Mountain Dew 1?
Author: dutchbuffy2305, aka db2305
Story note: 10 years post-NFA
Rating: M
Betaed by: mommanerd and thedeadlyhook
Feedback: I never tire of it!
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Buffy takes off her fleece-lined cap, loosens her scarf and turns her face into the sun. It isn't sensible at this height, even with the thick white sun block she's put on and which makes her look so charmingly white-faced and greasy, but right now, when the sun finally clears the Black Mountains across the valley, is the best moment of her day. The fierce rays thaw her aching bones and stiff cheeks, just for a quarter of an hour.
Her posture, hunched over the hot, so-called tea in her mittens, slowly loosens. Jesus, the nights get cold. And they are long, even in Midsummer, because the mountain peaks possessively block out most of the sky. Buffy walks up and down bit, grimacing as she forces herself to drink the hot suje, the salty tea of Bhutan. Brrrr. But she has to drink. At first, the Sherpas kept forcing tea on her, and when she refused to drink the disgusting stuff, boiled water. She's grudgingly given in, because hey, Sherpa. They know their jobs, and even a Slayer body has to adjust to a height of 12,000 feet. Vampires don't.
She yawns. Time for bed. She crawls into her tent, but before she closes the flap she casts a glance over at the wooden hut in the lee of the rocky outcrop. Its occupant is long asleep. The Sherpas watch over them both by day, but now they're putting butter in their tea and making flatbread and soup in the hot morning sun. Every evening she wakes up hoping that their superstitious fear has stayed put and that nobody has gotten it in his tiny brain to torch the cabin. She hopes they know their lives depend on the presence of two champions at Midsummer.
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Buffy doesn't sleep well. The thin air gives her endless dreams of drowning, choking, being buried alive. She breaks her nails on coffin lining, the Master pushes her face down in shallow water, Angelus chokes her on a bed of red roses. In the evening, when she wakes up with her tent red-tinged by the setting sun, she has a hard time remembering which things really happened and which ones didn't.
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The days are long and there is nothing to do. No TV or internet, duh, but also no walks to take, no magazines to read, nothing. The Sherpas told her to take it easy the first week, and Buffy laughed at that, because hey, a Slayer, she can do anything. But she's been short of breath, dizzy, queasy, cranky and headachy for a week. She sleeps, day and night, or dozes, and is bored like a boredy thing from hell for ten days straight. The first morning she wakes up with a clear head is like being reborn. The sky is grey, tinged with lilac, the air's so cold her breath steams, and she crawls from her tent in her stinky sweats and does nothing but breathe for minutes on end. There is a smell in the air really isn't a smell;, it is the purity of emptiness, of being the first living being to breathe it in. The groaning glacier far beneath the camp curls around the mountain's haunches, striped like a much-used runway. Maybe flying demons land there.
She turns her head and finds Spike's eyes on her. Dawn hasn't quite arrived yet, so he can stand outside with impunity, but in minutes he will have to withdraw to his wooden cabin, hastily but painstakingly lined with aluminum blankets to keep every last sliver of sun out. Spike doesn't have mountain sickness, but his movements are even more circumscribed than hers on this cramped mountain ledge, a hundred yards wide, two hundred deep. They were schlepped up here by the Sherpas, trussed up like rolled chicken roasts, because the mountain craft needed to get them this high isn't gained in a day or two on a climbing wall in South London.
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For the first time in weeks, Spike sees Buffy looking out of her eyes, the real Buffy, the Slayer who he used to love. Up until now, she was a harried sick woman who didn't even resemble anyone he knew. He puts up his hand, and she waggles hers in greeting.
"Welcome to Bhutan, Buffy."
"Glad you're here, Spike. Has anything happened?"
"Not a bloody thing, Slayer. You waking up is the highlight of my day."
A little color tinges her cheeks. He hadn't meant it as the mild flirting it sounds like, but if she's flattered, he'll pretend he did mean it.
The first finger of dawn touches the edge of the abyss in front of them.
Spike shrugs. "Gotta say goodbye, now, Slayer."
Buffy's eyes are on the lightening sky. At the last moment she turns and calls out to him, "Are you okay in that cabin?"
"Got a truckle bed and a blanket, and light to read by. What more does a man need?"
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He doesn't look very Spike-like here, dressed in army winter gear, a hat just like hers, lined with fleece, with earflaps and mouth flaps. On the lower slopes of the mountain, he wore a watch cap, so she doesn't even know if his hair is still platinum. She hasn't asked. Only his voice is like the voice she remembers.
Spike gets inside and she hears him turn the lock. There goes the only person she can talk to up here. There is one Sherpa who has knows some English, but he's not inclined to small talk, and even if he were, what would they talk about? Fashion? She's shown Jigme, the head-Sherpa, Aura's photo, and he showed her a picture with seven little black heads on it. Jigme kissed it solemnly and said, "They important, me no important," and she could totally identify with that, because when Aura was small she was grateful for an undisturbed visit to the toilet and her first uninterrupted cup of coffee was like a party. So that was a nice moment, but it isn't not something you can repeat every day.
