Ain't no bloody road out there, that's why.
Nor autos, nor destinations to coax them towards.
"Thoughts?" the girl said, sounding utterly defeated.
Spike glanced at the clock above the checkout counter again. The hands were still frozen at a minute to midnight. "Yeah. Think I should have stayed in my sodding bed."
The Slayer shot him an embittered scowl. "See, that's why. Right there!"
"That's why what?"
"Forget it." The girl blew out a sharp breath and paced towards the door again.
"Buffy..."
Spike reached his hand out after her. Only, it wasn't his hand. It was different somehow, plumper and pinker. He stared at it in curious wonder. "What the hell?" asked a stranger's voice. After a beat, Spike realized it had come from his own mouth.
Buffy turned in slow motion to face him, her eyes wet with horror.
"Oh. Oh, God, no."
"What?" said Spike, the voice still coming out all wrong – a spongy, Yankee tenor he didn't recognize.
When initial shock had worn off, Buffy tilted her head in wonder at him. "I thought it. I thought it and it happened," she whispered.
"Thought what?" Spike felt the wave of panic crawling up his spine. "Soddin' hell did you do to me, Slayer?!"
She shook her head. "I don't know. I just thought…"
Before she could say another word, the effect snapped off, as quick as it had arrived. Spike waved his regular old hand before his face a few times, and cleared his throat cautiously.
It was magical rubbish of the worst kind, of course. He'd learned early on that Hocus Pocus was a dangerous game to play and, just like bloody Vegas, the house always won. Spike tried his best to never touch the stuff, or let it touch him.
Hang on a minute, he thought.
'Touch the stuff?'
"Bauble," he said.
"Bubble?"
He ignored her and made his way towards the stairs, grumbling low curses.
"Where are you going?" He felt her little bare feet beating after him. "If you know something…"
"I don't. I mean, not really. There's just. Something downstairs."
"Spike, what the Hell did you do?"
"It was an accident, alright! Like a bleeding Cambodian minefield, this shop."
"Fine. Show me."
When the reached the shelf, the trinket was still where he'd left it. He felt his hackles raise again while they studied it. The tiny tin heart was still pulsing, casting off waves of hypnotic red light.
"Well, that's just great," the Slayer said. "Smooth move, Ex-lax!"
"Very mature. Do you recognize the widget or not?"
They took a few timid steps forward, Buffy's eyes narrowing to slits. "Looks like some kinda magic doohickey."
"Oh, ya think?"
The girl scowled at him again, then headed back up the stairs.
"And where are you going?"
"Well, I guess I'm just gonna have to do some research, aren't I?"
"Yeah, not exactly your strong suit, pet."
"Oh, like it's yours?"
"Hello? The Judge? The Gem of Amara? Ring any bells?"
"Hello? And how did all all that turn out for ya?" the Slayer's voice teased, just as her leathery shape vanished from sight.
Spike gave it a moment's thought, then blew out a sigh. He dug in his pocket for a smoke, then realized that he'd left the pack in Nikki's coat, along with the lighter, and every last teaspoon of his pride.
" And I would've gotten away with it, too," he grumbled, "if it weren't for you meddling kids..."
~*~*~
"What's it say?"
Buffy shushed him, and kept reading, her eyes darting sharply under a furrowed brow. Then, "Hard to tell. Something about allusion and meter..."
Spike felt the tiniest pin-prick jab the mustiest corner of his brain. "You mean, like in poems?" he said, his voice cracking just a bit on the last word. He cleared his throat. "Poncy limericks and whatnot?"
"I guess," Buffy said, distractedly, then began to read aloud. "'The Fool's Heart draws its power from the inflamed passions of those in its thrall...'
"Passions, eh?"
"Shut up, '...converting metaphor into physical manifestation This resulting matter is dangerously unstable, and the stream of somatic effects itself cannot be terminated except through ritualistic means.'"
"Fair enough. Just give us the shopping list and I'll go round up the..."
"No," Buffy said suddenly, her voice an octave lower than usual. "Oh, no, no, no, no, no."
