ABSINTHE
by wisteria

A sequel to "98 Octane".

Kampala. After midnight and still over ninety degrees out. Humanity seethed around him. He'd hated her then.

Again in Cairo, with people barking at clerks in the open-air market, and he couldn't find fresh blood to save his life.

In the sleeper compartment on the train from Athens to Paris, a dozen stops and changes in between, he'd loved her.

Kept coming back to that.

Tonight they aren't going anywhere exotic. Just in a car, hurtling down the road, off to God only knows where, so long as it's with her. The windows are down, but only the front ones, and air whooshes through the cavern of the car. She's still fitted next to him, her hip alongside his and her hair whipping into his face like needles. A few minutes ago, she fluttered her arm over toward him. Both his hands are on the wheel.

He doesn't know whether to hate her or love her, so he'll settle for a little of both. Or a lot, really. Always been that way with her.

Red light up ahead, so he stops the car. This is his favorite part of driving – feeling the motor shudder as it settles. Life flickers around him, and when he looks up through the window, he can see the stars blinking in the sky.

Maybe this is what life is. It's as if he can feel the earth itself spinning.

And this is strange, to feel what life is. He's not alive. Doesn't miss it much, either. The knowledge that you have a finite number of heartbeats or breaths and then you're gone? Not his style.

But the problem with the soul is that it's a royal pain in the ass, tricking him into thinking like a human. Easy enough to act like one of them when it was all pretend, eating appetizers and tapping into the Sunnydale cable outlets so he could watch bad sitcoms. Not quite as easy when you get back to town after four months away and remember that you didn't exactly leave on the best of terms, and why the hell did you come back, anyway?

Her, of course. Bloody can't live without her. Wishes he could, but there it is.

"Do you regret anything?" Buffy'd asked the second time he saw her. He'd had to stop and clarify what he was meant to regret. What's done is done. No sense in getting all morose over it. He's a fucking demon. Killing was what he did. Instinct, prerogative, and all that.

'Course, he doesn't think Buffy understands this. "I'll teach you how to live with the soul," she'd said. He hates her for that too. Damned if he's going to be anyone's pet project again.

Okay, yeah, he regretted the last time he saw her, but that's a debt he can't begin to figure out how to reconcile.

But the earth's spinning and they're perched on top, hurtling through space and the California night as he hits the gas pedal. Going nowhere, but then they never really did.

He remembers how happy she'd made him when she slipped in so close to him twenty-six minutes ago. Now he's just pissy. Mood swings definitely come with the soul package.

Jeep full of horny teenagers zips by them, taking the turn so fast that a couple of fools nearly fly out. Wankers. Everyone's going somewhere tonight. Maybe even him.

Problem is that it makes Spike feel old, and not just in a number-of-years way. He glances over at Buffy, whose hand hovers over the radio. He prefers the silence. The car keeps quiet.

Youth and eternal youth, hip-to-hip but with a gulf between them.

Fly, fly little birdie, Dru used to coo at the crows in Venice.

Light goes green. Let's fly.

Fourteen more miles, and then a thud-thud-thud that shakes his bones. Tire's gone out. He spits a curse word or three. Buffy looks surprised, and he wants to spit another couple of choice phrases. I'm the same Spike, pet. The bloody soul didn't perform a memory-wipe.

He doesn't say anything else, though. Rather likes the silence between them tonight, in a change-of-pace sort of way. Keeps them from saying things that shouldn't be said yet.

So, out of the car and into the night air. She leans up against the side and watches him jack up the wheel and change the tire. Something about the scene hits him, like they're in a movie or something. The laconic drifter and the naughty starlet. 'Course, that would imply a certain normalcy they'll never achieve.

When the spare's all set, he sidles up next to her and joins her in staring up at the stars.

Normalcy.

Well, maybe.

He senses her hand even before it curls around his neck. And then she's pulling his face down, down toward hers.

Hip-to-hip, lip-to-lip. Oh, God, he missed this.

Sidewalk cafe in Geneva, tipping a flask of blood into his wine (good mixer) and staring at the youngsters necking at the next table. Knowing full well he shouldn't expect that again with Buffy after what he'd done, but oh, he'd wanted it. Could taste it stronger than the B-positive.

And now she sips at his lips like Pinot Grigio, amaretto, absinthe. All the dark and silky liquors in the world, slipping down his throat into his dry heart. She's the clear water that sates his parched soul.

His soul. How strange to think that. But he can handle the soul, handle being her pet project if she'll just keep kissing him like this. Like her life depends on it, and maybe it does.

He pushes his tongue into her mouth, tracing the cool bones. She tastes just like him.

This is what they're meant for, as much as the fighting or hate or shagging until they're blind. The quiet moments along with the sparking ones. The little touches on his biceps, the small of her back.

Just Buffy and Spike, under a sky of a million stars.

She pulls away from him, and he knows it's not over yet. Never will be, because this is them.

When they slip back into the car and he starts the engine, she looks over at him.

"Where are we going?"

"I'll let you know when we get there."

END (1/1)

A thousand thanks to Cissy for helping me work out the think-y parts.

wisteria@smyrnacable.net