Chapter 4
"I loved you, you say," Spike says pensively and licks a drop of milkshake from his lips. "And you never loved me back, but you still kept me around all these years and didn’t stake me?"
"Uh, yeah. Basically."
Spike watches the Slayer slurp hard to get the last dregs of her milkshake out of the cup. She glows from the shower and all that food she gobbled up, and she's looking very attractive and edible. He won't eat her, though. He's gonna kill her in a fair fight, and leave her dead. There's a Drusilla in her world, and he owes her for that. Still, he doesn’t quite believe her story. It’s too farfetched to be completely fabricated, but he's betting she's leaving a lot of stuff out.
She flicks him one of those absentminded but assessing looks. He thinks she's comparing him to the other Spike, and she keeps on doing it, probably without knowing it. Didn’t love Spike back, huh? He knows she was hot for Angelus before he turned her, so it’s not that far off the mark for this Slayer to go for a vampire, but still. Odd.
"So, what do you do all day? What does a Master Vampire occupy his time with?"
The Slayer is looking at him with a little devil in her eyes, taunting him a bit. It's almost like flirting. He likes it, even if she is the Slayer. Always her way, it is, getting in a quip rather than a kick. Although she was mighty fond of the kicking and the killing, too.
"Oh, you know, what does a man do? Hunt and feed at night, make up tasks for the minions, keep them good and scared."
"And by day?"
"Sleep, watch telly, fool around with the girls."
"How about making evil plans, ending the world?"
"What? I'm in it for the fun, love, not serving on someone's evil agenda." Christ. Who does she think he is, Hitler? What gave her such a skewed idea of what a vamp wants? His milksop alter ego he supposes. Can't imagine what got him into rooting for apocalypses, though.
"So you just kill for the thrill of the hunt and to feed?"
'Yeah. What other reasons are there?"
She shrugs. "I thought you might have dreams of killing and terrorizing whole cities…"
"Terrorizing sounds just dandy, pet, but no point in killing off the whole population, is there? The idea is to keep the humans oblivious, fat and happy, and then cull the herd."
"Cull? Ew. Thanks for making me feel like a cow. But I get it. The Happy Meals on Legs thing."
Nice turn of phrase, he admits. She sighs and tosses her hair. The light catches the vampire bite on her neck. He reaches over the table and touches the mark.
"That looks like one of Angelus's. Did you enjoy it?"
She freezes and looks at him like a frightened rabbit. He traces his thumb over her jaw and turns her head the other way. His finger finds another raised pair of bite marks.
"Turn a bit more into the light, love."
To his surprise, she does. He gets up so he can see and feel the mark better. He bends over and gives it a lick before she knows what's happening to her.
He sits back, greatly surprised. "Drac? You do get around, Slayer. Are there any famous vampires who didn't get a piece of you?"
A lovely flush, hot blood flooding to her cheeks, she looks utterly bitable at that moment.
"Just you," she says between clenched teeth.
"Ah."
Curiouser and curiouser. She rallies quickly though and gets back at him with an unerring stab in the wrinklies.
"Do you have a regular girlfriend?"
"None of your business."
"Do you still miss her? Drusilla?"
"What's this? Twenty questions? And a fine thing it is, you asking about her, when you were the one who killed her!"
He subsides and rubs his eyes. No, she wasn't. Still can't get his head around that bit. Or his heart, rather.
"So," she continues, "the Buffy in this world and you are not an item?"
"Christ, no. She's my minion. Won't say we haven't fucked occasionally, but she's not my type. Straight-laced little black and white bitch, she is."
The Slayer flushes again at that. Ha. He looks down at his hands to hide his smirk and sees he's been shredding the straw in to a little daisy shape. He crumples it and stuffs it in his paper cup.
"Do you make a lot of minions?"
"No," he says curtly. "Never liked doing that. Lot of bother, they are."
He needs to get back on topic. Hellmouths and whole towns sliding into a big hole, was it?
She nods understandingly and goes on, oblivious of his sudden fidgets. "Because of what happened with your mom. I get that."
He almost rips her head off right then and there. The paper cup crumples under his fists and he needs to get out of here now before he smashes the whole place. "You know nothing about me and my mother. Shut up."
He stalks out of the diner, Slayer irritatingly close on his heels, still yapping away.
"She loved you, you know. That was just the demon talking."