"What is it?" Spike said, sensing her alarm. "Is it bears?! What's it say?"
The Slayer shot him an accusing scowl. "You! You demented little psycho," she barked. "You did this on purpose!"
"Oh, right. 'Cause this has all been so bloody pleasant so far."
"I swear to God, Spike, I didn't think even you could sink this low."
He gave up on parlay and just made a run at the book itself, wresting it from her grip. The tome was big and musty, with wide square leaves yellowed by age. On the leaf beside the text, a triptych of illustrations burned back at him like the world's raunchiest comic strip.
"Oh my, my," he murmured, trying and failing to stanch the wicked leer from his lips. "Now that's what I call 'magical', love."
"Oink away, jackass. But it will be a cold day in Hell before I ever…"
Spike jabbed a finger at the Winter Wonderland outside. "In case you didn't notice," he said. "And unless you want spend your life transforming into 'wandering clouds 'and snarling people in the 'loops of your hair' and whatnot, we bloody well better do it."
"Wait, what?" Buffy shot him a cockeyed look, like he'd grown a second head.
"What? Why?" he said, then instinctively pawed at his shoulder. "I didn't grow one, did I?"
"Grow what? No, it's just... 'wandering clouds?'"
"Yeah. What about them?"
"That's Wordsworth, right?" she asked, totally incredulous. "How the heck did you know that?"
Spike sniffed and brushed a scrap of lint from his jeans. "Well, I... I mean... I... when you're over a hundred years old, you pick up a few things, alright? The real question is, how did you know that? Some wanker print it on the back of a shampoo bottle?"
"No! It doesn't... It's just, in college, I–" she began to say. Then, "Point is, Spike, we are not doing that." Her eyes were sparking with a barrister's outrage now, and the slightest flicker of shame. "And I mean… come on. I'm, pretty sure that isn't even, you know... possible."
Spike slid the book back on the table, then planted himself on a seat alongside her. Together, they stared at the pages, their eyes drawn over and over to the anatomic puzzle pictured in the final image. He felt the girl's blood begin to cool to its usual glacial drip. This was to be expected, of course. Now that Her Majesty had finished making her big show, expounding upon the many affronts to her tender virginal honor, the pragmatic side of her reemerged. He could almost hear the ticking clockwork behind the walls of her skull as she studied the dirty doodles. She could be very smart when the situation required it, and sometimes ruthlessly so. For the first time in a long time, he wondered what kind of vampire she might have made.
~*~*~
Minutes later, they were combing up and down the aisles, collecting all the less tawdry ingredients. There weren't many, thankfully; with this brand of sex magick, 'twas mostly about the main course, and in this case the meat was served very, very rare.
As they sorted through the elements strewn about the table, he found it harder and harder to squeeze the pictures out of his brain. She was right, unfortunately; confident as he was in his prowess, that last one seemed a bit beyond his reach, anatomically speaking. The mind was willing, but the flesh still was bloody well human, in that particular department. There was no plan for a workaround, as such; Buffy just mumbled something about crossing bridges when they come to them – a reckless verse which, of course, immediately split the shop floor in twain and sent a river surging through the gap. Luckily, it also conjured a bridge to cross, when they came to it.
They both went about dressing the stage in a state of hypnotic silence, chary to say or even think anything for fear of sending the whole works arse-end. When they were finished laying out the preparations – the oils and tinctures and root-of-What-have-you – Spike went about lighting the candles himself with his Zippo. He found it took all his willpower to resist one final smoke before the big show started.
"Okay," Buffy said, clapping down a mason jar filled with with purple pigment in the center of the seal, and popping the lid. "That's it, I guess."
"Right."
"Right."
"So, em... How do you want to, uh..."
Buffy's eyes flickered downwards, and she shifted her feet. Then, without another word, she shrugged off Nikki's coat and tossed it aside. She didn't play coy this time. She just stepped gingerly into the circle and sank to her knees, naked as a (No, you wanker! No bloody similes, either).
