself up. “Go ahead and kill me…see if I care.”
“I’m not the one making death threats here,” I reminded her.
Grunting and puffing, she pushed on through to a kneeling pose. Once that was accomplished she seemed to lose her determination. We studied one another in listless detachment…two people with nothing better to do with the night. Both of us tired, both of us lonely, if you will pardon me getting ‘quote-y.’ Minutes ticked by in less than companionable silence. Finally, I took a stab at restoring the dialogue.
“I would lay you odds,” I said, having Bob Seager on the brain, “that when the last of the Baby-Boomers turns up toes nobody is ever going to request a song by the Silver Bullet Band again.”
Buffy sighed in a put upon way and let her eyes roll back in her head until she was staring at the ceiling. I took it as a sign she didn’t fancy my idle conversation starter. After a suitable interlude, I tried another topic.
“I lost a sister to the influenza,” I said.
“What? Are we bonding now?” she snarled, glaring at me in open hostility. “Just because I’m too weak to kill you, you think I’m interested in a ramble down memory lane? I don’t want to know about your sister. In fact, YOU don’t have a sister…you are just some parasite in a body that maybe once had a sister.”
“All of a sudden I feel a death threat coming on,” I growled.
I had unconsciously edged toward her as I spoke, forgetting in my indignation how bloody dangerous she was. Her second attack caught me by surprise. She shot up from her crouch, seizing the arm of my wheelchair and yanking me around. Then, feet wide apart for balance, she punched one fist down into the chair’s hand brake. The device bent, locking me in place. It was a clever ploy. But the fancy move nearly spilled her into my lap. She managed to brace an arm against the back of my chair before taking the tumble.
We ended up nose to nose. Our eyes met. And we both knew.
For me, it was like that moment between a flash of lightning and the clap of thunder. There was an expectation.
“You try anything….” she warned. “…and…”
“…and…what?” I whispered. “You’ll kiss me?”
“You wish,” she mouthed back.
“If that’s what it takes…”
My hands moved of their own accord to fan around her waist. I held her just below the ribcage so my thumbs registered the catch in her breath as I pulled her closer. I think I’d planned to push her away but I just couldn’t do it. She shuddered when our bare legs touched and moistened her lips and we both just surrendered to the inevitable. I eased her onto my knee and lost myself in the curve of her mouth.
I have never known lust like that…before or since. Lust, so overwhelming it blazed up my body, from the soles of my feet all the way to my dirty blond roots. Nothing mattered to me but having her, not blood or evil. She was so hot, so willing and so unbelievably irresistible. We devoured each other.
“Excuse me?” Joyce interrupted, her voice cracking in alarm. “Devoured? You? And Buffy?”
“Yeah,” Spike said, casually. “It was a shocker to me, too, at the time. I was kind of standing outside the moment, looking on and thinking, ‘This can’t be happening…this just can’t be happening.’ I wanted to bite her. I really did. But her lips kept getting in my way.”
“But why would Buffy…? She never let on…”
“Fever,” he said, by way of explanation. “I don’t think she remembers what happened. She passed out half way through the proceedings and I sat there like a cabbage, holding her, until a nurse found us and took her back to bed.”
“I see,” Joyce said. “And that’s when you knew you were in love?”
“No,” Spike denied. “That’s when I knew I had to get the hell out of Sunnydale.”
THE END
Nights in White Cotton
A Rain on Dust Interlude
Author: Rabid/Raeann
Beta Babes: Caia and Zyrya
Rating: PG-13
Couple: S/B
Disclaimer: All characters, situations and such belong to ME...the dirty parts are my own.
This is an S/B Ficathon Entry For:
angelchickenTimeline: Season 2
One or Two Things AngelChicken Wanted to See in the Fic: Acknowledged attraction,
Quipping
One or Two Things AngelChicken Don't Want to See in the Fic: Dropped 'h's ( 'orrid)
Where this fits: As some of you may remember my fic, Rain on Dust, is the Spike P.O.V. tale of how he fell in love with Buffy. Spike tells this tale to Joyce just after the barrier is erected against him in Crush, two days before Joyce’s death. This is part of that story but you don’t need to read RAIN to read this part.