He throws himself behind the wheel and tears out of the parking lot, although the slippery bits of snow almost make them spin against a row of cars. The Slayer barely has time to close the door behind her. He can't believe she knows all that. He'd never so much as mentioned his mother to Drusilla again, who probably thought that was a good thing. His other self must have bared his soul to her, the git, laid it belly up and quivering below her feet. And he just knew she'd kicked it, taken a pleasure in grinding her heels into his soft underbelly. She's like that. And it wasn't true what she'd said. People are the same after they'd been vamped, just minus the inhibitions; she's a prime example herself. Righteous little Slayer, righteous little vamp.
Although here she is, looking cold and disapproving, but not so righteous that she isn't prepared to go gray by traveling with him for days. He shakes his head and stares at the road. If she opens her mouth he doesn't know what he'll do. Kill her probably. Bitch.
It's starting to snow again, and visibility gets worse and worse. The Slayer doesn't pay the roiling snowflakes much attention and starts yawning. After a bit of that she crawls over to the backseat. He eyes her curvy bum so close to his face and contemplates fucking it, sliding in and out that hot little cunt, but it's hard to imagine doing that without thinking of feeding. The Slayer removes the bum from his field of vision. She starts tossing and turning to find a comfortable spot and he hopes she drops off quick.
The snow is turning into a snowstorm now and driving slows to a crawl. They won't make Cleveland tomorrow at this rate. Sodding snow. Slayer almost made him feel like a domesticated idiot staying in California for so along, but there's good reason not to spend winters in Middle America. Iowa, hurry on up and slide by faster. Adair, Stuart, DeSoto. Hey.
At about five o'clock in the morning, when he hasn't covered more than 200 miles in seven hours, the engine gives up. He's an idiot, hanging on to an old car like that. He should have let the minions steal a new one, a SUV or something. Bugger. He's in the middle of nowhere, the last town twenty miles or so back. Not a car in sight, not a farm, nothing but roiling white closing in around the car, making the world small and confined. The Slayer snores on, oblivious. He lets her sleep. Fat lot of help she'll be in a bind like this.
He gets out of the car and roots around in the trunk. He thinks he remembers seeing a road map there a couple of years back. He does find it, but it's dated 1979 and has almost disintegrated. The only other things in the boot are an old burgundy velvet dress of Drusilla's that gives him a painful pang in the region where his heart used to be, and a blood spattered axe. He can't remember whom he killed with it.
He trudges back to the car. His short extravehicular activity has rendered him stone cold and covered in snow. The map is useless, not enough fine detail to make a guess at small towns or outlying farms nearby. He checks out the Slayer, who's curling up into a tight ball and shivering in her sleep. He tosses the dress over her shoulders, but knows it won't do much good in the long run. It must be below zero out there and she'll die if they don't get somewhere warm, because there's no telling how long the storm is going to last.
An hour till sunrise. He'll be safe from the sun as long as the snowfall continues, and he can always burrow into the snow if the sun decides to make an appearance. They have to strike out now, before the cold starts to get to the Slayer and renders her unable to walk.
He bends over to the back seat and shakes her awake. She gives him that unnerving sweet smile again before she's completely awake, then starts frowning and withdraws from his hands.
"Is it time already? It's still dark."
"The car broke down," he says. "We have to get walking before you freeze to death."
She's slow to take this in. "What?"
She looks outside and sees the white wall of snow and wind bearing down on them. "Shit. Can't you fix the car? We can't go out in this, we'll die."
"You'll die for sure if you stay in the car. If we walk you have a chance."
"Can't we wait for help? Can't you phone in or something?"
He just raises his eyebrows and looks at her. She sighs. "No cell phone, I guess. Mr. Technologically Challenged."
He fishes the cell phone out of his pocket and holds it up to her. Its battery is empty. He never had the car loader installed like he meant to.
She grimaces and rubs her face. Finally, she nods. "Okay."
She dons the stolen jacket, hat and mittens without another word on their being looted from a person he just killed. Very sensible of her. He gets back around the car and roots in the trunk for the piece of rope he noticed but didn’t have any use for five minutes ago. He ties it around his waist and the Slayer's, despite her protests at being treated like a dog or a toddler.
Spike sets off on the road. He's betting on seeing a signpost for a town or a farm within a few miles. The map makes it seem as if this part of Iowa is scattered with small towns, and he hopes scattered doesn't mean fifty miles apart. It doesn't matter. Sitting in that car growing colder by the minute is sure death for the Slayer and he hasn’t given up hope of reaching Cleveland sometime this week.
