Music Referenced:
(‘Powers in the Pistol’ is a band created by the imagination of yours truly)
The Beatles – “Got to Get You Into My Life.”
Three Days Grace - “I Hate Everything About You.”
“Jellicle Songs for Jellicle Cats” – musical, Cats!
Chapter Five
After a few seconds of silent staring, Buffy reached up and plucked the cigarette from his mouth, completely breaking whatever spell they were both under.
“These?” she paused, raising a slightly amused eyebrow and holding the smoking white lung-cancer inducing, gross-breath making death-stick up for him to see, “will get you nowhere.” With that, she dropped it to the floor and ground it with the heel of her brown Pumas.
“Hey!” He stared at the destroyed cigarette on the floor and exhaled slowly. “Come on! Did you really need to – “
She gave him a quirky little grin, then made her way to the passenger seat, running a hand on the heated exterior of the Desoto as she walked. Spike stared at her and she saw a myriad of expressions on his face. Fascination. Annoyance. Mucho Confusion.
It almost reflected the emotions and insecurities floating around in her own head. Part of her was silently cursing herself for letting Faith go. Another part was beginning to like her new ‘project of the night’. And another part was a little scared. Scared of what? She couldn’t really say. Maybe scared of getting attached. Scared of getting too close. Scared that he might be a psycho serial murderer… but wait, he was Oz’s friend.
The ambush of the contradicting thoughts made her pause as her hand was about to pull the handle of the door. She stared at it for a second. If I do this… then this is it. No turning back, no running away. Her fingers were curled under the lever and ready to squeeze, pull back, get in, but the millions of images – images of the night to come, images of the many nights to come, images of the nights that past – kept her from making that final little nudge to where the lock would click and the door would spring free.
Buffy looked up and Spike was looking at her with a curious expression from the other side of the car. He smiled when she met his eye and she smiled back. The Beatles smiled at them from inside the car and she took a deep breath. And opened the door.
Spike got in after her and started shifting the gears so that the car was finally in motion. Buffy was still thinking so many thoughts per second that she couldn’t take the happy tune of “Got to Get You Into My Life” and pushed the CD button so that the radio clicked off and something else clicked on.
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Spike heard the first few guitar strums of a song he had written about two months ago when he was beginning to fall hard for Drusilla. It was part of a mix that he had made for her, a compilation of small bands, big bands, his band. And of the twenty songs on the CD, he only sang, wrote, played, and recorded one song. One goddamn song that he wanted Drusilla to hear and when she did, realize that she maybe loved him too.
The ironic thing was that of all twenty songs on the CD, the one that played the minute Buffy’s shiny clear-polished finger pressed the ‘CD’ button was the song he had written. The song he had named “I see through you”.
It took a split second that seemed like eternity for him to get his gear into motion and to press the skip button before Buffy could actually hear any of the words he had to say and sing in the song. It was almost too personal and he didn’t want to scare her off before the night even started. He saw her quickly glance at him from the corner of her eye, then fix her stare straight ahead. Her mouth seemed to have tightened up and he was afraid that he had lost her for a bit.
“So, what’s your fancy, pet?” Spike asked her as he approached the exit of the parking lot. She was staring through the windshield and it almost seemed as if she hadn’t heard him, except for the fact that she twitched a little when he said ‘pet’.
But she didn’t say anything. He bit the inside of his cheek, thinking. To his left was Time Square, to his right was 8th avenue.
“Do you want to go home?” He prayed she wouldn’t say yes or nod or do anything in the affirmative. The night was still young and he wasn’t exactly up for driving all the way to South St. Seaport. Or across the Lincoln, for that matter. Again, he got no response, which he took to mean ‘no’.
“Are you hungry?”
No answer. Spike lightly drummed his thumbs on the steering wheel, wondering which way to turn. The lights to his left were alluring, but he wasn’t about to jump into the crowd of tourists, especially now when it was a new summer and everybody in the entire bloody world felt the need to journey to the city.
“You… know any good bands in town?”
He could hear the flies outside the window through her silence. Maybe even a violin player underground in the subway entrance, playing some folk song for a few quarters. If he listened hard enough, he could hear a plane flying in the distance.
“Wanna go to Time Square and throw rocks at the tourists?” Was he even talking? He looked at her, but she was concentrating on something. Like the small crack on the windshield or the smudge on the dashboard. Or something obscure and incomprehensible that was rolling around in her mind – a mind that he felt an urging to get to know.
“Watch some bloody vampire porn?”
Buffy jumped slightly and looked at him, a little wide-eyed as if just jerked to life from thinking hard about something. Finally! Spike thought, relieved. Finally, we’re getting somewhere…
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“Watch some bloody vampire porn?”
Buffy distantly heard his distinct voice, discolored with a little tint of annoyance. When she finally noticed him, it sounded as if he had been talking to a non-responsive version of her for a while.
She had recognized the first few notes of the song that had played before he quickly changed it, but he probably didn’t know that. Drusilla had played it to their Calculus class and had laughed at it because she thought it was so lame. But when Buffy heard it, she felt a pang of jealousy. She wished someone would write a song like that for her.
”The way you turn your head,
Seeing nothing,
Seeing everything,
The way you smile at me,
Daring,
Caring,
I see through that cover of yours,
And I still…
Want it,
Love it.”
She would give body parts for a boy to write that for her. And here was Spike, staring and waiting for her to say something.
“Vampire porn sounds lovely,” she replied with a straight face. Spike grinned and flipped his left signal on, but veered left onto the street before the light had a chance to start blinking.
