Scenes From The Sex Wars
Scene 1: Of Spiders and Sense
Author's Note: This is set somewhere in the middle of the S/B thing. It has no particular place really - poor thing.
He could smell her nearby. He decided that he was going to avoid her. This wasn't what he wanted. If she wanted a boy toy so bad, let her cart herself off to LA to be with Angel.
He was done with this freak show.
But despite these thoughts, the hours he had spent carefully constructing his put-downs that afternoon, he strode toward her and leaned against a tree, watching her fight a demon.
He had known when he first saw her that she would move like that. Violent grace, purposeful… Damned sexy. He had known when he fought her that she would be great in bed.
It hadn't occurred to him, however, that in bed, she would still be fighting.
She twirled and her arms were straight, pulled out by the weight of the axe she carried. The demon's head left its body and she continued to spin, carried round by the axe. She stopped abruptly when she saw him and he raised an eyebrow, raking his eyes over her body. The tight pants, the small top. He was sure she did it just to torment him.
"What do you want?" she snapped, her breathing slightly heavy and he saw her surpress a shudder at his obvious approval of her clothing.
He frowned a little. He'd had a purpose, he was sure of it. But somehow he couldn't remember it. He could remember the last time they had been together and he smirked at the delicious memory.
"Wondered if you wanted any… company," he let the word take on its own meaning and she sighed.
"Spike," her voice was weary, her head bowing toward the floor and he reached out to touch her arm - whipped puppy that he was - in reassurance. But he soon pulled back when she looked up and glared at him. "Spike, I'm the Slayer. What happened to hating me? I fight big, lumpy, disgusting demons. And I sleep with one too! No offence," she offered him an apologetic look that he accepted with a shrug and waited for her to continue, he was obviously not the only one who had been practising a speech. Usually, she didn't get this verbal until he had goaded her for at least five minutes. "This is not the way it's supposed to be! I kill demons, they're supposed to fear me, not love me because I'm the Slay-ahhh!" she kicked out her leg, doing - what Spike could only describe as a very poor hokey-cokey. "A spider! Spike! Help! Get it off me!"
He blinked in astonishment before doubling up with laughter. He could vaguely hear her screaming at him to stop laughing and get the damn thing off her. He stumbled toward her and gave a half-hearted swipe with the cuff of his duster at the black speck on her leg.
She was bright red when he finally stopped laughing and straightened up. She let out a "Humph!" and turned sharply on her heel. He tailed after her, not about to let this glorious opportunity go to waste.
"Let me get this right," he said, grabbing her elbow and drawing her to a halt. She faced him with a resigned expression and put her hands on her hips with a silent 'Go on, give me your best shot.' He let go of her arm and smirked. "You have - as you put it - a 'spider sense,' but you're scared of spiders?"
"It was a Spiderman reference, not a Steve Irwin one!" she corrected incredulously, then she gave him her own smirk and a brief bloody hell floated across his mind before she asked. "Anyway, do you like them?"
"I live in a crypt!" he cried, throwing his hands up to hide his disgusted shudder. However, she had noticed it and he gave a small, embarrassed shrug. "Ok, no I don't. But I don't scream like a girl about it!"
She rolled her eyes. Sometimes, she wondered if Spike was brain dead instead of dead dead. He came out with the stupidest things sometimes.
"I am a girl!" she pointed out in a voice cultivated to match the rolling eyes.
He arched an eyebrow at her and his eyes drifted away from her face, lingering over her breasts before sweeping down to take in her legs. She almost expected him to ask her to turn around so he could check out her ass.
"So I'd noticed," he replied smoothly.
"You're disgusting!" she spat, turning from him to stalk home.
A futile attempt, she knew, as Spike was about as likely to leave her alone now as she was going to be able to make the next bill.
"I take it you haven't seen 'Eight Legged Freaks'?" he asked conversationally, falling into step beside her.
"What are you?" she demanded. "Crazy? Or deaf?"
"Just making conversation, Slayer," he answered, lifting his hands in a defensive gesture.
"Well… Go make it somewhere else."
"Or," he drew her to a halt again and licked his lips. "We could make hay instead."
She blinked at him before sniggering.
"God, Spike!" she laughed. "Where the hell did you get that? That's down there with 'Do you believe in love at first sight, or shall I walk by again'!"
"Hey!" Spike cried. "I've got more wit and class than that."
"Not if that pick up line was anything to go by… What?" she frowned at the sudden look on his face.
She didn't like that look. It was easier when he leered or glared at her. It was easier then to forget he loved her, but when he gave her that look, she felt guilty for using him. Which was entirely unfair because he was using her too!
"You're laughing," he said softly.
"So?" she had tried to snap, really she had, but his voice and that goddamn look made her voice all small. Dammit.
"You rarely do that with me," he gave her a gentle smile, one that made her flash back to when he cradled her shattered knuckles and asked how long it had been for her.
"I do sometimes," she said softly.
"You should do it more often," he stated. "Makes you look lovely."
She had been unaware that she had been slowly walking towards him.
"Thank you," she said.
He narrowed his eyes at her and took a step back, suddenly remembering that he was going to end this.
"Don't thank me," he snapped. "I'm just getting sick of the miserable mug."
She stared at him before she glared again.
"And I'm getting sick of your lovesick look!" she retorted.
"Doesn't stop you coming back though, does it?" he sneered. "To the only person who can make you feel!"
"Thing!" she shouted. "You're not a person, you're a thing!"
"The only thing standing between you and despair," he crowed.
"Shut up!"
"A thing that you crave. A thing you need."
"Shut up! Shut up!" she had grabbed hold of the lapels of his duster and shook him.
She must have shook him too hard, because the next thing she knew, his lips had connected with hers.
She tried not to need it, really she did. She tried to push him away, but she couldn't.
Before she knew it, he had pushed them both into a clump of bushes nearby and her back arched in need and pain as it connected with a hard floor.
But as she had grown to learn, feeling this with her supposed enemy, was better than feeling nothing.