Crossing into unchipped territory (2/?) by dutchbuffy2305
Rating: PG-13
Timeline: Around AtS 5.09 or 5.10
Author's note: Big hugs to my wonderful betas, as ever, meko00, LadyAnne and Ayinhara.
Author's website: http://home.planet.nl/~dutchbuffy2305
Feedback: Yes, please, to dutchbuffy2305@yahoo.co.uk
Baker, Barstow, Primm. The names zoom by in a blur, flashing in his narrow field of vision for seconds before he's past them. He's put his window down so he can get some fresh air and see a little more of the road, as it's night anyway. The snoring of the Slayer beside him can hardly be heard over the loud growling noise of the old-fashioned eight-cylinder engine.
Spike wouldn't have believed it if he hadn't seen it. Bleeding Slayer just lay down and was off in minutes, sagging against him like he was her boyfriend. As if she trusts him completely. He pushes her over to rest against the door, but it's somehow wrong on a deep visceral level, and it upsets the balance of his world. He's the Slayer of Slayers, killed three of them, and keeps one of them around as his minion, a petty revenge born of the anger he felt when his companion of more than a century was ripped away from him by her little baby-soft hands.
He shakes away the game face that still threatens when he thinks of Drusilla's death. He doesn't ever want to forget it, which is why he still keeps the annoying ex-Slayer around, who even in death has the most galling sense of duty and honor and gives him his due as her sire punctiliously. He often sends her on long and dangerous missions because he can't stand having her underfoot all the time. It's more out of a sense of outraged possession than affection that he wants her back. Maybe it's time to stake her when he's got her back again, huh?
He sticks his head out of the car, howls at the moon and swerves playfully at a few cars coming in the other direction. The tooting of their horns and the flashing of their lights follows him for half a minute and he laughs. He lights up and smokes contentedly. Actually, this is fun. There's a quest, there's a Slayer he can needle to his heart's content and possible kill if the mood strikes him. How would he tell the tale? Met this Slayer, killed her twice? He shakes his head and blows a little shred of tobacco from his lips. He can play this anyway he likes, that's what makes it this such a blast.
His eyes are needed to keep him on the road and stay away from the scarce traffic at this time of night, but for the rest his nose tells him all he needs to know about his surroundings. The mild foggy air of the coastal town changes into sharp cold desert night, varied by snatches of small town miasma he travels through, a fug of human breath and sweat, gas and stale cooking. Each town has a unique combination of smells, the powder and decay scent of old people, milk and shit from the babies. He detects the rich blood scent of fertile women, mitigated or strengthened by diet, tacos or hamburger, polyester sweat or wind-dried cotton. The further he drives inland, the drier the air gets. At a long stretch between two towns the air gets so pure and empty he can detect the spoor of a single desert fox crossing the road in the millisecond he needs to pass through it.
The fat-bellied moon flops up over the low ridge on his left. Something shifts in his internal awareness of the world around him. Almost sunrise. In a quarter hour or so he will wake the Slayer. She turns around under her blanket and he gets a good look at her face. So changed in looks compared to his Buffy, who still has the round face and big eyes of a seventeen year old, but so similar in the power of their will. Apparently life has stripped away all softness and sweetness from this one, just as death has with the other. The blanket slides off her throat and he has to fight off a surge of hunger for a moment. He should have taken someone to feed off, but he never thinks when he's in a hurry. He's old and strong-willed enough to fight it off until tonight, when he will hunt and drink with impunity.
He grins to himself when he thinks of the bitching that will ensue from the woman next to him. He's been the victim of her tongue for six years now, and he just knows this one will be exactly the same.
Spike contemplates exacting some retribution on this Slayer on behalf of his other self. The tale is beyond belief. Dumped, chipped, souled. It's bitterly shameful, and he doesn't know if he can manage to keep his resolve or if he will kill her in a proper fight. Killing Slayers is his business, the foundation of his fame. Turning her was payback for killing his beloved. Humiliating rather than killing this one seems in order, for turning his other incarnation into the very epitome of everything he's not. Weak and goody-goody beyond belief. He wants to know every detail of the other's sorry tale, needs to torture himself with what he's escaped from.
Sun's getting really close. He's the Master of Sunnydale, and she'd best not forget it. Now she'll drive him for a change. He pulls off the road near Littlefield and shakes her awake.
"Wakey, wakey Slayer. Time to earn your keep."
