Author's Note: Thanks to Buffybot's last comment on the review page of this story (Please, I'm completely dying for an update. I need my fix! Where are you, are you having muse problems? I hope if you do that it comes back soon, because I'm really missing this story.) I have finished this chapter. I just had no ideas. I was stumped. Humph. Still am on some things. But when I read that, I just could suddenly finish this chapter. And I have the beginning of the next done, when they see the Devil's Angels. Thanks, Buffybot.
P.S. Sorry it's not beta-ed. My beta reader has not been returning my e-mails. *sighs* I might need a temporary new one until my old one returns, and if she doesn't then I just need a new one. Hope you like this one. Review as always.
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Not Again
'Cause you make me feel (like a pony)
So good (like a pony)
So good (like a pony)
So good (like a pony)
"Spike . . ." My voice takes on an ominous tone, arms begin crossing over chest, lip jutting out in a scornful pout.
Rapidly, he deadpans:
"No."
Well I feel all right (mony, mony)
So fine (mony, mony)
So fine (mony, mony)
It's all mine (mony, mony) well I feel all right
I said, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
I glare fiery arrows of the very baleful kind in his direction, words soft but colossally demanding. "Change the station."
"Sorry, pet. No chance in Satan's fiery hell I'm changing the station on a Billy Idol song."
(Ride the pony, ride the pony)
(Ride the pony) come on (ride the pony) come on
He curls that lithe little tongue to touch his top lip all while he sardonically declares his speech. "Oi, learn to deal with it. S'not like you'll be havin' your current occupation much longer, eh? So loosen up a bit. Don't get rattled by the lyrics sexual references. Get all that monstrous tension from your limbs. It'll do ya good."
A tiny, okay, a wide blissful smile erupts on my mouth. I continue my relaxed stare upon Spike's hyper form, as he steers the car to a place unknown to my knowledge, singing obnoxiously loud, bobbing to the music, but yet, I don't mind, I completely trust this leather-clad guy with cute curled bleached locks. So what? If I barely know him? He barely knows me. But we do know each other. Not on the level where I can promptly name his favorite color (black, most likely), or favorite car (1970 Desoto, most likely), or you know his favorite song (mmm, could be Mony, Mony by Billy Idol), but on a different level I have never graced before with another human being . . . and it isn't so bad, not at all.
With a link of our eyes I counter. "The only thing monestrous in this car is your choice of music. He's so 80's. So, like, old. Isn't he even dead, or something?"
"I take personal offense to that remark." Spike rears back his head, as he turns takes his eyes off the road to convey the most shocked and full of indignation expression to me. "The 80's was more than big hair, tight pants, and Sixteen Candles."
Furtively, I have been inching my way over to his side since the car was started. Now my goal may succeed in being completed. My body wiggles a bit, pauses, wiggles some more. Just a few more inches. And I am starting to have certitude that his right lean, muscular arm is attempting to be covert about its slinking path over my dainty shoulders so it can hold me close, and it isn't all in my imagination.
Score! I rapidly suck my teeth, right before I inquire in a voice the portrays my skepticism, "Are you serious, Spikey? Come on, the 80's was a time period we all want to forget . . ." A humorous laugh, which is promptly cut short with the very lethal glare he shoots through the corners of his eyes. " . . .well, except you. Spike, you have some issues. I think, you are certifiably stuck. Have you done anything to cure this?" Slyly, my eyes portray my stony disposition. "You have a sickness. Admit it."
Just then, a low growl of jesting reverberates around the car's interior. "Did anyone ask for what you thought? You're blonde for Heaven's sake. You make your hair into ankle biter pigtails and give local blokes blow jobs with convenient handles."