Spike ditched his own gear at top speed, then got down there with her. He set the open book next to the anointing jar, then he began to mechanically read the incantation like it were a set of stereo instructions. When the little ditty reached it's rip-roaring climax, Spike dunked his thumb in the jar of purple stuff, and smeared it in a little semi-circle on the center of the girl's throat. Their eyes met when he did it, and he saw that her features had acquired that familiar countenance of barely lidded concupiscence it usually did when she offered her body to him. In reply, he took her hand in his and pressed the palm to his cock, which she proceeded to stroke softly to life. It didn't take long, and it never did. She could have done it with a whisper. A smile.
She kissed him; not a desperate kiss this time, but a long one, and composed half of breath. A second kiss arrived much lower on his frame. She took his length slowly into her mouth, pausing to baste each inch with her tart and talented tongue. And when she could take no more, she fell into an delightful rhythm of tugging and suckling. The small, wet sounds her mouth made were like (No, no...), and when she began to pepper them with muffled groans of pleasure, he feared he might finish far, far ahead of schedule. This Olympic sport of theirs, after all, had more than one event, so he'd have to wrestle his passions down til the final...
Uh-oh, he thought.
Oh, bugger...
And, of course, bugger indeed, because suddenly the Magic Box was no longer the Magic Box at all.
Buffy froze mid-suckle, her eyes bugging at the spectacle that swirled around them: a massive, modern arena, filled to capacity with wankers of every nation, creed and color. The noises they made reminded Spike of a thousand misspent nights at the dog track – the sort of buzzing, whistling, chattering cacophony of a crowd who is slightly impatient for the next race to begin. When he looked down he saw the boards beneath their knees had been replaced by a blue plastic mat that reeked of old sweat, and the circle of candles by a big bullseye of red and yellow, and Spike's sanity by a twisting maze of nonsense. An officious plonker in zebra-striped shirt hovered about them nearby, a whistle jammed in his mouth.
Spike shook another allusion from his head and tried to focus. His eyes instinctively found Buffy's, but he could only answer the horror there with an apologetic shrug.
She spat out his hard-on with a sharp cry and, for the second time that night, used her hands to cover what she could. This time he couldn't really argue with it, though – even William the Bloody Shameless was feeling a might exposed.
"Spike!"
"Sorry!"
"Make it go away!"
"I'm trying!" But the fact was, he wasn't really so sure how to make it go away, and was positively terrified of what would happen if he screwed it up. After a moment's deliberation, he gave up. "Look. Let's just... keep going."
The crowd seemed to like this idea. They sent up a cheer, and somewhere he could hear a segment of drunkards begin to chant: "KEEP IT (clap-clap) GO-ING (clap-clap). KEEP IT (clap-clap) GO-ING (clap-clap) ..."
"What?!" she shrieked, straining to be heard above the din. Are you completely crazy!"
"They're not real, pet," Spike said. "'Sides, maybe if we ignore them, they'll... uh, go away."
Buffy shot him a bewildered, exasperated look, but he could see she was also considering it. She craned her head about to take in the crowd, squinting and gritting her teeth as though trying to picture it actually happening. After a few moments of this, her hands slowly withdrew from their defensive posts, giving the grateful crowd an unobstructed look at the goodies. Another cheer erupted when she bent – so slowly, so falteringly – and drew him back between her lips. The referee blew his whistle, as if to indicate the start of play.
While she tried to locate that lovely rhythm again, Spike did his best to help her along. He knotted his fingers in her hair with one hand, rubbed her back with the other. Her body was like a taught coil of electric (Don't think it, mate!). It shivered in his grasp; even her tongue was shivering. He relaxed his grip, and began to pet and smooth her hair, in a way he prayed was reassuring. After a minute or so of this he sensed it was even starting to work. He could feel her confidence gradually reasserting itself, first causing her body to relax to a state of equilibrium, then, once that line was breached, moving her in another direction entirely. Soon enough she set herself a galloping pace, sucking his cock like she wanted to choke on it, grunting, pawing and squeezing and tweaking his balls, hungry and thirsty and brilliant. When the crowd next cheered her, she acknowledged them with a dramatic flourish, rocking her hips like a big showoff, really putting her heart and spine and soul into it.