“Your request is my command,” he bent his head down and swung an arm out in a mock bow and she couldn’t help but laugh a little. She snuck a peek at him grinning and leaning forward at the red light with the illumination of Time Square glistening on his face, making him glow blue, orange, red, green, and the rainbow all at once.
“Such a gentleman,” she said softly, and he grinned even wider.
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Spike didn’t know where he was heading in the slightest. All he knew was what his head told him. The lights. The lights. Go towards the lights. And here he was at an intersection, with Time Square sitting in front of him, inviting in it’s own flashy, exciting way, about to turn onto Broadway. That was, whenever the light changed, which wasn’t going to be anytime soon.
He had a feeling, though, that he would have to go very, very off Broadway to find monsters and vampires and sex. Silently, he cursed himself, You should know where these places are… The light was still red and he racked his brain for his “And Devon Said” file, where he could possibly find every club, concert, show, and dirty place in the entire city, if not in the entire country.
And then it hit him… Caritas… He had never been there before, but what the hell. It was a night for new things. And it was definitely a good night to check out the scene over by the hidden alley on 49th.
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The second the light turned green, Buffy almost fell out of her seat. Spike had swerved like a madman and Buffy hadn’t put on her seatbelt. Groaning, she rubbed her elbow and turned to give him a little glare.
“Who the hell issued you a license?” She asked, reaching over her shoulder to put on her seatbelt.
“What? I’m a great driver,” Spike objected, then changed lanes, cutting off a speeding taxi to his left. Buffy heard the taxi’s wheels shriek wildly as the driver slammed on his brakes and shook her head. The taxi honked angrily and gave him the finger.
“Yeah. You’re super,” Buffy sighed, secretly wondering if she would make it through the night. Or, for that matter, make it to the next light. She pushed a button on the sound system and heard a peculiar whizzing sound coming from the trunk. “What was…”
“You just changed CD’s.”
“Oh… I don’t get it,” Buffy shifted her body around so she was facing him and had one leg up on the seat.
“Get what?”
“Why is your entire car worth less than your stereo?”
He gave her an expression of total shock and mock hurt. “Oy!” He pet the dashboard lovingly and exaggerated a whisper “Shh, don’t listen to her Mrs. D. She didn’t mean it.”
Buffy laughed when Spike turned to her with an offended look on his face, “I think you’ve insulted her.”
“Aw, it’s okay. Don’t take it personally, okay D?” She giggled and Spike laughed, too. But the mood was completely killed when she heard the song coming through the speakers.
I hate everything about you / Why do I love you / I hate everything about you / Why do I love you.
Spike changed the subject. “Caritas sound good to you?”
But she couldn’t answer him. Not with Three Days Grace screaming out “I Hate Everything About You.” All it took was the clench in Spike’s jaw to realize what this CD was. The Break-up. Holy-mother-of-all-things-good, she breathed out, slowly, He sets his life to music.
“I seriously don’t need this now,” she sighed, but didn’t make any move to change the CD turntable again or lower the volume. Maybe he needed to hear the song. Maybe he should just get over that itch-bay rusilla-Day.
It was his turn to be silent, and Buffy just shook her head and said, “Caritas it is.”
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After Spike had squeezed his Desoto in a meter spot between a Mustang and a Mercedes, they walked in step down to the entrance of the club, where they could both feel the pounding of music emulating from behind the closed door. Buffy couldn’t believe how easy it was to talk to him. He had something to say about virtually everything, from Shakespeare to Oreos, from punk rock to Broadway musicals.
“You really want to go in?” Spike raised an eyebrow as two gender-questionable people walked through the doors. They were covered in body glitter from head to toe and were wearing nearly see-through fishnet skirts that could even make Drusilla blush. Buffy grinned and tugged on Spike’s arm, pulling him towards the door.
“Yeah,” She said, “Anyways, I heard Power’s in the Pistol’s playing a surprise gig here tonight.”
“Really?” Spike turned to her, surprised. “Here?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, what are we waiting for?”
Buffy laughed and took the elbow he held out for her, linking her arm with his, as they walked up to the big, black iron door of the club.
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She’s amazing, Spike couldn’t help thinking. Talking to her was like dancing; it had a rhythm, a pulse, a satisfied and excited texture. They volleyed words back and forth like pro-Tennis players.
Right now, she was laughing at something he said and he admired the way her hair had gotten loose from her hair tie and the way she seemed to be completely oblivious about it. Her smile was real. Genuine. The edges of her eyes even crinkled. He couldn’t believe how he had been so lucky as to have picked her out of all the girls in the club. Maybe it was fate. He looked at her and wondered if she believed in destiny. If she believed that the fact that they were walking together, arm in arm, bumping shoulders occasionally, was all pre-written in some ancient order of the universe.
They reached the entrance and he pulled the door open. They were greeted by blasting music from the group on stage doing a seriously provocative cover of “Jellicle Songs for Jellicle Cats,” a song in the musical, Cats!. He squinted down from the balcony at the stage, and noticed that the three performers all had red spots on all over their skin.
A man in green walked up to them and smiled, widely. Wait, scratch that. A green man…
The man flung his arms out in welcome, “Hello! Welcome to Caritas. Can I see some I.D.?”
Spike jammed his hands into the pockets of his jeans and pulled out his wallet containing the fake he had swiped from Devon, stating that he was 25 and from California. Buffy was doing the same thing to her pockets, but from the look on her face, had come up empty.
Shit… he thought.
“Shit,” she swore under her breath.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Thanks for the reviews guys... I'm glad you're liking this story.