After a minute or so of leaning into the howling wall of the blizzard he turns around to see how far they've got. He can’t see the car anymore. The Slayer bumps into him and sputters a bit about it, but he's concentrating too hard to pay attention to her. They have to stay on the road or perish.
There is no time anymore. There is just a faint rhythmic strengthening and abating to the onslaught of snow in his face, as if the wind is a frosty giant's breath, a giant who needs to inhale every now and then. Hundreds of these polar breaths have gone by when he bumps into something. He can't see a thing; it's either still night or he is snow-blind, but his hands feel the shape of a mailbox. A strip of skin tears off, he shouldn't have touched the metal thing, but he doesn't feel it. He takes a sharp right and strides south into the white maw of nothingness, hoping the farmer has put his drive at a perfect straight angle to the road. The Slayer trips and falls when the rope tangles with the mailbox post. They are both slow and stupid and it takes a while before they're straightened out again.
Spike's set his mind far ahead, expecting a long traipse, so the sudden appearance of a screened porch about six feet from his face is a surprise.
He raps sharply on the door. Only then do the Slayer's mitts land on his back.
"Why are we stopping?"
He can hardly understand what she's saying, her teeth are rattling so hard. She must be seeing even less than he is.
"There's a farm here. We're going to ask for shelter."
The Slayer, who he thought was practically comatose, yanks on his duster lapels and brings his face close to hers. He can't see much of her except the lilac tip of her nose, but she's probably directing a stern, forbidding expression at him.
"One thing, Spike! You're not eating these people, understood? I want your word of honor on this. And let me do the talking."
"You think I didn't learn some tricks to get in a house in the past hundred-odd years?"
She snorts. "Do you have any idea what you look like right now? Bela Lugosi looked healthy next to you."
"Hey! You check the color of that Barbra Streisand thing on your face lately? It's probably frozen and it's gonna turn black and drop off!"
For a moment he thinks she's gonna cry, and it would be interesting to see what would happen with tears in this temperature. She shakes her head and lifts her nose higher. She'd be almost cute if she didn’t remind him so much a certain vampire named Buffy. Spike, we need to concentrate on doing serious evil. Spike, we're not in it for fun and games. He is his own man, evil to the core, and no little chit is going to tell him otherwise.
"And you'd accept my word, Slayer? How come?"
"I've seen you keep it," she says levelly.
How strange that she'd trust him. He really ought to disabuse her of trusting vampires, for her own good, but he nods and holds up his hand, which is an interesting shade of blue gray.
In spite of her fighting words the Slayer is so weary that he's practically propping her up. Her threats don’t pack much punch now. Still she insists on pretending to take charge.
"Is there anything else about this world I need to know? Is America still America? Not invaded by demons or anything?"
"Bit late with that, aren't you? No, I defeated and killed everything that might have ended the world, and I think I would have noticed if it had."
The inner door is opened and securely closed behind a thickset man in pajamas, a robe and a down jacket. He opens the screen door and looks down at them.
"What have we here?"
"Sir?" the Slayer says politely, although the effect is a bit ruined by her stiff cheeks and chattering teeth. "Our car broke down. Could we please use your phone and wait inside for the tow truck?"
"Tow truck?" The farmer looks at them as if they're insane. "Ain't no truck gonna come out and rescue you in this weather. Come on in, I wouldn't leave a dog outside in this." He hands them a sturdy brush. "Here. Get that snow off you so you don't ruin the carpet."
"Does this mean you can get in the whole house now?" the Slayer hisses at him in an undertone. Single-minded, that's what she is. Thinking like the Slayer even in a situation like this, although you could call them rescued by now, he reckoned.
"Mother!" the man calls out. "We've got visitors!"
The clock in the hall strikes eight o'clock. It's a scary thought that he hasn't even been able to tell that the sun has long since risen. A stout woman, comfortably bundled up in trousers and a thick home-knit sweater pads down to them. Her beady eyes rake him over critically. He looks away from her inquisitive gaze, not caring to reveal his predatory eye, and surreptitiously inhales the musty lived-in smell of the house. Doesn't seem to be more than two people living here, middle-aged people, cough drops, liniments, yesterday's cooking, and a faint trace of incense.
"I'm Nancy Andersen, and that fool man over there, because I bet he hasn't introduced himself yet, is John." She waits for a few seconds and then asks, with a hint of asperity, "And what are your names?"
"I'm Buffy Summers and this is…Spike," the Slayer says quickly.
"Hi, Mr. Summers, hi, Buffy."