Joyce took a tiny nibble of her gingersnap. It crumbled in her mouth and she made a face at the stale taste. The cookie was store bought, part of an assortment of flavors she had arranged on a china plate. She wasn’t a sweets eater as a rule but she’d provided snacks as a courtesy when she brought out the second serving of tea. So far, Spike hadn’t sampled the bounty. He was too involved in his story. And Joyce was well on her way to being won over by his passion.
Despite borderline exhaustion, sleep was the last thing on her mind. Her arms were folded across knees, pressed close to her chest under the tent of her fluffy white robe. Her hair had a bedroom disarray. She looked twenty years younger. Spike’s tale of love, loss and high adventure had done wonders for her complexion.
“Then what happened?” she asked, breathlessly, when he paused in the narrative to gather his thoughts and light a cigarette.
“About then things started to get interesting,” he said, exhaling a cloud of blue smoke. “You remember Lloyd from the taco stand massacre?” He waited for Joyce to nod her recollection before continuing. “Turns out, he’d been a radiologist back in his living years. So, him and me took a little trip over to Sunnydale General to get a gander at my inner self.”
“Do x-rays work on vampires?”
“Sure, it’s like a photograph, idn’it?”
“I wouldn’t think you could have your picture taken, either,” Joyce said, her brow furrowing in concentration. It was late and she was tired but something about the idea didn’t track for her. “I mean, isn’t there a little mirror inside the camera lens?”
“Is there?” Spike muttered. At a loss, he looked toward the Mueller house as if expecting help from that direction. “Thought it was all…” He waved a vague hand. “Magnetic plates or…digital…or something.” They both frowned over the puzzle for a second before Spike declared. “Right, I don’t know how it works. And I can’t say I care. I’ve never been one for the lore when it had no practical purpose. Hold up a mirror and see if I flinch. But I do know we’ve always shown up on film…straight back to Nosferatu.”
“Was he really a vampire?”
Spike snorted derisively. He took one more long drag on his cigarette before flicking it toward the driveway. “Yeah…but not much of one. Now, there’s a story for you…bit of high comedy really. How you people ever managed to…”
“Anyway,” Joyce interrupted, dragging out the syllables of the word for emphasis. She sounded so much like her daughter that Spike gave her the head-tilt and took a moment to drink in her charms. She really was a remarkable lady. Joyce wiggled her cookie at him, impatient with his aside and his hesitation. “You were saying…?
“What was I saying?” He murmured in an ultra-sexy voice, cocking up on the balls of his feet and flashing a sliver of tongue at her with his smile.
Joyce huffed in exasperation and recapped. “You saw Buffy at the warehouse after the fire…the light hit her just so and you knew…she was the one…the girl in the prophecy from that …sorceress?”
“Seer,” Spike corrected, giving up on suggestiveness. What would he do with the Slayer’s mum if he landed her? Buffy would deliver his ass into the next world before he got in the first shag.
“Seer,” Joyce granted. “Whatever! The blind woman with the visions? You got all tingle-y and thought her predictions were coming true and you were determined to escape the…” She hooked her fingers in the air to indicate a quotation, “…’fate worse than death’ otherwise known as falling in love with my daughter.”
“Right,” Spike nodded. He swept up the tail of his coat and settled on the step beside her. After nabbing a lemon cookie off of the plate between them, he took a bite and spoke around the mouthful. “So, it turned out not to be my imagination….
“Using our supernatural stealth and cunning, Lloyd and I managed to break into Radiology at the hospital. He wrestled me into one of those cotton hospital gowns and levered me up onto a table. I was pretty well numb to the whole procedure but after I was there for a while Lloyd popped out of an ante-room and told me the x-rays showed my spine was on the mend. I counted this good news as there was a chance the tingle in my nether parts was from the nerves regenerating and had nothing do with your lovely daughter.
“No offense Joyce. You have to understand. Vampires and Slayers have a straightforward kill or be killed relationship. It’s been that way forever, Angel not withstanding. He’s a deviant, always has been. But the sudden shift in my priorities had me worried. One day all I’m thinking about is putting Buffy in an early grave and the next I’m holding Dru back so the Slayer can take out Angelus. It wasn’t natural behavior.”
