Sunset
Robin glances over and she sees him.
Blonde hair, cheekbones so sharp you could cut yourself on them. Eyes like chips of ice beneath brows drawn together in a frown. He's ducked out of the bar for a cigarette, which is clamped firmly between his lips. Wreathes of smoke curl from his nostrils and drift away on the hot, evening breeze.
"Hey," she says, smiling.
He grunts, not looking up at her at first. He's handsome enough to maybe think she's not worth his time and she prickles at the implied rejection. But, it seems, he was simply lost in his own thoughts because after a short, satellite-delay of silence between them he looks up at her.
Then he smiles. His teeth are very white and his shirt is very red. His eyes are large and wide and expressive, challenging yet full of dancing humour.
"Hey yourself," he says, with a wolfish grin.
And Robin feels that drag of attraction, that secret burning thread that pulls her to him, despite the knowledge that he's a bad boy with a bad-boy's smile.
She wants to use a line on him and she can think of a thousand clichés that would work, would seem ironic enough and maybe test his sense of humour but her words fail her. Her mouth is a little too dry and suddenly she doesn't trust herself to speak.
He saves the day by offering her his packet of Marlboros and giving her a light.
The inhale their respective nicotine fix in silence before he turns to her and says, "What's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?"
She can't help it. She laughs. His accent is… well, all accents sound weird to her. She always has a tough time placing where people are from.
"You wanna go somewhere… worse?" He shrugs his bony shoulders. He's tall and lean and light on his feet when he takes he hand. The brush of his fingers, the contact of skin against skin, it sends an electric thrill through her.
"Sure, she says, with a gulp, wondering what the hell she thinks she's doing. But her heart is racing way too fast and the adrenaline is zinging through her veins and when he looks at her his eyes crinkle and he licks his bottom lip.
"Delicious," he says, as they walk, eating up the sidewalk, streets and the avenues flowing under their feet until she's so turned around that she doesn't quite know where she is.
As if you could ever really get lost in New York.
"Who are you?" She asks him. She doesn't ask his name - that would be the wrong question entirely. And she's not even sure that she doesn't know the answer already. He fills her head, her mind, floods her senses, and she's only known him a few minutes.
He stops suddenly and she stumbles against him. He catches her nimbly around the waist and once again she sinks into those blue, blue eyes - her soul is caught on something sharp, wriggling around to get free like some corporeal thing. But she doesn't want to get free. His touch is cool against her body, his hands are gentle, caressing her back where only thin straps criss-cross her bare back. She can feel his fingertips, the very slight pressure he exerts as he pulls her in for a kiss.
She wants to ask where they are going.
She wants to ask what the hell he thinks he's doing trying to get to the blue line with her.
She wants to beg him to do something indefinable, to do something that she doesn't even know she wants until, unexpectedly, he does it.
He bypasses her mouth, instead pressing his lips to her throat, a cool kiss that quickly becomes pressure, pain, agony.
There's a second when she could have screamed.
He pulls away, his needlepoint teeth gleaming wickedly under the streetlight. His face is a twisted, nightmare visage. His lips are decorated, ruby-red with her blood.
"I'm Spike," he says, with her death in his eyes.
*--*--*
"Hey, where's Robin?" Barney asks, pausing at the top of the steps before descending down into the bar, following the others. "She said she'd wait outside for us?"
They sit at their usual table and wait for her but after an hour they get pretty hungry and decide to head out to eat.
Barney leaves her four messages on her voice mail, but doesn't really worry unduly.
He tells the others that he hopes she's hooked up with some guy who's worth her time, that's all.
But inside, he's just so damn sick that she never chooses him.