This trick seldom fails, and the presence of the Slayer only makes it more believable. People always let stranded travelers in their houses, especially if there is bad weather, and many a farmers has regretted letting him and Dru in. Andersen looks at him sharply and distrustfully, no doubt because bleached hair and black leather aren't exactly acceptable outside of New York, but he can distrust all he want, there's nothing the man can do now, he's in. Too bad he's so old. Doesn't seem like there are any nubile daughters, and him a veal kind of man. Not that the Slayer will let him, and he promised. He still can't believe that she accepted his word, but the worst is that he knows he'll keep it.
Chapter 5
Spike brushes the snow off her, and she does the same for him. It's curiously intimate. She leans on his shoulder while he lifts one of her boots to get the snow off the soles, her mittened hand receiving impressions of creaking leather and a solid shoulder as through a layer of cotton wool. Her own shoulder is gripped securely by his big hand, the touch of which she remembers well, but she doesn’t feel the cold of it through her stolen jacket and thick layers underneath. It's matter of fact, and he's not smirking or nudging her with his elbow or anything, but it's as personal as a kiss.
She and the real Spike had that together for a few short months, before every touch became scintillating and dangerous. And then afterwards, her Spike never came this close to her again all the time he lived in her basement. Even when they slept against each other he kept his hands away and the moment she got up the distance was back. In fact, it never left, she sees that now, and she's getting a glimmer why he didn't believe her when she said she loved him. Their hands coming together and bursting into flame was the most intimate thing they did. The other Spike doesn't sense any of this, she's sure of that, he's not shy or contained around her, and if she reminds him of vampire Buffy it doesn’t seem to set off any embarrassment or great feeling. Which is kind of sad in itself. Poor other Buffy. As if Spike is the only person in the world who can offer her this enormous all-defying love, and if he doesn't there's nothing.
Mrs. Andersen escorts them to her guestroom, a plain space with a wooden floor and throw rugs. There's just one bed in it. Buffy doesn't think that would be a good idea at all, and turns to Mrs. Andersen, but Spike's iron grip on her upper arm halts her.
"We're much more innocuous when we're a couple instead of people traveling together," he hisses in her ear.
Buffy doubts this, but as Mrs. Andersen babbles on about hot showers and is putting out towels and spare clothes on the bed the right moment slips by.
She gathers up the acid-washed narrow-ankled jeans and check shirt that have been laid out for her and walks briskly after Mrs. Andersen to the bathroom. This is going to be so weird, sharing a room with evil Spike, whom she doesn't even know, and pretending to be his wife? Rampant ickiness. She checks her face in the mirror and has to conclude Spike was right about her nose. It's now bright red and itches. Very attractive, especially with the icicles of snot melting and running down. On the other hand, it's a good and safe thing to tone down any attraction around him. There be worms in the shoals of physical attraction to any Spike. She showers, relaxing in the heat and realizing she's both hungry and sleepy. Spike should be hungry too. Crap, Spike's without her supervision right now. He could have eaten Mrs. Andersen while she's been showering. She dresses hastily, seeing by her reflection that a too big check shirt and dark circles under her eyes do nothing for her looks.
Spike's lounging naked in the wicker chair, a feat of endurance in itself, smoking slowly and pensively. There are no bloodstains or drained bodies lying around. Just to be sure she asks.
"What are you going to eat, Spike?"
He lifts heavy lids over eyes that are bluer than the smoke of his cigarette.
"Making the difficult choice between chicken and mice, unless you're offering? Thought not. That is if they have a chicken coop."
Buffy doesn't know what to say. I'm glad you didn't eat our hostess sounds lame. Maybe he will keep his word.
"Don't they have cows or sheep or something?"
"This is Iowa, love, they're farming grain. Might have a couple of heads of cattle for the milk, perhaps, but not great big herds like you're imagining."
"I'm imagining nothing, Spike. The only worthwhile knowledge I have is about slaying and shopping," she says bitterly.
"Self pity doesn't become you, Slayer," Spike answers unfeelingly. "Have you no pride in what you are?"
He gets up to leave for the bathroom stark naked.
"I see you have big plans for Mrs. Andersen," Buffy remarks.
Spike gets a faintly revolted look on his face and rolls his eyes. "You act like we're actually married," he complains, but dons a towel. "D'you miss it so much, fussing over your pet vampire? Did you hold his willy for him when he had to pee? "
He leaves the room with the broad swagger of a man who knows he's scored a hit. Buffy wonders for a few moments if she should follow him and make sure he doesn’t eat anyone, but her instincts are completely dormant on the subject and mostly nudge her to go down and have breakfast. Enticing odors of fried sugary dough are wafting up and she's hoping for waffles or pancakes. Her search for a dryer yields nothing, and she braids her wet hair to get it out of her face.