“What is natural for you people? Do you…date? Court? Go dancing? Or is it always roses and cattle prods and eternal devotion with you?”
“I tell you, once you take the plunge into death you’re pretty much signing on as one of the committed.”
“I suppose,” Joyce conceded.
“And the Slayer and I…we’ve danced.” Spike sighed and, with a far off look in his eyes, asked, “Have you ever watched her fight? Not counting the night we met, I mean. Have you ever settled back to study her in action?”
“No,” Joyce said and there was a rich resonance of regret in the word.
“There’s something to do before you die,” Spike advised. He finished his cookie and reached for another.
“Anyway, once Lloyd helped me back into the wheels of steel I used the edge of an instrument table to take off his head.”
“You killed him?” Joyce squeaked. But in the pause before Spike rolled his eyes at her she remembered who and what he was and shook her head. “No never mind. Forget I asked…of course, you did…on with the story.”
“If it’s any consolation I regretted it almost immediately,” Spike said.
Killing Lloyd was a rash and impetuous act and I’m man enough to admit it was the wrong thing to do. Blood doesn’t always rush to my brain in a moment of crisis. When he saw I was healing up, Lloyd was all a-twitter about breaking the news to Drusilla. That started me thinking. I could easily envision Dru yapping to Angelus. And Angelus knowing I would be walking soon wasn’t any part of my plan. But on sober consideration, I should have had Lloyd help me into my pants before offing him.
Also, I might have remembered I had no idea how to get back to the parking garage.
So there I was, along about three in the morning, wheeling up and down the empty halls of Sunnydale General. This on the surface of it might not seem like a trial to a creature of the night. But I was sore and tired and hopelessly lost. Beyond that there was no one to ask for directions. Not a soul at the nurses’ stations, no doctors making rounds. I tried a couple of doors and found them locked. I was starting to think Tim LaHaye was right and it was Miller Time for my team when I picked up a whiff of the sweetest scent in the world.
Someone, somewhere in the building, was deathly afraid. It was youthful, abject terror…and lots of it.
Oh, yes…and her! She was the undercurrent…the seasoning…the lingering aftertaste…my Slayer.
And I just could not believe I was thinking of her that way. Even as I mentally called her my own, I cringed at the very idea. But the bitter taste of my secret shame wasn’t enough to keep me from following her scent to the source. I don’t think I was consciously aware of the urge to see her. I didn’t analyze. I just found an elevator and took it to what my nose informed me was the correct floor. As the doors dinged open, I inhaled, drawing her to the back of my throat. She was close.
I listened and heard her talking to someone, kiddies by the pitch of their voices. They were a good distance down the hall to the right and seemed to be wrapping up their conversation. I took a minute to straighten my hospital shift, tucking it around my thighs and cinching up the string ties. I wanted to be presentable. That didn’t necessarily mean anything, though. Professional courtesy, see? I’m not generally modest. But when it came to a run in with the Slayer…well…I didn’t want to appear comical. There’s a fine line.
Once I was satisfied with what I could see of the invalid look, I piloted my chair into the hallway. I spotted Buffy straight off. She was several meters away but headed in my direction.
She didn’t notice me at first. Her eyes were fixed on the floor, scanning it ahead of her sock clad feet. She kept a hand on the wall as she shuffled toward me, her short bathrobe loose and shifting like a cape in her wake. I didn’t know then what was wrong but she didn’t look healthy. Her skin had a sickly sheen to it and she was swaying on her pins. Her dimpled knees wobbled with each step.
I parked in the middle of the corridor and waited. I was the spider to her fly, let her come to me. She got quite close without the Slayer senses kicking in. I’m not sure they would have. She just happened to glance up before she was on top of me. She did a double take and stopped to stare. I gave her the slow once over and then broke the ice with a casual observation.
“You know there’s a bint in Naughty Nurses 6 who starts out wearing that exact outfit, sexy little ankle socks and all. ‘Course she doesn’t stay in it very long.”
“Tell me I’m hallucinating,” she said, wearily.