Spike was rather impressed by it himself, so he worked his hand down to her bum, gave it hard squeeze before his fingers went about their usual duties. He worked them inside her quim, one and then two, and she pushed herself onto them, fucking herself with them while she worked his todger like a pro. Without warning, the sound of the crowd died down to a whisper, then disappeared, replaced by low chatter, and some kind of seedy guitar groove.
Whoa.
"Uh, Buffy."
She ignored him at first, but after a few more taps on the shoulder she came up for breath. The purple sigil he'd scrawled on her throat was glowing gold, now. It burned brightly for a few moments, and then vanished in a puff of theatrical sparkles – which, Spike hoped, signified it was time to move on to the spell's next step. Yet this fact, pertinent as it was, paled in comparison to their latest change in scenery.
Thanks to some unknown bit of verse, the roaring stadium had been replaced with the rather less grandiose accommodations of a motel room. The mat was now a burgundy carpet covered in mysterious, mossy stains and cigarette burns, and the circle was blocked out in blue painter's tape. Instead of crowds of jubilant sports fanatics, their company of spectators had been reduced to a small huddle of half a dozen men – sullen blokes, with pocked, booze-bloated faces that were mostly hidden behind mustaches and sideburns and huge, dark sunglasses. One cad with a greasy ponytail manned a small camera on a tripod, while another dangled a microphone over them at the end of a long black staff. The air reeked of tobacco, hashish, cheap perfume and desperation.
Buffy shot him a distressed look, eyes round and jaw hung agape.
"Hey, don't look at me," he said. "This one ain't mine."
She didn't argue with this. Instead she just peered sheepishly at the throng of degenerate "artistes", one of whom aimed a big, hot shop light at her in reply. It rendered her form with a palette of horribly bright and garish colours, the cheap ink stains of Andy Warhol wedded to the bland degradation of a department store window display. For a brief moment, even his memory of Warren's mannequin looked warmer, and more real.
Is this how you see it? Spike thought, and the idea stabbed him with a shard of grief.
Is this all you think is left?
"Okay, my beautiful babies," sang a fat, goateed sleazeball, whom Spike twigged as the director of the this sordid little set. His yellow polyester shirt was unbuttoned halfway to the navel, framing a bush of simian chest hair so thick it looked like he was wearing a black sweater underneath. "Let's get a little more makeup on Princess here and put this one in the can."
After a few quiet, confused seconds Spike got the hint, and began to draw the second sigil on Buffy's forehead.
"Beautiful, baby, just beautiful, that's perfect, you're an artist, baby, an artist." The director clapped his hands together once, the motion filled with all the sultry smugness of pimps and smack peddlars and war profiteers. The Slayer regarded him through lidded, almost sleepy eyes. It was a look Spike knew well, and it meant she was about to play a game. He blew out a little wasted breath, wondering what the latest rules would be.
Unlike in the wrestler's pitch, there was no adjustment period this time. While Spike looked on, Buffy grabbed stood up and started smoothing and fondling her breasts.
"How are my tits?" she asked the director. "Do my tits look good?"
"Oh yeah, baby, yeah, they look just fine."
She turned next to the bloke with the camera. "What about you, Larry? You think they look okay?"
'Larry' (she was giving them bloody names now) offered her a lazy shrug, then took a drag on his smoke. "They're too fucking small," he finally said, prompting a wave of low chuckles.
Buffy's cheeks flushed pink, but she kept right on rubbing and stroking and tweaking her nipples. When she turned to Spike, her eyes were narrowed to thin slots, more lash than pupil, like she was trying to camouflage her soul with sex. "What about you?" she said. "What do you think of my tits?"
Without warning, a tsunami of poetry assailed the shoals of Spike's rotten old brain. He fought against it with all his unholy might, dammed off every causeway and bricked up every breach (and, given how badly this effort began, he was bloody well surprised not to find himself sopping wet with a bricklayer's trowel in hand).