Buffy finally ventures down the stairs on her thickly stockinged feet. Mom and Pop are already waiting for her at the breakfast table.
"You hungry?" Mrs. Andersen smiles her pearly white dentures at her and indicates a chair.
Strangely enough, when you think that the last thing she did before falling asleep was eat, she is. She nods silently, and watches the homely comforting actions of Mrs. Andersen's hands, which pour coffee for her in a flowered mug and deposit a stack of pancakes on her plate. There's a carafe of maple syrup, she sees. She really wants blueberry, but something tells this is a one-syrup household.
She's halfway through her stack when Spike comes down and slides in next to her, smelling of wet hair and cheap shampoo. Waves of fabric softener waft up from his blue and white plaid shirt. He looks smaller and more harmless in the farmer get-up; even his face seems blander than before. She looks closely and registers the absence of eyeliner, which makes the blue of his eyes less noticeable and dramatic. His hair's bubbling off his head in unlikely lemon sorbet curls, which she last remembers from an insane basement moment.
Mrs. Andersen pours him coffee, but he refuses the pancakes, which is no great surprise.
"I'll just eat a bit off Buffy's plate."
His refusal to eat is met with frowns and disapproval.
"Son, you need to eat in this cold," Mr. Andersen tells him bluntly. "You're pale and skinny as it is. I'm sure the missus would like to see some meat on your bones."
For some inane reason Buffy blushes fierily at this remark, and covers up her confusion and irritation at her own blood vessels making fun of her by reaching for her coffee mug. It doesn’t exactly smell like her favorite frappaccino, but it'll have to do.
Mrs. Andersen's sharp eyes rest on her. "You're not wearing a ring, honey. You two are married, you said?"
Another flush makes her sweat in her borrowed flannels. Next to her Spike makes a tiny sound of exasperation, which she knows only she recognizes, and puts his hand over hers. Thank god he's not wearing polish, she thinks, but below these sane thoughts another Buffy howls in anguish and tears up. Her hand twitches under his but he keeps it in place.
"We needed the money," he tells the Andersens ambiguously.
Buffy admires this. They can make up their own interpretation whether this was before or after the wedding, and the subject is so delicate they will likely not touch on it again. And she's right, an uncomfortable silence falls, disturbed only by the irregular ticking and whirring of an old clock somewhere in another room. The overly sweet sauce and the fatty textureless pancakes are making her nauseous but she can't stop eating, it's like a void inside her needs filling. She peers surreptitiously around her while she eats on, but the room is so bland there is nothing for the eyes to rest on. Everything the Andersen's have is generic, owned by millions of people across the country, the patterned plates, the dishcloths, the toaster.
There is only one thing missing and after another pancake she realizes it's music. There ought to be some kind of bland pop noise in the background, but there's only the clock, the buzz of the old model fridge and the furtive eating and moving sounds people make in a quiet room. She wishes they would turn the radio on but after practicing several requests for it she realizes that the storm is probably blocking all transmissions anyway.
She out-eats Xander in the pancake stakes and manages to finish the mug of coffee. It does nothing for her alertness. Her head is blanketed in snow and in spite of all the sugar and caffeine nothing much makes an impression any more. She can't hide her yawns and Mrs. Andersen sends her to bed.
"Sorry I can’t offer you anything to occupy you, Spike," Mr. Andersen says. "I'm up to my ears in taxes and I already fed the pigs. Best get some rest as well."
Buffy slowly climbs back to her bedroom. Her socks slide silently on the polished wooden stairs and it's almost impossible to lift her foot to the next rung of the stairs. It takes an age for her hand to descend on the railing and she doesn’t feel wood under her hand, but something like felt or a thick moldy layer of decay. She decides to stop, she wants to turn around and tell Spike they have to get out of here, snow storm or not, but her feet go on doggedly ascending, almost obscured from her line of vision by a wisp of hair that swings in front of her eyes.
There is the guestroom door, a darkly stained affair with a red heart and the word 'Marilyn' fixed to it. Her hand comes up and presses the handle. Stumbling and yawning she shucks off her clothes, put on only an hour ago, and slides the flannel nightgown Mrs. Andersen has thoughtfully left for her over her head. The blue gingham sheets are cool and welcoming and she wriggles under the thick covers luxuriously. Sleep, just what she needs. She's so tired, although why this would be so when she slept away most of the night in the car she doesn’t know. Maybe that trek in the snow took a lot out of her.