“You’re hallucinating,” I said. Cocking my head to one side, I continued drinking in the sweet spectacle she made as I added, “Are you enjoying it?”
“I’ll enjoy the killing you part.”
I smiled lazily, unimpressed by her kittenish bravado. “You and what pointy wooden implement?”
The question caught her off guard. She blinked in a dazed way before looking down at her white cotton ensemble. I allowed her a moment to come to grips with her complete lack of stake. It was beautiful to watch the thoughts play out on her face. She was guileless in a deadly sort of way. Her eyes narrowed and she stole a glance over her shoulder, obviously calculating how long it would take to make it to a room and find a chair or table to splinter. The nearest door wasn’t that far away but the short distance seemed to defeat her.
“You want to make a run for it?” I offered. We both knew, even with the handicap, I would catch her in a heartbeat.
Her glassy gaze flickered back to me. I didn’t like the resignation in her face. Then her gaze dropped to my chair and I saw a change, a triumphant glint in her eyes. Her mouth tipped up at the corners and, for a second, she resembled nothing so much as a cat with a bellyful of cream. I might be hell on wheels, she’d realized, but I wasn’t going to be much good without them. She checked the long stretch of empty corridor behind me. A thousand bright gold strands of hair caught the light as she tipped her head to consider me.
“You seem different somehow,” she said. “Less….” She stretched the single syllable into a long hiss. “Now, don’t tell me… co-dependent?”
“Such a smart girl,” I purred.
“So, what happened? Nurse Betty have a lucid moment and throw you over for Angel?”
That was a little too close to the mark to be strictly amusing. I bared my teeth at her. “Orrrrr,” I said, proving I, too, could linger on a word. “I’m just in for a check-up and Drusilla is out blighting the youthful bloom of your fair city while you’re laid up in hospital.”
“’Blighting the bloom’,” she quoted around a guffaw. “What’s with the poetic turn, Spike? Now that I’ve put an end to your dream of joining the Beetlejuice Ballet you’ve…what…? Channeled your creative energies into writing greeting cards?”
“That’s right,” I agreed affably. “I’m thinking of specializing in painful break-ups. Something along the lines of: So, you lost your virginity to a blood sucking fiend…but you still have your loser friends.” That wiped the chuckle off her lips and I decided to follow up with a clincher. “And don’t you fret, pet, doc says I will dance again one day.”
“And you’ve just stopped by to announce that?”
“Thought you might need cheering. I know how important a good partner is to you and Lord knows Angelus can’t satisfy. So I thought I would let you in on the secret. I’m on the mend.”
“On the mend? From a shattered spinal column?”
I offered a small shrug as I stated the obvious. “Vampire.”
“Right,” she drawled. She did one of her patent-pending head tosses of exasperation. “Hell’s cockroach. For every one I kill there are two hundred more lurking in the sewers. Cut off their heads and…okay, they poof…so cockroach maybe not the best metaphor but you know where I’m going with this.”
“We’re pesky?” I inferred, twinkling at her.
“Something like that. I should call Giles. Maybe all we need to do is tent the city.”
“And then what? Send in the clowns? Oh, wait…they’re already here.”
“That wasn’t very quippy,” Buffy countered. I thought I detected a hint of concern in her voice. “More quote-y, really. I think you may have lost your quip edge. Have you been banter deprived during convalescence?”
“Not so I noticed. But the quippage is a fickle mistress.”
Truth be told, I was starting to feel the strain of the long evening. There was an increasingly painful stabbing in my left buttock. I shifted to ease it and Buffy’s line of sight dropped to my inner thigh. Following her lead I glanced down and noticed my hospital gown had shimmied up as I squirmed in my seat. I was putting on quite a show for her.
“See something you like, pet?” I leered.
“You know, fish-belly white is out this season,” she remarked, forcing her eyes up to meet mine. She looked dazzlingly pretty in that shade of blush. “Don’t neglect the little things. A tube of Insta-Tan is every flasher’s friend.”
“Thanks for the tip,” I said. “Next time I’m polishing the knobs I’ll rub in a little bronzer for you.”