What do I think of your tits?
They're are the (no) of (no),
The (no) in (No's) own (no),
(No)ing in the (no) like (nononos),
Wicked (nos) loose their (nos) for them,
Whilst saints lose their ((No! Come on, you stupid git),
I hold within my hand but cannot (no),
I (no) between my lips but cannot (no)
I (no) (nono) (nono) but cannot (no)
(No) (no) (nono) (nono) (no) (no no) (NO)
NO. NO. NO. NO.
"I think they're... good," he said.
The director started clapping his fat, greasy hands again. "How romantic. Okay people, c'mon. What is this, a skin flick or fucking Donahue?" Without warning, the blighter strolled into the center of the circle. He grabbed Buffy by the elbow and marched her aside, with all the casual intensity of a farmer leading a calf to slaughter. "Now, honey, we're gonna need a few more positions out of you this time. Last time it was like watching a goddamned corpse getting diddled at the morgue, you dig what I'm saying?"
The implication made Spike hungry to chew on the fat bastard's slimy jowels, but Buffy didn't seem fazed by it in the slightest.
"Okay Bill. More positions. Got it."
Bill gave her a couple of light slaps on the cheek and smiled. "That's my baby girl," he said. "Okay, okay, why don't we start out with a little reverse cowgirl, and then see where it goes from there. Okay."
If he says 'okay' one more time, Spike thought.
"Okay, you," Bill said, snapping his fingers at Spike like he were a dog. "You, you, you, whatever-your-name-is. You lay just, lay down and let her get you in shape, and we'll get rolling right away, okay? We don't want to waste anymore fucking time on this, okay?"
It was maddening, but the wanker was right. Neither Buffy nor he could claim great honors in the sanity department at this point. Who knew what horrors might spew forth from their brains if this bollocks dragged on much longer?
Buffy seemed to realize this too, so she straddled his thighs and got to work with her little hands again, molding the flesh down there solid. When Bill said "Action," she flipped front-to-back and then eased herself down onto his cock, squeezing the final inch in with saucy little wiggle. At first he thought it was a merciful change, considering the near catastrophe of his Ode to Dirty Pillows minutes before. The problem was, she was all poetry, tip-to-tails poetry. Every inch of her body was glorious, perfect meter, and every inch of her mind was stirring verse. She worked him harder than usual (Was there a "usual" now?), twisting and grinding her hips down like she was trying to screw him into the floor. And all the time her hands kept exploring her own tawdrily lit flesh: petting her thighs and breasts and her hot little pussy, and pulling at her hair like she might tear it out.
She accompanied this performance with a soundtrack of dubious groans, but it wasn't enough for Director Billy. "Louder," the director said, his voice a harsh whisper. "Louder, dollface. And more intense, okay?"
She tried to oblige, blowing out low grunts that sharpened to high-pitched squeals at each end.
"Come on, dummy," Bill said. "You can sell it better than that, sweet cheeks."
And sure enough, on command, the grunts graduated, transformed into breathy yelps and warbling, falsetto cries. Her body kept hammering down at him like a factory machine, her soft, round ass clapping and clopping against the skin of his belly. He took a moment to thank all Gods and Devils that he couldn't see the girl's face, and be thereby be forced to review her acting talents as well.
"Oohbaby yeahbaby," she said. "Yessstbaby, feels sogood, ohyeahohgodyeahunhuh."
Bill was prowling along the edge of the circle again, playing like he was Steven Sodding Spielberg. "Okay, that's enough of that one. Let's change up to a...uh...um..."
"Tijuana Jellyfish?" Larry helpfully proposed.
"Yeah, okay. Tijuana Jellyfish. Okay."
