AUTHOR: 1stRab-id/Rabid/Raeann
CHARACTERS: Spike/Buffy
RATING: PG
A WORD OF EXPLANATION: These two short scenes…together with WITH THE KEY OF SOFTNESS and AH, JEALOUSY…mark my first attempts at FanFiction Writing. My most observant readers will note that I stripped the carcasses of these largely unread scenes to use in my other stories. But I felt that some of you might enjoy seeing the earlier work. And I like the exchange between B/S in Red Leather Day…which sets up the later laundry bit in WITH THE KEY OF SOFTNESS. These scenes were penned just after LISTENING TO FEAR in Season 5.
DISCLAIMER: I don't own these characters. I understand that I have no right to anything that I write using these characters. I hereby renounce any and all claims on my fanfiction to the rightful owners of these characters…Joss Whedon, the WB, etc.
BLOOD BATH
By 1stRab-id/Rabid/Raeann
SUMMARY: This story falls before "Red Leather" but is not actually part of a series. For continuity purposes you must know the following…. Buffy is emotionally distraught due to recent events and is not paying the strictest attention when she is set upon by a horde of Zantoras Demons (aka the Zentori). Spike, who, to her annoyance, has been following Buffy, joins the fray when the tide turns against her. The tide then turns again…
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The bodies of the Zentoras demons lay heaped around them. Buffy was still battering the lifeless corpse of her final victim. Spike touched her shoulder and she turned on him, sword whirling, fighting blindly. The battle heat was raging inside her. Spike dodged the deathblow and wrenched her arm backward to disarm her. She swung her other hand at his head.
"Buffy!" he yelped, dodging again and struggling to fix a half nelson on her. "BUFFY! It's over. It's all over…we won ow! …they're dead bugger it! …now settle oof! SETTLE down!"
And then she was leaning into him, her shoulders shaking with exertion and emotion. He held her, tight against his body, listening to her dry sobs catch with each heavy breath. After a long, sweet while, she pulled away. Her clothes were tattered. Her hair was tangled, matted with dirt and twigs and cobwebs and ichor. Her face was streaked with tears and spattered with blood. She was stunningly beautiful.
It took a moment for the blood to register. Instinct guided Spike to the gash in Buffy's right arm. Red droplets fell from her fingertips forming lacy patterns on the ground. The color, the scent and the proximity stirred him like any other lust. He felt the tightness in his chest and groin and reached for her without thinking. He turned her hand palm upward so that the wound lay glistening in dark splendor against her pale flesh.
"You're bleeding," Spike said, his voice unnaturally hoarse. "I think they opened a vein."
"What?" Buffy blinked, looking down at her hand. She was only subliminally aware of the injuries she sustained in battle. Pain always came later.
A crescent moon cut across her wrist and curved up the base of her thumb. Blood was pooling in the center of her palm as Spike held her hand. Vaguely, Buffy remembered her first aid training. There was something about clean cloth and direct pressure but she figured a fast car trip to the emergency room was the way to go. She glanced around the desolate graveyard. No sign of a pay phone.
"Of all the nights to be pedestrian girl," she groused.
Spike smiled, indulgently, saying, "Want me to kiss it and make it better?" He tightened his grip on her, almost imperceptively.
But Buffy was the Slayer and her perceptions were razor sharp. Spike could sense her heart leaping about like a rabbit in a snare but her eyes were the cold, watchful eyes of a rattler.
"'Cause, I am so going to let you near an open vein," she said, with a deceptively sweet smile. "Oh, and would you mind helping me with my grandmother's picnic basket, you
sharp-toothed yet kind-hearted stranger."
She pulled away from him with more force than was necessary and started to turn away. A wave of dizziness hit, making her pause. She pressed her undamaged hand to the wound and felt the blood pulse under her fingers.
"Come on Slayer healing powers," Buffy pleaded, silently.
"Well, on your way, then," Spike encouraged, with a good measure of sarcasm. "Good luck to you making it to Hospital…hope you don't tangle with anymore Zentori. Just so you know, I could stop that bleeding for you in about 10 seconds."
Buffy hesitated. She thought that last part sounded like a good idea…Spike was making sense? Maybe the blood loss was starting to affect her mind.
Spike saw her considering the option and pressed his point home. "You heard right, honey. All part of the vampire package…coagulation…anti-coagulation…it's all in the saliva."
"You're telling me if I let you…" Buffy choked, unable to speak the words aloud.
"Come on, it's not so bad, is it?" Spike encouraged. "Done it before. How do you think you survived what Angel did to you?" He waved one hand at the scar on Buffy's neck. "Sliced open a major artery there, took a long sip of your sweetness and then he sealed you up proper…all right and tight."