"Bottle." I thickly snap, clearly affronted beyond, beyond, well anything. "Bottle blonde." Then it dawns on me like a prick of a needle, and I turn my whole body to him, eyes squinted, voice just a bit, maybe a tad outraged. "Hey, you're a bottle blonde, too! So you can't say that! Spike!" A smart smack to his mid-section, my hand roughly musses his hair. "Smart ass." Tickle, tickle. He giggle, giggle. "Ass hole." My bare leg somehow innocently ends up over one of his, skirt absently riding up to give a peek, knee applying pressure to the seat area right in front of the intersection of his pants, and I'm half-way in his lap like one big feisty kitten looking for a pet an' cuddle. "Stupid pig. I do not put my hair in two pony tails. I like it when guys lace their fingers . . . and yank."
His eyes are glazing over in that fuzzy aroused sort of way, those jeans are bunching up close at the intersection, one of his arms leeches around my tiny waist, seemingly hungry for close contact, and that pink provocative tongue lunges out to swathe his lips with a thin sheen of saliva, then everything did this oafish crash and burn as the car unintentionally swerved into the other lane and . . .
BEEP! BEEP!! BEEP!!!
Veracity stumbles from where it was at bay and lands all around me like a table clothed being whipped from under a loaded and prepared dinner table, propelling the silverware and decorative center piece to fly into the air, and descend back into their proper places.
What the hell was I just doing?
"Bloody fucking hell!" Spike bellows as cranes his head past me to see out the dashboard window, frenetically jerking the wheel, speedily navigating the car back to the right lane, and thanking his lucky stars that we aren't on a highway for it could have been much worse than, " . . . this blasted knife's edge away, we could have found ourselves smack dab in an authentic accident; ruby blood, lurid gore, screeching noise of ripping metal and flesh, right snoopy eyes from inside their cars--bloody hell, like something like a school special on drunk driving, except we ain't drunk, love."
A cold seed twitches and begins to grow at the pit of my stomach, gyrating and flowing into a flower of depression and regret. Oh, damn, damn, damn, damn it all. How can I smooth this one over . . . ?
Spike compresses that arm around me, drawing me closer and more intimate into the welcoming abyss of the inside of his leather duster. Warm gales of his breath disturb the hairs on my head, as I can feel his eyes drilling holes into my skull, tone of voice becoming skittish:
"Buffy? Love, it's all right. Don't do a relapse on me. I'm not your rehab therapist." No response from me, my thoughts are whirling, contorting. "Or maybe I can be, or am turning into one 'ere. Soon I'll be changing you're dirty nappies, or from what I observed a moment ago, you're thong." A pause for a smack and/or laughter from me. Silence. He proceeds on with a whining resilience. "Buffy . . . if its about what just transpired, fine, forgotten. There was no jumping in Spikey-boy's lap. No almost car accident."
My nose scrunches up into a sniffle. More silence.
"Buffy, not again. Not right after the bloody last time. Don't do this to me. I'm but a man." His delicious British accent trembles, and he whines more and more, concern being displayed more and more, Adam's apple bobbing. "Maybe if I was one of your girly friends with their female coos, words, complete comprehension, infinite knowledge about your monthlies and its PMS side effects, and all your internal tick tocks, I could have a chance at taking this emotional stress that keeps snappin' free from you, and actually, seemingly help you. I'm but a man . . ." He begins stroking my back in that soothing mommy gesture, after a big school yard fight and you have nothing left in you but an over abundance of baby tears and wracking sobs, and no words, and there are really no words needed.
"I'm sorry, Spike. I feel like letting out a giant eep." The wisps of words erupt from me, hacking the silence into ground beef to make a hamburger of sentences. Deep breath, thus a torrent of an exhale. "You must think I'm such a . . . I would say whore, but I really am a whore. Oh, the tactless ashes of irony. I . . . augh." Pause. "Great, this is a great time for me to do my thing this thing where I can not say how I feel so then our whole things gets ruined and then there isn't a thing and I am babbling so much right now I might just die of no air but--"
He promptly silences me with a clamp of his hand over my mouth, such an erratic reminder of the very first time he did that. I bite the hand, those sky blue eyes bulge with hurt, and his hand is gone before I can fully register. A colorful string of curses are directed at me, at the situation, at everything, marvelous voice making them lovely and terribly uncouth at the same time. My eyes scrounge for glimpses of his as he continues to aspire to drive, pay attention to me, drive, pay attention to me.