Spike slides in next to her, yawning just like she is and there's something not quite right about that, but she can't think what. He nestles against her back and falls asleep immediately. Buffy hangs on to consciousness by sheer force of will, fighting for another few seconds to think about this, but she feels so safe, so very safe that she lets go. Her dreams are ready and waiting for her.
There are little blue checks all around her, braids swinging, and so is her axe. She smoothes her little white apron and casts around for someone to kill. Oh, hey, there's Spike. For someone reason she never got around to killing him before, and it’s totally okay because he's a vampire. She hefts the axe high and brings it down on his sleeping neck with a satisfying crack. Two more chops and it’s done. There is very little blood. He wakes up, winks at her and blows out his last sigh theatrically. So typical, always tries to get in the last word, even when it’s clear she's won.
"Won’t be enough, you know," Spike remarks conversationally from behind her.
He fastidiously swirls the duster closer around himself to avoid the blood that is fountaining up from his other body. There is suddenly a lot of blood spraying around and she looks at her little white apron in dismay. It's now a little red apron.
Spike tweaks her left breast casually and lights a fag. "I'll just wake up again and start over. No keeping me down, pet."
He's up in every sense of the word, that's true. She might as well since her apron is stained anyway. With a sigh she cranks his engine, going on patiently until the engine starts with a great roar and he's off to the horizon.
Well, that was different. Still, ultimately not very satisfying, like most dreams. A girl likes to get her hands on some real meat, after all. No matter how many baloney sandwiches you eat in a dream, you still wake up hungry.
Chapter 6
The sun sets and Spike wakes up, deliciously warm, pressed up against a softly breathing bundle of blood and bones. This is the kind of waking up he likes. Breakfast in bed. The tremor of blood rushing under Buffy's silky skin is tantalizing, and his hard-on against her flannel-covered bum makes for a perfect combination. Spike decides that he's going to keep his prey alive a little longer in the future now and then, just for the pleasure of waking up like this. He buries his nose deeper in her fragrant hair and gives an experimental lick along the top of her spine. Buffy sighs softly but doesn’t wake up. He starts to pull up the long nightgown, softly humping his cock between the cleft of her buttocks. He can hear her heart rate accelerate, she's going to wake up any moment now, he'd better be quick. The gown bunches around her middle and he slides in a finger first to test the waters. She's wet and shivers around his finger. With a start she wakes up.
"Wha?"
Fuzzy and sweet. He might just get lucky. Then a Slayer-powered elbow in his solar plexus disabuses him of that notion and he sits back laughing and coughing at the same time.
"Thought you wouldn’t let me get this far, Slayer. You sleep pretty deeply. What were you dreaming of?"
She's beet-red and almost speechless with fury.
"How dare you? How dare you?"
He grins and leans back in the pillows, well aware of the picture he makes against the gingham sheets. He pushes down the comforter and takes his hard cock in his hand, pleasantly stimulated by the glare of the blushing Slayer, so angry she gives off waves of heat against his sensitive skin. She gapes at him.
"You’re going to do that right next to me? Are you out of your mind?"
He thinks briefly and shakes his head. "Don't think so. Got to get my jollies some way, don't I, now that you're not obliging?"
"'You're the crassest, crudest, most insensitive thing ever!" she stammers out and flounces out of the bed angrily, flashing him some golden thigh and cheeks.
"You've known me for, what, six years, and you hadn't come to that conclusion yet?
"I guess not!" she says with averted head and bangs off, in search of the bathroom he supposes.
It's easy to imagine the velvet heat he'd felt around his finger for a moment around his dick instead and he's shooting into his hand when the Slayer storms back in, shouting something and yanking on his arm.
"Stop playing with yourself, Spike, something's wrong. The lights don’t work and there is no hot water or anything."
He glances up and blinks a few times to get his eyes to focus. The room is lit, but not by the fringed lamp overhead. The drapes aren't drawn, and outside all is black and grey whirling endlessly around itself. A glow seems to emanate from the walls and floors themselves. He just needs a moment to get back some control over his limbs and then he'll get up and kill somebody.
"Let's get dressed, Spike. I've got a feeling about this. How come we slept the day away? And us in one bed? That never would have happened if I'd been normally tired."
She's right about that. He gets out of bed and reaches for his borrowed clothes. He turns around to watch Buffy dress; Slayer's too distracted to care about showing off just about everything to him. Nothing he hasn't seen many times before, but it's different when it's a live body and can blush in shame or arousal.
