Author's Notes: This might not go on...much longer...or at all. I'm quickly losing interest and not many people seem to read it. Not that I'm not grateful to all of you who faithfully read and review every single chapter. You guys, as I like to deplorably put it, "rawk". It's just not that good and not that inspired, is all. Anyway, I'll figure something out.
Stay
Chapter Eleven
Spike's POV
I felt sticky. Hot and sticky. I felt like no respectable vampire ever should. And my belly ached and my palms were slick with perspiration and my head was fuzzy and my lips were dry; and when I tried to kick the sheets off of my moist legs, they clung to me like no respectable sheets ever should.
"Sire!" came my piteous croak, and I paused for a moment, in awe at just how flimsy and fragile I sounded. Listening carefully, I realized that he was already upstairs, starting his evening with the cheerleader and the watcher. A workingman, my sire was.
"Peaches!" I tried again, but it was even weaker than the previous and I swallowed back the little bit of saliva that lingered in my dry mouth. I opened up for one last attempt and was rewarded with a hollow-sounding wheeze.
Bloody Hell.
With great effort, I eased myself up in the bed, slid off, and stood shakily on my legs. Wobbling unsteadily, I took small steps towards the elevator, and yearned for my sire to hear my distress. The lightheadedness hit me right quick, knocking me over and down against the wall and I choked, hacked, and let out a most ignoble wail of frustration, hit the floor with my fist, and tried to blink away the humiliating tears threatening to stream down my already damp face.
My head hummed, my body went limp, and I closed my eyes and tried to will away the pain because I didn't know what else to do. I was sick as a soddin'…something that was normally sick, and I hadn't a clue how to alleviate my misery, 'cause what kind of sad excuse for a creature of the night gets sick anyway?
Then I got the chills and I shook and trembled and bit my lip and held myself to try to get warm again even though I'm never warm and I shouldn't be trying to make myself warm because that's bloody dishonorable of a master vampire such as myself.
"Will?"
Ah yes, my sire's soft, soothing voice. At long last. I felt his cold hand touch my forehead; my cheeks – first left, then right; my nose, my neck – front, side to side, then back; dancing his fingers along my shoulders, then down my spine.
"You're burning up."
There was an unease laced in his tone now as I felt him gather me in his cold arms, lift me, and carry me back to the sweat-soaked sheets of his bed.
"Sire," I groaned, writhing away as he tried to tuck me back in. "'S goin' on?" I heard him shush me, felt his large hands rub graceful, tender circles on my belly before taking my complacency to his advantage and tucking the sheet around me. "Sire?" And I tried to open my eyes, to see him standing over me, just so I could know and seek solace in his dark, strong form; so I could know he was watching over me. But the light hit my eyes first and I whimpered something pitiful and snapped them shut.
"It's okay, Will. Sire's going to make you better," he whispered, and I felt his cool finger brush a damp tendril of hair from my forehead. "I'm going to be right back. Just stay here and try to rest."
I couldn't help but wonder what else I would do, seeing as how I couldn't move without collapsing like some pansy-arsed nancyboy.
A few minutes later, I heard him re-enter the apartment accompanied by two extra pairs of footsteps.
"Oh, wow. He looks terrible," Cordelia commented and I heard her move to my side and felt her palm press against my forehead. "Corpses definitely shouldn't be that hot."
"I can hear you, y'know," I rasped, turning my head away. "M not delusional or delirious or unaware or…whatever." I opened my eyes, blinked hard and long to adjust to the light, and looked to my sire. "Why'd you bring these two down here?"
"We have to figure out what's wrong with you and I'm not willing to leave you alone down here until we do," he said, his voice firm as if I had been arguing with him.
I shut my eyes again. "Hurts." The bed depressed with a heavy weight and I laboriously inched and fidgeted until my pained head was on my sire's lap.
"I know, precious," he soothed. "Wesley?"
"Well, clearly it's a ramification of attacking that demon last night. I'm, ah…just wondering why you and I aren't in the same state of illness," Percy contemplated. It was silent for a few minutes as they all pondered, and I relished in the lack of noise, burrowing my head into my sire's belly and encouraging him to keep up with the soothing motions of physical contact. Then the watcher exclaimed, "TITS!"
"Huh?" my sire asked, sounding completely mystified.
"Tourettes much?" Cordelia asked.
"I meant, ah…breasts. The demon's breasts. Spike complained of them having thorns and neither of us went near that area."