Buffy looked once again toward the distant, empty roadway. Then with sudden decisiveness she tipped over her weapons bag and drew out a stake. She moved close to Spike pressing the wooden point into his chest until it just pierced the skin above his heart. Meeting his eye, she placed her injured wrist into his outstretched palm.
"If you try anything," she warned, the stake biting just a little bit deeper.
"Right, dust on the wind," Spike confirmed. "Look, how I'm shaking."
He raised her hand to his lips, turning the wrist slightly. They locked gazes as he showed his fangs. His tone and his eyes were mocking but Buffy was close enough to feel the tremor in his body. It wasn't fear that made him tremble. It was something even more primal. As Spike's mouth kissed against her torn flesh, Buffy experienced the full range of his emotions. The sucking, pulling sensation crawled under her skin, squeezing at her heart, dilating her eyes and causing her breath to catch.
Spike's eyes never wavered from Buffy's face as his tongue reveled in the taste of her. How easy it would be to take her now. Rip out her throat. Faster than the headache could strike him down. One lunge and he would claim his third Slayer. Just as her stake claimed him. Poetic that! They would die together. His dust settling in the sweet flow of her blood.
But this wasn't just any Slayer. This was Buffy. There was a slim chance that, fast as he was, she was faster. He would be truly parted from her if he failed. And even the dream of eternity scattered along her body was not enough to outweigh the possibility of losing her forever. Reluctantly, he morphed back into his human form and stepped slightly away from her.
Buffy glanced down at her wrist. Her hand was streaked with gore but the gash was clotted over. Spike was still holding onto her. His thumb rested in the pool of blood in her palm. She looked back up at him and was caught in his steel-blue gaze again. This was far from over.
Her stake arm tensed and then fell to her side. She offered no resistance as Spike leaned forward to run his tongue first along his own thumb and then across her palm. He traced her lifeline and delicate as a cat lapping cream probed between her fingers. His blunted teeth tugged at her flesh as he followed the red tracings of blood down to her fingertips.
Slayer blood is a powerful aphrodisiac but that didn't explain Buffy's aching desire. Her body seemed to be operating independently. She watched herself wipe a stray droplet of her own blood from Spike's lips. His tongue darted out and licked it from her thumb. A voice in her head, sounding suspiciously like Giles, was berating her for her willing participation in this truly twisted blood bath but it was only when she noticed Spike's attention shifting from her now spotless hand to the slight spattering of blood on her breast that her Slayer senses kicked in. The stake came up between them, again.
"Don't even think about going there," Buffy snarled, twisting free of his touch.
With angry efficiency, she snatched up her shoulder bag and backed toward the cemetery gate, keeping him always in her sights. Spike made no attempt to follow. Still as a statue, he watched the Slayer's retreat, until she was far down the street. His dark-adapted eye caught the last golden flicker of her hair in the moonlight, before she was swallowed by the night.
Red Leather DayAuthor: 1stRab-id/Rabid/Raeann
Prologue Note: This scene takes place in Spike's crypt about 2:30 am, 26 hours after the events in "Blood Bath"
Spike, the Slayer Killer, the bloody, the demonic scourge of three continents, was dreaming of sunlight on fields of heather, of merry laughter, honeyed words and bright, golden-haired beauty.
"Spike?"
The dream angel spoke his name.
"William," he corrected, softly.
"You sick, twisted, bastard!"
The dream shattered into jagged points of serious pain as Buffy landed a heavy right cross to his jaw. The reality of Buffy was as golden as the dream but most of her softness had been replaced by rock hard muscle. The merry laughter was totally gone along with the dulcet devotion.
"Come to thank me for saving your life?" Spike asked, working his aching jaw back and forth. "Really Luv…a simple card or flowers…"
Buffy flexed her biceps and lifted him bodily from the chair. He rolled across her shoulder, flowing with the motion of her body, and managed to stay on his feet. With a bit of effort, he jerked free of her and adjusted his duster. Only then did he notice she was holding the red leather dress crumbled in one fist. He glanced down at the arm of his chair, where he'd placed the garment before drifting off to sleep.
"Start packing," Buffy snarled. "You're leaving town."
"News to me," Spike said, brassing it out. "When did I decide to do that?"
"About the time the sales clerk at Le Flirt told me my 'Boyfriend' had just stolen the dress I came back for," Buffy said, holding up the incriminating evidence. "She gave the cops a really good description of you and I spent three hours of my Saturday night convincing them that I don't know you."