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Buffy jogs around the ledge. At first by day, but when she's completely acclimatized, and Midsummer approaches, she starts sleeping during the daylight hours so she can keep watch by night. Now she jogs in the early evening. Spike accompanies her. Their laps are short, and hindered by the cabin, her tent, the Sherpas' tents, the Ladies room and the Men's Room, and also assorted rocks and gullies. Their tempo is not high. What Buffy can see of Spike's face looks relaxed, almost empty.
"So how you been since LA?" she asks. It's kind of embarrassing that she's asking this three weeks into their mission, but her head's been full of other things up until now. Her daughter, left in Dawn's care, because Steve, the asshole, couldn't take her for two months straight. He said. Her lack of stamina, after years of occasional slaying. Boredom, pain in her feet, lack of coffee. No excuse, really.
Spike looks thoughtful. "Alright," he answers after a whole lap has passed.
Buffy waits for another lap and then she can't stand it anymore. "Yeah? That's it? Give me little more to work with, here. What does all alright mean? Does it mean fine, or great, or so-so, or nothing at all happened to you, or you don't wanna talk about it?"
She gasps for breath after that and she sees Spike's smile flash in the flickering, fire-lit night. The Sherpas think they are insane to jog around the plateau in near darkness. No street lighting here.
"All of the above," Spike says, and she knows from the tone of his voice he's taking the piss, a British idiom she's gotten to know intimately.
She'd like to kick him, that's how angry she is, and she hasn't regressed like that in years. Okay. She doesn't know why he's so reticent, and or why he doesn't talk her ears off like he used to., or Mmaybe that's because the things he used to say to her wouldn't be appropriate.
"Okay, here goes. Buffy moved to London in 2007. She meets Steve and they get married. Aura is born in 2009 and is now seven years old. Steve left us two years ago. I've been working with Andrew and Willow on and off. Not because I wanted to, but because any other job I tried sucked. And I suck at jobs. So I'm still the Slayer, the oldest, wrinkliest, saggiest Slayer in history. And for some peculiar reason, although you've been working with Andrew and Willow too, we've never ever encountered each other. Was that coincidence or did you try real hard to stay out of my way?"
Spike says nothing. The occasional flashes of his face that Buffy sees as they pass the corner fires tell her nothing. She's thinking there is a big heavy reason for his avoidiness. Otherwise, if it meant nothing, he would know what to say. Does she really want to know that reason, or would she rather leave it undisturbed? She doesn't know. It's not narcissistic to think it's got something to do with her, right?
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The Slayer jogs next to Spike, panting too hard for their leisurely tempo, still not completely adjusted to the altitude. It worries him. Only a few days to go and it'll be Midsummer. When they'll both have to be at their best and most alert, because Andrew hasn't been able to tell them exactly what they'll be up against. Spike's thought about her question all day, lying in his silver-lined crinkly nest, sleeping a little, rereading Pablo Neruda by the arc light that both illuminates and heats his six by five abode. Is it politeness that makes her ask? At least she volunteered her own life summary, which is not nothing on the scale of Buffy forthcomingness. Thinking about this is like picking at an old scar, because you think there might still be a little bit of glass imbedded in your flesh. Is it worth the trouble and the pus and the pain to open the long healed scab up and dig into yourself on the off chance that you will find something?
"I lost all my friends when LA slid into the sea," he says, surprising himself as well as the Slayer.
"Thank God Hollywood survives," Buffy lobs back, and trips over a rock. She's flat out on her face. She unerringly finds his hand in the darkness and hauls herself up. "Sorry, Spike. I don't know why I said that. I'm sorry for your loss."
The formal words don't mean a whole lot to him. It's been ten years, after all, and he knew the LA Gang for less than a year.
"Who are your friends now?" she asks in a subdued little voice when they jog on. She does him the courtesy of supposing he does have friends.
"See a bit of Andrew when I'm in town," he says. "Got my mates all over the world, don't I? Willow, Dawn. People you don't know. Demons. Clem."
"That sounds nice."
They're silent after that.
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Buffy still hasn't asked Spike what color his hair is, and she really wants to know. Their attempts at conversation don't feel right to her. Stilted, overly polite. Like strangers on a train. That is not how she wants to talk to him, but she doesn't seem to be able to find another way. Why is it so hard? They may not be friends anymore, but they've been in constant company for weeks now. There should be some kind of cordial working relationship. Buffy winces as her brain produces these words. She's glad she hasn't said them out loud. She can just imagine Spike's scoffing at them. Working side by side. Feelings develop. Of friendship, of course, what else?