The allusion broke my concentration for a second. It was the opening she’d been waiting for. She feinted left and then lunged at me but fell, quite literally, short of target. I think her socks skidded on the polished floor. Maybe those beautiful legs just gave out. The net result was the same. She hit the terrazzo hard and lay face down a dozen centimeters from my right foot. I hastily put the chair into reverse and returned us to safe stand-off distance. Buffy didn’t move. After a few seconds, I rolled forward a little to peer at her.
“You look like death, sweetheart,” I said, trying for the friendly as opposed to the gleeful. “Got something chronic?”
Nose to the floor she mumbled. “I’s da’ fu.”
“It’s the Flu?”
She lifted her head and pouted at me, hair partially veiling her scowl. “That’s what I said,” she announced.
“Nasty little bug,” I acknowledged.
“Yeah…it kind of is,” she agreed mistily. “I feel like unwashed gym shorts…so you see you can’t really intimidate me,” she went on, punctuating the comments with a groan as she levered herself up. “Go ahead and kill me…see if I care.”
“I’m not the one making death threats here,” I reminded her.
Grunting and puffing, she pushed on through to a kneeling pose. Once that was accomplished she seemed to lose her determination. We studied one another in listless detachment…two people with nothing better to do with the night. Both of us tired, both of us lonely, if you will pardon me getting ‘quote-y.’ Minutes ticked by in less than companionable silence. Finally, I took a stab at restoring the dialogue.
“I would lay you odds,” I said, having Bob Seager on the brain, “that when the last of the Baby-Boomers turns up toes nobody is ever going to request a song by the Silver Bullet Band again.”
Buffy sighed in a put upon way and let her eyes roll back in her head until she was staring at the ceiling. I took it as a sign she didn’t fancy my idle conversation starter. After a suitable interlude, I tried another topic.
“I lost a sister to the influenza,” I said.
“What? Are we bonding now?” she snarled, glaring at me in open hostility. “Just because I’m too weak to kill you, you think I’m interested in a ramble down memory lane? I don’t want to know about your sister. In fact, YOU don’t have a sister…you are just some parasite in a body that maybe once had a sister.”
“All of a sudden I feel a death threat coming on,” I growled.
I had unconsciously edged toward her as I spoke, forgetting in my indignation how bloody dangerous she was. Her second attack caught me by surprise. She shot up from her crouch, seizing the arm of my wheelchair and yanking me around. Then, feet wide apart for balance, she punched one fist down into the chair’s hand brake. The device bent, locking me in place. It was a clever ploy. But the fancy move nearly spilled her into my lap. She managed to brace an arm against the back of my chair before taking the tumble.
We ended up nose to nose. Our eyes met. And we both knew.
For me, it was like that moment between a flash of lightning and the clap of thunder. There was an expectation.
“You try anything….” she warned. “…and…”
“…and…what?” I whispered. “You’ll kiss me?”
“You wish,” she mouthed back.
“If that’s what it takes…”
My hands moved of their own accord to fan around her waist. I held her just below the ribcage so my thumbs registered the catch in her breath as I pulled her closer. I think I’d planned to push her away but I just couldn’t do it. She shuddered when our bare legs touched and moistened her lips and we both just surrendered to the inevitable. I eased her onto my knee and lost myself in the curve of her mouth.
I have never known lust like that…before or since. Lust, so overwhelming it blazed up my body, from the soles of my feet all the way to my dirty blond roots. Nothing mattered to me but having her, not blood or evil. She was so hot, so willing and so unbelievably irresistible. We devoured each other.
“Excuse me?” Joyce interrupted, her voice cracking in alarm. “Devoured? You? And Buffy?”
“Yeah,” Spike said, casually. “It was a shocker to me, too, at the time. I was kind of standing outside the moment, looking on and thinking, ‘This can’t be happening…this just can’t be happening.’ I wanted to bite her. I really did. But her lips kept getting in my way.”
“But why would Buffy…? She never let on…”
“Fever,” he said, by way of explanation. “I don’t think she remembers what happened. She passed out half way through the proceedings and I sat there like a cabbage, holding her, until a nurse found us and took her back to bed.”