"Patsy had poisonous bristols, then?" I groaned, ducking under my sire's T-shirt and pressing my hot head against his bare skin. "Just my bloody luck."
"So we need to figure out what kind of demon she was," Cordelia concluded as my Sire attempted to pry my head out of his personal space. "Where do we start?"
"Patsy, as Spike fondly calls her, exudes a highly sexual, hedonistic aura that when contained in a room spreads and affects those around her. She also has a very sweet, hypnotic singing voice."
"Don't forget the annual feast where she chows down on lotsa humans at one time," I added. "'S pretty important."
"Indeed it is," Wesley agreed.
"I thought you killed her," Cordelia interjected, confused. "Why are you talking about her in the present tense?"
"I believe they were just referring to all Patsy-like demons as Patsy," Peaches told her.
"I was actually just fondly reminiscing," I contradicted, inwardly cringing at how my voice rasped. "Chit could carry a beautiful tune, and no matter how poisonous those jubblies were, she was one nicely-endowed, homicidal bint."
"Angel, he's disgusting," the cheerleader bluntly informed my sire.
"He's allowed. My poor boy's all hot and clammy and ill, so he can be as vulgar and degrading as he pleases," Angel replied. Then he looked down at me with affection in his poofy, soulful, brown eyes, scratched my tummy, and asked in a motherese tone, "Can't he?"
I glared at him. "Just keep scratching and I won't curse you out good and proper like you deserve." For once, he did as I said without scolding me like the knackerless mother hen that he was. I shuddered as a fresh wave of chills overtook my body.
Unlife was really starting to suck.
Angel's POV
I watched my friends sink into the mundane act of researching, Wesley's sharp eyes skimming paragraph after paragraph while Cordelia's lids drooped over her own brown orbs, delicate chin resting on a small fist, contributing every so often with a gracious flip of the page. My childe, unnaturally warm, was asleep and nestled in my arms, his fervid state causing his darling forehead to perspire, his exquisite, little hands moist and unconsciously kneading my thigh.
"She sang 'Fever'," I addressed my friends softly. "Do you think there some kind of magic behind the song?"
Wesley negated my thought with a quick shake of his head. "However uncanny it may be, I believe these two events were coincidental. Despite this, the song did have an effect on both you and Spike, causing you to become…erm…" his mouth opened and shut and opened and shut and he said "ah" and "uh" and that's when I finally decided to give the poor guy a break.
"Affectionate," I supplied.
He looked relieved, "Indeed. Affectionate. It held a certain amount of sexual power over you. I have a theory that physical attraction is linked to Spike's illness, as he was clearly going two separate ways last night. Drawn to both you and Patsy's thorny bosom, two very different things, something within him may have become imbalanced when he came into physical contact with the demon."
I blinked. I watched Cordelia blink.
"Erm, Wesley…?"
He fidgeted, then sighed. "Okay, so it's just the bloody poison that we have no clue how to alleviate."
Cordelia poked him in the side. "You just wanted to say thorny bosom. Admit it."
"I'll do nothing of the sort."
She snorted. "C'mon, Wesley, I want the truth."
"To quote Jack Nicholson in the classic 1992 film, A Few Good Men, 'you can't handle the truth.'"
An awkward pause ensued, and I'm not sure why because I hadn't seen a movie in a long time. Well, not since with Buffy, but before that even longer. Definitely not in 1992. By Cordelia's blank expression, I expected that seeing a 1992 movie starring Jack Nicholson was a bit of a stretch for her as well.
I nearly jumped when Will started laughing in my arms.
"Son, we live in a world that has walls. And those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? You?…" he trailed off, opening dazed blue eyes and searching my face. "I love that picture." He lifted a fair finger and touched the bridge of my nose. "Love my Sire." He trembled then, whimpered a little, shut his pretty eyes. "Room's spinnin' like a bloody carousel." He ripped at the sheets around his waist. "Tell 'em to stop spinnin' us 'round, Da. 'S not how we play. Tell 'em to stop or you'll rip their throats out."
"He's delirious," Wesley remarked.
"I'll say," Cordelia added.
He panted and wept, clinging to my shirt with his balmy hands, tears running down his aberrantly flushed face. "Did it stop, yet?" he asked. "Did it?"
"It stopped," I assured him gently. "It's all over."
"Did you rip their throats out?"
"Dead and gone, little one."
He mewled, nestling his wan, little face into the crook of my neck and moments later, he'd drifted off to sleep again.