She catches him looking and turns around angrily. Her bottom is just as edible as her tits and it's nice to get a good eyeful, but it's mightily strange that the idea of staking him never seems to cross her mind. After all, he never sleeps without a stake nearby in case one of his minions gets uppity, and her alter ego is the one he's most wary of. It's an odd sensation to be trusted so much. He doesn’t think it's ever happened to him before. It's not a good thing, mind you, makes a bloke soft, makes him weak. The only person you can trust is yourself.
The Slayer comes up to him and thrusts her hand in his left pocket, an action so surprising he almost takes it for an attack and is whirling halfway across the room preparing for a kick when he sees her bemused face and her hand holding up his lighter.
"Geez, Spike, jumpy much? I thought we might need this in case the magic lighting fails."
"Right! Good thinking, Slayer," he says, a little embarrassed. Crazy bint. Knows what he keeps in his pocketses, even, if that doesn't mean they had a thing he'll eat his hat. "You'll be needing the light, while I will be able to see everything."
"Yeah," she says, distracted. She's staring down at her feet, where, now that she's alerted him to it, her own tracks can be seen crisscrossing each other in a thick layer of velvety dust. "Ew. How about the bed?" She steps over to it and slaps the comforter. Great clouds of dust billow up and a hole appears in the cover. It disintegrates under her hand. "And I slept under that? How come I didn’t freeze to death?"
"That's because I was keeping you warm," he says quickly. "Foregoing my natural disgust at sleeping with a human being for the mission."
"Hah. Keeping me warm with the heat of your ice cold vampire feet? I don’t think so."
They've started moving as they speak, and he holds the door for her automatically. She stops and crosses her arm across her chest.
"Just this once I'll allow you to go first, Spike. Be my guest."
Well, well, who’s being all perky and witty here? A far cry from the tired woman who sat next to him, slumped and despondent. Adversity agrees with her. Which surprises Spike, because he got the distinct impression she was fed up with being a Slayer and all.
He concentrates on his awareness of the old house surrounding them. He senses no people close by, no animals, nothing living as far as his ears and nose can reach. The bare boards on the landing creak and they both freeze. But there is no reaction whatsoever, neither in the physical world nor in the blanket of magic he can feel covering the house.
The stairs bitch and moan like a whole batch of tortured souls but they've both stopped reacting to it by now. Downstairs the same glow lights the hallway and they split up to check the other rooms without needing to discuss it. You'd think she'd been guarding his back for six years, so seamless is their cooperation.
He finds a wrecked and empty sitting room, a windowless pantry and a small room without any furniture at all, the walls a pale yellow with bunnies cavorting all over them. He heads to the kitchen, where the Slayer is still poking around.
"Look, Spike," she says, without even checking if it's really him, she just knows, apparently, "it's all empty and dusty and old. Ancient."
He takes another look around. He wouldn’t call it old, actually. It's not such a distinct style he can pinpoint the exact decade all this stuff belongs to, but it’s not fifties or anything. He spots a green and brown stylized flower pattern; he guesses late seventies. That would be old to the Slayer, he supposes. In keeping with the age the Andersens seemed to be.
"Okay, what's left of the house? Attic? Cellar?" he asks.
He knows that she knows which one it'll most likely be, there's an inevitability about gigs like this, but he agrees to go up to the attic together first. As expected, it's a jumble of old furniture, rotted washing and sad-eyed lonely toys.
They each take an old brass curtain rod with them so they'll have some sort of weapon. The Slayer has left her stake in her own clothes, and who knows where they are now? Mrs. Anderson took them away to wash them. Maybe they'll find them in the basement; although why people would need a basement with all of Iowa available to build on, he can't guess.
"Ready, Slayer?"
"Ready, Spike," she says with a crooked grin. Enough nostalgia in that smile to make a bloke queasy. He doesn’t want to know.
The door to the basement swings open without a sound. Nothing but utter darkness comes wafting out, and not a whiff of earth or dampness, which is suspicious in itself. He gives the Slayer a look. She nods. He puts a careful foot out for the first step down. The world slows down after that, or maybe he's speeding up. It's suddenly day bright and he flinches in unreasoning fear of sunlight although he knows it isn’t, all in the middle of falling down the stairs and landing with a loud thunk on the swirling concrete. The Slayer lands on top of him only a second later, forcing the last bit of air out of his lungs so he can't even make the appropriate lewd or sarcastic comment. The swirly concrete dissolves into magic symbols and when he looks up he sees the Andersens again. They don’t register on his other senses so they're not really there or something. They're standing outside the pentagram he and the Slayer have fallen on and he suspects he won’t be able to leave it, but punches the air anyway. His fist strikes up a shower of blue sparks. Magic barrier, just like he thought. The Slayer wants to try for herself, of course, and gets the same result.