“I see,” Joyce said. “And that’s when you knew you were in love?”
“No,” Spike denied. “That’s when I knew I had to get the hell out of Sunnydale.”
THE END
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-23 11:58 pm (UTC)Oh...oops...
Date: 2004-04-24 12:13 am (UTC)But Rain on Dust is with all my fic on the site by the same name...
http://www.geocities.com/rabid1st/index.html
And I am so glad you enjoyed NiWC...if dialogue is your thing...check out STICK or TANGO on my site...both heavy on the snappy dialogue. And be sure to feedback if you can find the time...because it pays my debt to the muse.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-24 06:47 am (UTC)I LOVED this :)
It was hilarious, especially the part about the bronzer being every flasher's friend - ROTFLMAO!!!
And I loved Spike with Joyce - THANK YOU!!!
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-24 08:53 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-24 11:28 am (UTC)“You know there’s a bint in Naughty Nurses 6 who starts out wearing that exact outfit, sexy little ankle socks and all. ‘Course she doesn’t stay in it very long.”
I LOVED that line. Love, love, love the whole thing. Thank you so much! And thank you for filling in when original participant dropped out (feh!)
Thank you, thank you, thank you again. This rocks!
I am so very glad you enjoyed it...
Date: 2004-05-02 08:56 pm (UTC)Rabid/Raeann
(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-24 01:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-24 07:24 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-25 11:31 am (UTC)I'd bitch about how you swooped in to adopt a fic and churned out a delight so quickly – except I'm overjoyed that your Muse is talking to you again.
And I was thinking that X-rays working on vampires may actually make better sense than photographs. Because as far as I understand it, X-rays shoot radiation through you and a film on the other side records where you are denser or less dense, according to where the X-rays could penetrate your body. Which is why bones shows up. But there are no mirrors involved.
Darn you for making me ponder! ;)
Mwah!
Yep...actually that's how I figured it, too...
Date: 2004-04-25 12:38 pm (UTC)Off to see if your fic is up...
Rae
Re: Yep...actually that's how I figured it, too...
Date: 2004-04-25 12:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-04-27 05:46 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-05-01 09:25 pm (UTC)No, Thank you, pet!
Date: 2004-05-03 11:17 am (UTC)Rae
(no subject)
Date: 2004-05-04 01:50 am (UTC)Wonderful banter. lovely use of underwear and hospital wear. LOL.
Very very nice.
And again I am giddy with the compliment...
Date: 2004-05-04 11:56 am (UTC)Rae
Re: And again I am giddy with the compliment...
Date: 2004-05-04 12:20 pm (UTC)Angel/Wes, soapy water. Ok. Sounds good. What kind of flavour?
I don't shudder. I'd definitely shudder at anything Snyder, and I'd tremble in fear with regard to Gunn, but Angel and Wes? No problem. Hey, I've written them before. :-)
Heck, I'd even try something exotic like Riley/Ethan. See, I'm easy.
But I do hope that the price goes up, because well, it would be good for the writercon fund. :-D
This is why I bid for you...
Date: 2004-05-04 12:59 pm (UTC)I, too, hope the bidding goes high (you know...for the charity). I really can't bid you up but I wanted to set your mark at a deserving point. And I figured, if I did win, I should bid on someone who can write something I wouldn't write myself.
Though, I am writing Wes/Angel in Sweet Spot AU come to think of it. Still I know you will give me something different...and more...well...more slashtastic.
Rae
Re: This is why I bid for you...
Date: 2004-05-04 01:12 pm (UTC)Here's the link to "Cold Comfort" - the only Angel/Wes I ever wrote.
http://www.estepheia.com/coldcomfort.htm
Not my finest fic ever, but it was written in great hurry.
It's an interesting pairing. I think they are very devoted to each other. *ponders*
(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-10 07:05 pm (UTC)Thank you, I'm glad you liked it....
Date: 2004-11-10 07:14 pm (UTC)http://www.geocities.com/rabid1st/fanfiction.html
And might I suggest TANGO is the place to start.
Rabid/Raeann
your writing
Date: 2006-03-22 09:37 pm (UTC)Lynn