The sun burns hard on the plateau and she's hiding in her tent. She should be sleeping, but instead she's trying to get herself off. Her tent is surrounded by Sherpa tents, and she can hear them talking and walking around a couple of feet away from her. It doesn't feel particularly private, even if they can't see her, but she's been fizzing with suppressed lust for days now, and she hasn't had an orgasm since the start of the mission. Too fricking scared to try, and too embarrassed to bring her vibe. The batteries would have run out, anyway, but most of all she didn't want the Sherpas or Spike to see it. Is she a grown woman comfortable with her sexuality or not? Okay, not. She rubs herself, licks her fingers when she doesn't get wet soon enough. Jesus, she's been at it for twenty minutes already and she just can't relax enough to get off. She should just admit she's afraid Spike is awake and that he can tell what she's doing, at a distance of hundred feet, just from her heartbeat.
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The sky is the pale gray of early morning and Spike goes off to his cabin. "Sleep well, Buffy," he says. "I'll be listening to some really loud Punk music on my earphones and then put my earplugs in when I go to sleep."
Buffy's face burns. She hates him so much. But anger is a wonderful way to warm a person up, and she's not as stiff as usual after her morning cup of rancid chai. She crawls into her down-filled sleeping tube bag and lies there, simmering with mortification. Spike did know what she was up to. And she can't be sure he was telling the truth, can she? Maybe he's listening in on her right now. She comes, hard and sudden, and bites on the sleeping bag to still her mewling. At least Spike can't read her mind; he doesn't know she was thinking of him thinking of her alone in his bunk. What would Spike be doing right now? Her hand steals back to her clit. Just one more and then she will sleep. Hey, how come Spike's Ipod's still running?
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The Slayer crawls out of her tent, staggering and waving from sleepiness. Her face is pale and puffy, her hair a greasy mess. She yawns without covering her mouth and loudly does her business behind a couple of rocks, also known as the Ladies' Room. She's not the fresh-faced girl of ten years ago, and there's a little waddle in her gait that was never there before. Childbirth, Spike assumes. They've hardly ever spoken in the intervening years, but does that mean there are things unsaid? Spike has no idea. He's awake before she is, kindling the morning fire in near-darkness so he can watch her undignified and intensely Buffy way of waking up, inhale her sleepy unwashed Buffy smell. He felt his heart squeeze when she showed him the photo of her daughter. He jerks off when he hears her heart quicken in arousal, he in his silver cabin, she in her tent, with a hundred feet between them. He doesn't think it means anything, though. Otherwise, he would have looked her up long ago.
He holds out a mug to her and happily waits for her to make her yuk-face. She does make it, right on cue. Her nose wrinkles, her eyes disappear and her cheeks quiver with the force of her bwooarghlll.
It's not as cute as when she was twenty, because the skin of her face is loosening a bit and the first signs of crow's feet fan out from the corners of her eyes. Spike doesn't care. It was never her youth or beauty that mattered to him.
She dips her nose into the battered tin mug and inhales deeply. "Spike! I smell coffee. Is this actually really real coffee?"
"It is, Buffy. Drink up before it gets cold."
Buffy closes her eyes, turns her face into the red sunlight, red as blood, and slurps down her first swallow of too hot coffee. Spike moved heaven and earth to get the Sherpas to bring some from the nearest town, 50 miles as the crow flies, and a week's travel over the mountain pathways.
"Oooh. I died and went back to heaven." Her eyes snap open. "Is it tonight? Is the coffee to prepare me for tonight? I thought tomorrow?"
"Andrew radioed in this afternoon. Did you know he spoke Dzonghka? Anyway, both days are equally long, although Midsummer is supposed to be tomorrow night. He says to be ready in any case."
Buffy throws a look over her shoulder in the direction of the cave, and he follows her gaze. The tunnel entrance is hidden in plain view on a rock face that is in deep shadow 364 days of the year, and that's where it's going to happen tonight. Or tomorrow.
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When she gets back to civilization, when this is over, she's gonna stay in a hot bath for, like, a week. This evening her bath is a battered tin pan that the Sherpas also use to boil water, but she makes do. Nobody here to complain about her lack of hygiene. She washes her face with the precious cup of water allotted for that, and furtively scrubs her pits and her crotch. It's not that she doesn't appreciate Spike waiting for her with coffee, actual coffee, which is like the best present ever, but she vividly remembers the acuity of his nose and that is just embarrassing. She's stinky Buffy these days, and the Sherpas are stinky Sherpas, and the only one who doesn't smell off anything except wood smoke and buttered chai is Spike, with his clean, hard, cool white flesh. And a woman who thinks of her colleague in those terms is clearly in trouble. Even the washcloth feels sexy right now. Focus, Buffy. You're in danger. And how would Spike know if her heart beats from lust or from alertness, huh? He can't.
But Buffy takes a vow to stay away from innuendo and keep her brain clear of lustful thoughts. She doesn't want to give Spike the impression she's that girl she once was. She'd never use him for sex again and she really means that, even if, you know, her pussy has other plans. Buffy has tried calling her pussy her cunt when she's talking to herself, but even in the privacy of her own mind, that's one bridge too far.