"Well, you know what they say…we all look alike to you humans," Spike quipped
Buffy didn't smile. "The clerk mentioned the dead-biker look and the hair, Spike. And she said you described me perfectly. Even told her which dress I tried on. This one to be exact. Which means," she paused to stake him with a glare, "that you were following me…again."
Spike debated the merits of telling her about scent tracing. Little did Buffy realize, that when she slipped that dress onto her nude body, in direct violation of several health codes, she had told him everything he needed to know to pick it up later. He could have located the one item she'd worn in a warehouse full of similar outfits. It was a predator thing; he doubted she would understand. There was no need to follow her closely. No need to watch. The lingering scent screamed her name at him. The fabric of the dress retained a memory of her. It confessed all.
"She also said you told her the dress was for our Anniversary," Buffy continued. "Would that be to mark the first time you tried to rip out my throat?"
"Five years to the day, Pet. Never tell me it's cotton and not leather." He shook his head in mock consternation. "Knew I should have consulted Emily Post."
"I'm over it!" Buffy said, pointedly. She tossed the dress at Spike's head and stalked, purposefully, toward his trunk of memorabilia, growling, "Do you understand me? I am completely past being entertained by your Punk hits of the 70's sense of humor. I don't know why you are following me and I frankly don't care. You are going to move on with your after-life, now."
"Oh, yeah, right," Spike snarled. He dropped the dress back onto the arm of his chair and edged past Buffy, moving quickly to catch her attention. "Spill the blood of the innocent and you invite me over for hot cocoa," he continued, sarcastically, "but buy a dress you fancy and you run me out of town. Way to prioritize, Blondie! Tell you what, if I promise never to shop at the same boutique as you ever again will you just sod off?"
"This isn't about the dress, Spike," Buffy sighed, lifting the lid of Spike's trunk but looking up at him rather than at the incriminating contents. "It's about the whole lurking outside my window, rummaging in my basement, stealing my photos, can't turn around with out tripping over you thing. It's about the 'please tell me you've got something on under that leather coat' Buffy's shadow-boy you've become lately."
Grinning, Spike flashed his coat open and closed giving her a better look at his black jeans and tee shirt. He studied her for a beat before shaking his head slightly.
"You know the problem with you, Slayer?" he asked, circling her appraisingly and drawing her attention even further from his cache. "You've had one too many Vamps try to slip you the Big Bad. Angel and Drac turned your pretty little head. Now you think every man with a heart of darkness is looking to lay it at your feet. Well, sorry to disappoint, but I bought that dress for Harmony."
"For Harmony! Right!" Buffy drawled.
"Yeah, right," Spike nodded. "So happens, it's the anniversary of the first time we killed together. The color reminded me of the occasion…"
"Say that's true," Buffy said, obviously not believing a word of it. "What about those pictures of me that you stole?"
"Dart Board!"
"Excuse me?"
"I use them on my dart board. Makes for a nice target. Helps me work off my frustrations."
He neglected to mention the nature of his frustrations. He had gathered an air of certainty about him now and waved one hand at the darkest corner of the crypt. A battered dartboard hung there with an impaled Buffy pic at the center. The Slayer frowned at this bit of evidence as she toyed with the bandage on her right wrist. The rough cloth strip brought her attention back to Spike. Back to the reason she was with here him at 2:30 am instead of peacefully sleeping.
"What about last night?" she asked, finally getting to the crux of the tension between them. "Why were you following me? Why did you get involved?"
"Well, I was going to talk to you about a business proposition I been thinking on," Spike shrugged, "but then the Zentori were all over you and I thought my meal ticket was about to be cancelled so I helped out. Believe me if I knew how grateful you were going to be, I would have let them finish you off."
Spike saw the uncertainty grow in her. He snapped shut the lid of his trunk and sat down on it for good measure. He was fighting an urge to confess everything. To pull her into his arms and kiss his way along her neck up to her mouth. To feel her body pressed against him. The scent coming off of her was wickedly intoxicating. English lavender, mint and something dark and woodsy mingled with her undiluted desire. Desire? For him!
Spike thought about the time. It was well past midnight. It struck him that Buffy hadn't just charge over to see him when she found out about the dress. No, something else brought her out into the night to lay her hands on him. His eyes went to the red leather and a scene came to him as clearly as it would have come to Dru. Telepathic images passed from Buffy's mind to his. He saw the two of them locked together, red leather, pale skin and golden, the soft catch of breath, the feel of her hands on his back, her blunt teeth at his throat. The hair rose on Spike's arms as he sat watching his beautiful Slayer. She was speaking but he couldn't make out the words. Her tone of bored resignation was absolutely at odds with her sensual thoughts. His gaze flicked up, locking onto hers. And he saw an immediate confirmation of his premonition.