Mrs. Andersen looks on with a woeful expression on her face, wringing her hands. "I'm so sorry, Buffy and Spike. We needed the sacrifice for our taxes, it’s nothing personal."
"Don't talk to them, Nance. We agreed on that. They're drug addicts, and not even married," John Andersen says gruffly and doesn’t look Spike in the eye. He's fiddling with something on a crude little altar which looks like it’s made out of orange crates and prairie grass. The wall behind it is painted a shiny black, contrasting wildly with the colorful loops and squiggles of the pentagram underneath Spike's feet. He tries to scuff a line of it with his feet, but it's painted on the concrete and keeps right on shining. It's as if Keith Haring painted a pentagram in the style of Joan Miro, thick black lines outlining red and yellow patches. Or maybe the subway plan of a city that's not London. Whatever it is, it has them stuck.
The Slayer is standing back to back with him, which is as it should be. "See anything?" he asks her.
"Yeah," she says. "Look at what Mr. Andersen is doing. He's using an interdimensional thingy that looks just like the one that got me into this universe."
Mr. Anderson is using a number 2 pencil to poke at a shiny blue bracelet of light on the altar.
"Ready, Father?" Mrs. Andersen asks nervously.
She's picking at a hangnail. Spike still can't sense her. Maybe she's a ghost? No kind of demon he knows has this lack of presence on his people radar.
"Talk to her," he says to the Slayer in an undertone. "Find out why they're doing this."
The Slayer complies immediately. She makes a good minion. "Mrs. Anderson," she asks plaintively, in an 'I'm an innocent victim' voice, "why are you doing this to us? I don’t use drugs, and we were getting married soon, honestly. As soon as we've saved up enough money for a nice ring and a dress."
Spike continues to watch Mr. Andersen, who's steadily and patiently fiddling away with his pencil. It looks like a precise operation, like using a PDA or something, as one of his minions likes to do.
"Oh, honey," Mrs. Andersen wails, "If it was up to me we wouldn't be doing this, but we have to. We were so wretched when our baby girl died, and John's brother-in-law said he knew someone who'd help, and he turned out to be a demon, and it didn't help at all, it backfired terribly. Gus died, and we never got Ingrid back, but we still have to pay a yearly tribute to the demon. A young man and woman, and he eats them and leaves the town in peace."
"Nancy…" Mr. Andersen implores, but his concentration is on the altar.
"The house looks so empty, Mrs. Andersen. What happened to you two?"
The Slayer is doing well at this. Spike strains but can’t make out the details of what Mr. Andersen is doing.
"We died too, Buffy, we died too," Mrs. Andersen admits sorrowfully. "We went to hell, of course, and every year we have to do this, and…"
"Nance!" Mr. Andersen barks. "Don't talk to them. It's coming."
"Mrs. Andersen, please, I was someone's baby girl too, and you wouldn't do that to my mother, would you? Her name is Joyce."
The woman utters a wail of anguish. "We can't! It's gonna eat your souls! It needs two souls or it'll come out and eat everyone!"
Spike thinks it's time for a change of tack. "You're fucked anyway, you old twit. I haven’t got one, I'm a vampire."
Mrs. Andersen walks around to him and gapes. "A… vampire? What's that? Father? Did you hear that?"
Spike vamps out to make his point and Mr. Andersen goes white as a sheet. Funny to see that on a ghost.
"Let us out, Mrs. Andersen, we can fight your monster, we're strong. Do you have weapons?" Buffy is saying behind him.
Spike grinds his teeth. Here he was going for threatening, dammit, and then the bloody Slayer goes in a completely different direction. Doesn’t the woman know when to take her cue from him? He checks the altar again, and the black wall behind it is starting to bulge and sizzle. Right. Not much time for shilly-shallying around anymore.
"Gimme your wrist, Slayer."
"What?"
"Your wrist. We need something to paint out those concrete swirls. Don’t think Mrs. Ghostly and Mr. Concerned Citizen are gonna be much help."
She stares at him with blank eyes and a frowny forehead. He throws another look over his shoulder, yanks her wrist to his mouth and bites.
TBC
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