I hastily continue on, so soft, nothing wavering. "I'm so sorry for coming on to you, I was joking around, but I wasn't. See, you appear genuine, not faking your concern, and truly give a damn about me. Spike, I'm starting to . . . I know it is so overly, like so really soon . . . but . . . " I leave it lingering, hoping, wishing beyond a doubt that he might just pluck this segment of a thought and finish it for me. You know, be a smart cookie that most of the time he is.
Oh, those words I just uttered are the weighted kind, the ones that feel like putrid vomit when passing through the throat, then feel like 100 ton anvils as they escape your lips, and when that happens, everything starts shining brighter and you want to smile wide, and the world seems a better place, well, you're world seems a better place . . . but then there is one factor you forget until the factor opens its mouth to counter, and that can blow up your world and make it falling fragments of a sudden Armageddon.
Spike opens his mouth, and forms each word, each syllable very languidly as if these words are alien to me. "I un-der-stand." My body slithers into his coat more comfortably, sapping its worth, sharing my own, rubbing our scents together until it makes a whole new scent, something only we can create . . . together. "Fuck." The word is without malice, meant to be perceived as a statement about this mad everything. "Buffy, love . . . you don't even want me to get started on my epic feelings." That warm hand stroking my back, weasels its way to one of mine, linking it securely as if that was how it was always meant to be--woven with mine. "You're goin' to be the soddin' death of me."
"I better be." My bottom pink lip juts out in an arrogant pout. "That's my honor to put you out of your misery."
The rusty car makes a tranquil curve to the right under Spike's control. I flicker my eyes out the smudged and painted window, idly attempting to see where we have gotten to. The sky the color of a goopy splash of black paint that devoured a once white canvas, while tiny droplets of white paint drizzle from a lacquered brush, speckling the sky with rare and distant stars. The buildings under the night sky are smokey, grey smog formed into buildings with candle flames illuminated inside them to populate this section of the city, the daylight outcasts tromping around, coming out to play for all their worth; this is where you would usually find me, among the drug dealers selling their sweets, and punks waging their eccentric wars, and of course my sisters in occupation.
Spike has drove us into the alley ways of L.A. These places where these types of activities occur are behind and beside every bright street, every rich building, every famous place, sometimes even in the daylight. So, broken down, we really haven't gone anywhere, we could still be back near Miss Kitty Fantastico.
Isn't L.A. grand?
The silence drenches us as a dunk in the pool would.
"Tell me about your feelings . . . I want to hear, I want to know all about you." My head snuggles comfortably deeper into his person, sighing at his marvelous warmth and spicy scent of alcohol, tobacco, bleach, and something primal, demonic, but yet . . . speckled with angelic salt. "You already no so much about me, Superperoxide. It is, only fair."
He lets out a small guffaw, never ceasing that really nice rhythmic stroking of my hair, back, and arms. And he can not think I'm not heeding those occasional inhalation of my scent, for he sure makes a barely subtle job of wrenching it in, then smoothly exhaling it out. His deft and tantalizingly rough hands, hands that have without a dubious thought, held and utilized more weapons that I can count on my hands, his hands, my feet, and his feet; depositing death on everyone's doorsteps, knocking, and thus running down to watch from a distance the results, or maybe . . . he watches up close and personal.
Whoa. Whoa. Hop of the thought train, Buffy, things are looking scary.
But no. No, and no. I can not think about this, block this from my mind and continue to feel this way for this cold blooded murderer, this assassin for hire. Yeah. That is exactly what he is. Ruby blood from a thousand others, now cold and dead, swathe his hands to the bones, luridly dripping off his hands right now, even the one that is tenderly stroking me.