Spike thumbed through the dirty diary in his brain at top speed. "Oh," he finally said, "Right." Assembling the Sutra of this particular Kama in his mind's eye, he spun Buffy to face him and slid her onto his lap. Her gorgeous doll's legs splayed instinctively and wrapped themselve around his waist, but William the Bloody Cheeky Bastard peeled them off, and guided her feet onto the ground with his wrists. Then he raised himself to a squat and surprised her with an agile thrust, sliding his cock back home. She rewarded him with a hard gasp and a delicious laugh, and whether she was acting or not the sound drove him mad with something very much like love, but less expensive. This glimpse of her face was all she allowed before it was gone again, before she was pressing her neck to his and gifting Larry the Camera Cunt with a closeup that rightfully, FUCKING RIGHTFULLY belonged to Spike, because he fought for it, because he was owed, because every night he saved her.
'I can help you.'
'You had your chance. You all did.'
He shook the thought away and tried to focus on the motions instead. The previous hammer blows quickly gave way to slinky gyrations and dainty thrusts. A million happy distractions engulfed him: the soft frictions of her chest brushing his, her blood-warm arms draped down his back, the soft bows of their thighs kissing. Her hot cheek stood firmly against his, and he was dizzied by the halo of tantalizing scents about her hair and neck, a middle class potion of citric perfumes and skin creams. He tried to imagine her dabbing it all on, then the discount makeup, then combing her hair in the mirror, a dead woman quietly trying to care about these things again. But who knew? Who could know for sure what she was really like? If they were only actors in a cheap stag picture, then who was writing the script?
Or was that the point; actors without a script, characters without a story?
Fairies without a tale?
Concentrate, poof.
The maddening questions kept arriving anyway, and Buffy kept yowling and cooing her tawdry, ad-libbed lines, either spurred on by the sniggering commentary of the stag film crew or pretending to be. Spike suddenly felt a shard of shame slash through him, biting him harder and deeper than the chip ever did. He began to cry and gnash his teeth, fighting against the threat of tears and against the Face – his Real Face beneath the mask, which was now growling and snarling its way to the surface.
What verse was this, my love? Which canto and stanza and line?
What scrap of black poetry did your heart recite, to summon this obscene barn dressed up like a romantic play?
As Spike thought it, the world reshaped itself around once more. The stained carpet turning to muddy cedar planks strewn with hay. In the yard outside, the erstwhile film crew completed their devolution in fast-forward, morphing sharply into pigs and sheep and strutting, clucking hens. While Buffy continued rocking her body onto him, the barn's wood creaked like old boats beneath Spike's knees. When turned her face towards him her eyes were shut tight, and tears were squeezing out from the edges. He wasn't certain she'd noticed the shift, but she had stopped her fake cussing and moaning, and just as the sigil on her forehead began to shimmer and fade away she kissed him.
"I'm sorry," she said.
"No," Spike said, bewildered by both her words and his. I'm sorry wasn't remotely a question, so why did he answer?
Luckily, she dropped the bad business right there. Even the rocking motion stopped, and for a while they just held each other: she still sitting on his lap, he still planted deep, both of them delivering gentle thrusts every so often, just to keep the wick lit. He assumed they were both thinking strategically again, or at least thinking about how to think.
For Spike's part, he was still utterly boggled at the puzzle posed by the final picture. The doodle in the spellbook was anatomically possible, of course... if the anatomy in question happened to be that of a Selb'u'du demon, or a Beast of Antithraxis, or some other such vile, Lovecraftian underworld mutant. Not only could Spike not think of anything particular "poetic" to say about those monstrosities, but there were practical considerations as well. Spike didn't relish the thought of transforming into a giant, man-eating Satanic squid for any length of time, nor did he think Buffy would would be able to reach the proverbial finish line being rogered by said squid.
Think, damn you.
But before he could, he felt something strange happening to him. Buffy's eyes were closed, and she had a look of peace about her, like she'd entered a state of Tantric concentration. Moments later William the Bloody felt a sensation like sail ropes were pulling taut the edges of his mind, threatening to tear it apart along hidden seams.
What are you doing to me, love?
No sooner had he thought this, the seams gave way. Predicting agony, Spike shut his eyes, but the pain never arrived. When he opened them again, he realized why.