"That was…weird," Cordelia said.
I didn't pay attention to her, gathering my childe into my lap and cradling him. Feeling his abnormal warmth against my skin, I couldn't help but feel a pang of panic. What if Patsy's malignant breast milk was my boy's final fatality? And in the thoughts of my poor little William being finished off by a cheap parlor singer, I changed into my demon visage and tore at my wrist with my fangs.
"Angel!" Cordelia exclaimed, as if this would permanently harm me and she'd be destined forever to financial inadequacy.
I heard Wesley hush her and reassure her as I put my bleeding wrist under William's nose, then touch it to his slightly parted lips, waiting for him to come to.
His blue eyes snapped open and his little tongue shot out in a quick abrupt movement to take a tentative lick. Then, still in human face, he latched on and suckled like a newborn calf to a cow's teat. I circled my free arm around his middle, pinned his legs down with my own, and kissed his warm, smooth neck as he noisily and messily fed, little drips of crimson running from his blunt, human teeth down his pretty white chin. He finished minutes later, licking his lips and holding his face up to mine, allowing me to clean what he couldn't reach.
"Sire." A little whisper that screamed of contentment, thumped at my still heart. He lay against me, his back to my chest, and rested his sweet, blonde head underneath my chin.
"Better?" I inquired, then pressed another kiss to his temple, noting that the skin was already a bit cooler than it had been, the tinge of pink had begun to leave his cheeks.
His answer was a very feline yawn, his mouth gaping wide open, lasting seconds longer than any yawn really should have. When I nudged, and asked again, it was a petulant, "'M tired." To which I chuckled and rubbed my hand over his firm stomach, eliciting a purr of gratification.
"Do you think he's cured?" Wesley asked, snapping me out of my newfound serenity. "Do you think that's all he's needed all along?" I gave my two employees a sheepish look.
"We wasted all that time worrying and looking through these boring old books when you just sat there like Mr. Worried Mommy Estrogen Pants and had the freakin' antidote the whole time?" Cordelia asked incredulously. "You are so paying us overtime."
"Cordelia, all you did was flip pages," I reminded her.
"All? All!?" she demanded, holding up her perfectly manicured fingers. "I'll have you know that during this completely pointless and mundane research session, the unworthy pages of those musty things scratched the paint off of the edge of this nail," She lowered all but her middle finger. Wesley sniggered. I gaped in surprise and covered William's already closed eyes.
"Cordelia, I understand you're upset with me, but please refrain from using rude gestures in front of William."
"Huh?" She looked at what she was doing and scoffed, putting a hand over her mouth. "Oh. There was actually paint chipped on that finger."
"Rude gestures?" my boy's sleepy voice asked. "Who's usin' rude gestures?"
"Hush, Will. Nobody. Back to sleep with you."
"Yes, Sire," he mumbled, fluttering back to his dreams.
I grinned at that, wondering if there was a local herd of Patsy demons to which I could track down and milk for their poison. I'd love it if my little one were always so sweet, willing, and compliant.
"So, I suppose we've all learned a lesson from this," Wesley spoke up, getting to his feet and tucking notes and scraps of paper away in his pockets, closing the books, and stacking them neatly on the table. We waited an absurd amount of time for him to continue, but it seemed like he had said all that he wanted to say.
"And what's that, Wesley?" Cordelia asked, feigning interest, and sounding for all the world like they were introducing a random, impractical product on an infomercial.
"Well, um…er…never fondle a demon's bosom during battle?" He shifted from foot to foot, chewing his lip thoughtfully. "No matter how plentiful and heaving it may have appeared…"
"Sounds like good advice to me," I agreed.
"Don't knock it 'till you've tried it, mate," William murmured, blindly searching until he touched my wayward hands and placing them back on his stomach. "Keep on then, Sire. 'M still an ailin' little boy, jus' for you."
"Oh, so you role-play in your spare time," Cordelia commented. She wrinkled her nose. "Ew." With that, both she and Wesley exchanged looks, and headed back upstairs to continue on with our most gratifying business.
"Are you feeling better?" I tried to ask him again. He didn't speak for a long time so I prodded, "Will?"
"No."
"No? What's hurting?"
"No."
"William."
"No."
I dropped my hands and he collected them again, placing them back where I suppose they rightfully belonged.
"What's the matter with you?"
"No."
Spike's POV
Maybe if I just deny everything, he won't deny me.
TBC...?