"So, Give it up already," Buffy remarked, the comment coming in again as the static cleared from Spike's brain. "What is this big proposition you wanted to lay on me?"
A truly demonic smile lit up Spike's face and he was rewarded by a slight shudder of comprehension from the Slayer.
"That's right, Honey. Careful what you wish for," he thought. "Because, I so want to give you what you came here after." But when he spoke his voice was even and matter of fact with no trace of the preverbal subtext playing out between them.
"Actually, I was thinking of renting myself out as a training partner," he told her, lighting a nonchalant cigarette. "I figure you could do with the challenge and I could do with the cash."
"News Flash, Spike…I don't need to pay you to come in here and kick your ass."
"Noted," he grimaced at her, "but I'm talking about more than a few rounds of sweating and wrestling, Luv. I'm talking about the kind of real insider information that can move you to the next level of Slayerhood."
"And why would YOU want to help ME become the Super Slayer?"
"For the good of the world!" Spike said, piously. And then he snorted out a laugh, saying, "For the money, o'course."
"Giles has already stepped up my training…"
"That would impress me more if you were the Musty Librarian Slayer," Spike sneered, dropping his cigarette and grinding it out as he stood up to confront her. "Face it, Sweetheart, I have a certain value to you."
"And, say I buy any of this…just out of curiosity…" Buffy inquired, "exactly how high a value are you placing on yourself?"
"I figure $50 a week should cover it," he said, with his usual cockiness. He refused to be caught off guard by his own lie.
$50?" Buffy yelped. "A week? You're dead! I would think your cost of living would go way down!"
"I got needs," Spike returned, ticking items off on his fingers.
"There's blood, beers, smokes, laundry..."
"I got a washer! $20.00 and you do your laundry in the basement."
"$40 and YOU do my laundry," he dickered, beginning to really enjoy
himself.
"Or we could forget the whole thing." Buffy snapped, turning toward
the crypt door.
"Alright, alright, no need to get tetchy," Spike soothed, arresting
her departure, despite the inept wording. "I can do my own laundry but I
still need $35.00 a week."
"For what? Beer? Switch to domestic!"
"No...uhm...alright, look," he paused, squirming in slight discomfort.
"It's for my hair."
"Your HAIR?" Buffy gaped. She
considered him for a moment, struggling to suppress a grin, before giving up
and smirking, "You mean you're not a natural blonde?"
"Or, like you said, we could forget the whole thing!" Spike snarled,
crossing to his chair and dropping into it.
"No, no, it's a good idea," Buffy admitted, grudgingly. "Let's
call it $30 and the use of laundry and shower once a week."
"Twice!"
"Twice," Buffy acknowledged, with a nod. She wondered what had happened to her righteous anger.
"So is tomorrow night soon enough for you?" Spike asked, letting his right hand fall across the crumpled dress on the chair arm. "Or do you want to go a few rounds, right now?"
His eyes were frank and open but his hand moved surreptitiously on the leather, subtly caressing it with his fingertips. Buffy could feel the touch on her flesh. She was achingly aware of her body…the scent of desire and the power coiled in her muscles. Spike watched her, his gaze as steady as a cat's. The tip of his tongue was a visible pink against his teeth. He made Buffy's territorial senses jangle even though there was no obvious threat. He simply implied invasion with the suggestive tracing of his fingers along the bodice of the dress. Shockingly, part of her wanted confrontation. Buffy longed for him to cross the line.
They held onto the moment, stretching it into intimacy.
"I'll let you know when and where," Buffy said, at last, into the long pause. She hesitated a second or two more, balanced on the balls of her feet. And then turning quickly away, she strode to the door and clanged out of the crypt.
Spike sat in his chair, long after she'd gone, passing the red leather through his hands. He was still in the same spot when Harmony came home. The red dress caught her avaricious eye as soon as she entered the crypt.
"Oooh, pretty," she gasped, reaching out a greedy hand.
"Touch it and I'll break every one of your fingers," Spike said, softly, without sparing her a glance. Harmony glared at him, hurt by his indifference, before flouncing off in a huff. As soon as she was gone, Spike rose and crossed to his trunk. He opened the lid but before he placed the dress among his other stolen treasures, he buried his face in the red leather, pulling Buffy's scent deep into his body, holding her close in his mind.
--End Scene--
Go Read…WITH THE KEY OF SOFTNESS…and then AH, JEALOUSY…and you will be up to date on this series of scenes…