She smiles fuzzily at him before jolting awake and nearly leaving a Buffy-shaped hole in the car door when she remembers everything. Her hand flies to her neck, as if she can feel the touch of his gaze there. Her body races and panics, and he has to admire her composure, because none of this is visible on her tight face. Too bad for her, he can sense every variation in her heartbeat, smell minute changes in her hormone level and the sharpening of her faint sleepy odor into a sweat of fear. He shows her his teeth.
"It's me, sugar," he says in a honeyed tone. "Did you sleep well?"
He just knows he can piss her off twice as easy by pretending to be his unlucky shadow, who presumably sweet talked his way into her confidence or some such, instead of using snark and wit, which she seems to enjoy.
She yawns and stretches. When her skinny form is animated with her spirit he can see a vague echo of his luscious Buffy in her movements, the fierce warrior spirit that imbues the Slayer, and they are uncannily similar. Then her face sinks back into lines of worry and discontent and the resemblance fades again. Has her nose grown or what? These humans grow taller, fatter, thinner and shorter before your eyes. Wrinkles appear on their foreheads like slugs' tracks, their brows sink over their eyes and their cheeks fall in. Second chins appear and the spines shorten and bend and before you know it they're dead. Rotting away in their coffins, not like him, cheating Old Nick for more than a century now. You have to eat them quick, when they're young and fresh, before they lose their flavor, like tender summer fruit, strawberries or raspberries, sweet juice exploding against his palate.
Once when he was young, he made the mistake of befriending a human being. He forgot about the passing of time, and when he looked the friend up again he was old and bent, almost dead. He hasn't forgotten the jealousy in the old man's eyes upon seeing Spike young and beautiful as ever. What could have possessed the other Spike to engage with a human being? Heartache lay around the corner, look away for a second and they're dust in the wind. Not him.
The Slayer grumbles and bitches about showers and breakfast but he pays her babbling no mind. If he listened to every word prey and their ilk mouthed at him he'd never get his dinner on item. He curls up on the backseat and falls asleep instantly. He wakes on time to steer her east on the I-70.
He wakes up because the car is standing still. The Slayer's heartbeat is going into overdrive and he can hear her harsh panting. He checks out the sound of the motor, no problem there, then the mileage, but there is still be plenty of gas. No screams, so sirens, nothing out of the ordinary.
"Wake me up for money if you need more gas," he mumbles and goes back to sleep.
Again the car stops. He gives her money, watches her carefully as she buys water, food and gas. She doesn't try anything funny, and indeed, what would it be in this universe? No one she knows is alive. His Buffy saw to that. This Buffy needs him to get to Cleveland and find the amulet. His contacts. He rolls back into the same pose so that she will think he slept on. Her fleece sweater is soft under his head.
The third time he wakes it's slow, because the Slayer's heartbeat has slowed. He cricks himself up on his elbow to investigate. She's sleeping, again, on the front seat. It's too light outside for him to drive, so he settles back to sleep, irritated at the weakness of humanity. He orders himself to wake a few minutes before sundown, so he can drive off the minute it's dark enough.
The Slayer doesn't even wake up when he shoves her upright and drives off. She's managed to turn off on the I-76 at the right moment, for which he's thankful. They're deep in Nebraska – Gothenburg, Overton, Elm Creek - before she regains consciousness. She doesn't smell so fresh anymore, and the deep grooves between her eyebrows are an indication that she's not feeling so hot. This is none of his concern. He hopes she keeps her gob shut so he can pursue his own thoughts.
So. Dru's alive and well somewhere in another dimension. He's not sure how that makes him feel. The first few years after her dusting he'd have gone after her like a shot, done anything to join up with his Dark Beauty again, but now? A fellow gets settled, gets used to things as they are. The moment he thinks this he's appalled at himself. He's never in his whole long life stayed anywhere longer than a few months, maybe a year. How come he's been letting himself get cooped up in Sunnydale for so long? Has his Buffy been influencing him?
He starts tapping the steering wheel to lighten the building tension in his body. Dru. Alive. Wait, didn't the Slayer tell him something about getting dumped by her? That can't be right. He opens his mouth to bark a question at her, but sees from the corner of his eye that she's rubbing her temples and licking her lips as if in thirst. To proud too ask, huh? He must have been a bit distracted and all, there are better ways to get a woman to talk than snarling at her.
"Slayer? How about we pull over for dinner and a shower? Not necessarily in that order?"
She perks up immediately and smiles at him with her dry lips, her big tired eyes regain some sparkle. Way to go, Spike old man. She'll sing like a canary.
TBC