The strange world of the spell had become stranger still. This latest "Green Acres" version of Magic Box was still there, as was the open book and the circle of candles. There were still two people there too, squatting nude in the center of the barn, listening to the sounds of the chickadees and the whippoorwills and all that rot. The man was still him, and the woman was still Buffy, but there was something off about the whole scene now. It was all somehow bigger, or Spike was somehow "all smaller", reduced to a spectral sheet of consciousness hanging just above the surface of a dream.
While this paper-thin layer of him watched from its impossible perspective, a figure appeared in the frame of the open barn door. The monster was slim and pale, dressed in a pair of black leather pants and motorcyle boots, with platinum hair that stood straight up on end, like the sight of something just scared him witless. And, based on his savage, yellow eyes and that mouth full of sharpened daggers, that "something" could have easily have been a mirror.
The bloke sneered devilishly as if he heard the thought.
(Or, thought it himself?)
Bollocks, a familiar voice chided.
The mirror can't see us. Remember?
The monster stalked into the circle and took up a position straight behind the girl. Buffy's eyes were still glued shut, but with hints of movement behind them, like they were trying to trace some shape in the blackness. When she gently pushed on his chest (yes, it was still his chest somehow) he ordered the first man there to follow the cue, til he lay with his back flat on the gritty floorboards. She bent over and started fucking him again, arching her back and rolling her hips, trying to hit a certain angle just right. As she did so, the fanged villain behind her dropped to its knees, smirking as he unzipped his fly.
The mirror can't see us...
While Buffy gasped and squeezed and ground her pussy onto him, the bastard behind her began smearing her backside with the scented oil Spike had pilfered from Willow's lock-box. Hands that were somehow his own lathered and massaged and probed her nethers, greasing the gears for the big ride home.
While this unsteady narration unfurled, the two shattered pieces of Spike became aware of a third shard joining the fray; this time a mincing tosser with a head of sandy curls. The nancy-boy crept forth bashfully from the shadows beneath the hayloft, eyes shimmering with daft, virginal wonder. He was dressed well enough but also strangely, like a son whose mother dressed him in his father's former clothes. The sum affect lent the boy an air of someone who was slightly out of fashion, even for his time...
Our time.
(Times?)
The mirror can't see...
Everything that next transpired did so as though according to script: automatically yet with complete, almost godlike control. For a few moments the boy stood trembling before the scrum of flesh, a look of awe plastered across his face. When he finally worked up the nerve, he tugged his trousers and knickers down till they formed a single bunched and ruffled collar around his trembling calves. Then he sank to his knees as well, his todger dangling uselessly, as limp as the rest of him. Buffy reached out blindly for the sad member, her fingers stumbling their way up one thigh before taken it expertly into hand. A few gentle tugs later and the boy's sail was as full as those of the monster and the man. Realizing this, the tiny, self-aware scrap of Spike's mind that was floating in the ether of this current madness thought: "She did it." Somehow, some way, Buffy Summers had solved the riddle.
The thought echoed through the halls of his rotten old brain as she invited the whole of him inside: the boy between lips, the man between thighs, the monster between cheeks.
Muffled cries and wet, slippery sounds escaped from the various, imperfect seals. While the clone army went about the happy chore of fucking Buffy senseless, Spike suddenly found he could taste her secrets all at once, warm and pink and sweet and black and bitter and cold. The four bodies in the barn were like explorers discovering some dark reach of Heaven. Her beloved tongue lapped greedily along his shaft, like it were a treat that might melt in the sun. Her miraculous pussy warmed him like a mother's hands in winter. Her pert and prim ass battled backwards against his advances, as though guarding the gates of Hades itself.
The sensation of having all three at once was that of delight and brutal agony, since Spike had to guard his own gates as well. According to the spell, Buffy had to finish first, or the entire business would all have been for naught.
As per usual, he thought.
Luckily, it didn't feel like it would take very long. Within the first minute, the surging breaths she took through her nostrils had already become uneven and savage. Ever since their first, glorious night together in that condemned flophouse, her body had become a known quantity to him. He could detect her approaching climax by the oddly panicked reaction she always had to it, like it were some sort of enemy to vanquish. Deciding to fulfill the role, he galloped three identical sets of hips, riding hard into the Valley of Death.