My lithe body spasms, somehow cold all over, despite his heat and the heat of the night seeping in through his half open window.
He just idly and sappily strokes along like I really am one big wild cat tamed only under his loving care, which if I think more of this, is quite true. I freeze. Spike pulls the car into an alley way, empty from what I can tell, and suddenly stops the car, cancels the engine, and gazes at the top of my dirty blonde head.
"You don't want to know anythin' about me, kitten." Voice is choked with some buried sadness that only arises when all else is beyond reach. "Let this little beastie remain the great and blonde enigma, cloaked in the guise of your knight in dead sexy cow hide. My past is flooded with the four b's--bollocks, barmy, bloodshed, and bitterness. A whole mammoth lot of all four ate up my bloody past, and is still eating up my bloody life, bloody fucking picking the stringy bits from their teeth."
So much malice . . . I know the feeling.
"You think it matters to me?" Of course it does matter. It matters a whole lot. "You think it matters that your past may frighten me?" May frighten? Hell, it most likely will frighten. "All that matters . . ."
What is all that matters in this jumbled situation? How can I finish this sentence?
Contemplative pause. Then, the end:
" . . . is that we know each other."
Silence on his part now. A hand cups my chin. Smoothly, he raises my face to his. The gesture very intimate and seductive. Our lips linger so close to the other's. I swipe my tongue over mine, lavishly moistening them, for an abrupt dryness has overcome them. Cynical azure eyes hold the tenacious gaze of lusty hazel.
"Ah, looky here!" That lazy trademark grin of enigmatical proportions is planted. "My very own bosom buddy then? You want to be my new pal? Get sloshed with me at topless bars? Sit back and watch football on the telly with me, eh?" The airy humorous tone dissipates, and his face is smooth pale marble, dark in its expression and unmistakenly irresistible. "Let's just keep this spick an' span, nice and clean--we swagger in set things up, execute the well-laid plan, Angel's six feet under our dancing toes, revenge acquired, my smashing services no longer needed."
He gulps. My eyes tear.
"Love, you do not want to get in over your pretty little head in this. Already I reckon it's gone a bit far." Tense pause. "But you don't want to take that step farther into this private hellhole. There are so many levels in this nightworld that I am a part of, and that your pixie self was never properly introduced to," His voice lowers into a gruff, a very thrilling bedroom tone, "and don't want to be, darlin'."
His soft lips fight through the air that is the only barrier to mine, closing the void with such deft, and our lips collide harsher and ineffably more wishful and emotional and wanting. I can taste the bittersweet peril beneath the exuberant . . . love; and I kiss back fiercer than before.
This time when I climb in his lap no thoughts of foreboding enter my mind, no fears, no anything but thoughts of this troubled boy joining in this moment with a troubled girl for a kiss that means more by the second that the other preordained.
We sever for gasping breaths. Eyes clouded. Bodies thrumming. He has me in a delicate embrace, but it is so strenuous in its hold. I feel as in a bubble. Safe.
In over my head, huh? How about drowned and washing ashore as a plane crash victim in which the crash took place in the electric blue oceans of his eyes?
"You will tell me."
He licks his top teeth in a way that you can not deny that it's sexy. "I s'ppose I will one day. You being you an' all."
"Are you dead, yet?" I place my tiny hand upon his chest, right above his swiftly beating heart, feeling its thumps against my hand.
"I was, kitten." He puts his rough palms onto of mine; bigger than mine, protective, nimble, and so sensual. "Now, as you can tell, I'm not. Far from that path actually."
I upturn the side of my mouth in a smug smirk. "You don't say?"
"That last kiss was electrifying. You got the right dose to me in that one."
My smirk morphs into a pure smile of a happy child. "Did I?"
Spike sinuously pushes my hand harder on his chest, the rhythmic beating of his stable heart pulsing through my shaking palm and fingertips, beating its way to my own heart. And he has the absolute nerve to ardently declare:
"You make me feel warm and alive . . . when all I have ever felt before was cold and dead."