Flash'd all their sabres bare,
Flash'd as they turn'd in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wonder'd.
And, at this, the wond'ring world turned bright and loud. Ranks of Russian cannon spat their iron children into the sky above the valley walls. The high arcs sent them screaming overhead, and when added to the drum of the Dragoons hoof-beats, the clamor drowned all reason left inside Spike's sliced up mind.
He ravaged her body from all sides, not knowing nor caring if he was hurting her, if she liked it, if she hated it, if she hated him and herself and all that remained of life on Earth. Even the curly-headed boy set his musty manners aside, and began shagging her mouth like it owed him dosh. The man lying beneath fought defiantly against gravity, meeting her rapid thrusts and driving his cock as far inside as it would go. The monster in charge of her flanks grinned like Satan himself as he hammered her personal Sodom to dust.
And it worked, it worked so well and fast, blowing electrical storms through her body from the center out. The instant he felt it happen, Spike surrendered as well. He squeezed his eyes shut and loosed his own barrage of reckless bombs into the sky within her. She gripped him the same way she always did when he came, in three places now, like she was devouring him and didn't want a single drop to go to waste. He tried to grip something too, though not physically and not for long. Holding on to that moment of perfect ending was like holding a fistful of water. It bled out at the same hopeless pace no matter how strong your grasp.
The sounds of battle faded in direct proportion to their soothing passions. The cannon fire was eventually reduced to the slamming of distant car doors, and the pounding hoofs of the fated six hundred dwindled to raindrops on a window pane. Spike felt himself dwindling too, becoming smaller and sharper as the trio of clones blurred into the mists of a half-remembered dream. And once all of his broken pieces were collected and welded whole, when all was quiet and solid, he opened his eyes.
They were standing on the shop floor of Magic Box again, locked once more in a fearful embrace. There was no sign left that anything untoward had happened; even the little candles and the spellbook were gone. They were fully clothed, too; Spike in Nikki Wood's old leather war frock, and Buffy in a lemon-colored tank top and a pair of snug white slacks (neither of which, it should be noted, bore any sign they had ever burst into roaring flames.)
When they released each other, he saw that Buffy's eyes were wide open too. So was her jaw.
So's yours, he suddenly realized, and snapped it shut. He tried to think of something to say, but it was simply no use. Whatever else this evening might have given rise to, it seemed no words would ever come of it.
The look on Buffy's face suggested she realized this too. Still, after a twenty-or-so-second eternity of astounded silence, she decided to give it the old college try.
"Well," she said. "That was... uh...."
"Yeah," Spike said, and barked out a single, awestruck laugh. "It was... um..."
"Yeah. It was... Totally."
"I mean... are you?"
"No, I'm... I mean...uh-huh. Are you?"
"Oh, yeah. It's... you know. Fine."
"Good! Good. It's good that your... fine. I'm fine too."
"Great. That's just... So, I...uh..." Spike craned his head around, looking for an escape hatch to stuff himself into. Finally his eyes settled on the cellar stairs. The darkness down there looked more inviting than ever. "So, you know... might as well. I guess."
"Sure, yeah," Buffy said, jerking her thumb at the front door. "I think I'm just gonna... you know... me too..."
Spike nodded and scratched the back of his neck, then stalked off towards the basement. On a sudden whim he turned to say something, and so did Buffy, and the thing they said was each other's names.
"Sorry," said Spike. "You first."
"No, go ahead," said Buffy, her expression freezing back into that unreadable mask.
"I was just gonna say... Good night."
"Oh. Uh, yeah. Okay." With that she turned and drifted towards the door, looking slightly dizzy, wobbling on newborn legs. A few moments later it was open, then she was out and then it was closed. "Good night" rang a voice from the other side, followed by little footsteps that Spike stood listening to until they vanished back into the void of her own mysterious life.
Then, so did he.