Title: Sanrio Knights
Author: Acerbic
Time: Post Chosen / NFA
Rating: PG-13 (A swear word or two)
Part 8 – Splash
Table Rock Lake, Missouri
June 10th, 2007
"Beeatch…" "Biiiatch…" "Beiiatch…""BIATCH!" Sasha shouted so that the word rang out across the surface of the placid lake. "C'mon, Cinn, stop sayin' it like a white girl!" she teased.
"BIATCH!" I bellowed, howling with laughter, and I suspect, still sayin' it like a white girl. "I am a white girl," I reminded her, wiping at the drool that'd somehow escaped my lips to dribble down my chin.
Ling Ling and Peggy were both laughing at us, and together the four of us had the boat rocking and rolling. Spike and Blake, having adopted a position of smug male superiority, were grinning like idiots, but not chortling like fools.
Spike, ironically enough, was our designated driver…pilot...captain…person in charge of the boat who had to remain sober. He'd been drinking, of course, but assured everyone that he was plenty under control.
"With all this shouting, we're never gonna catch that demon," Blake chided.
"That's fish," Spike retorted, blowing smoke. Us girls had made him move downwind, so he sat leaning against the railing of the bow. The pale gray vapor escaping his lips wafted toward the water, disappearing into the darkness. "Demons love the sound of lush young women giggling beneath moonlight. Like a siren call to all you can eat buffet."
Spike's commentary prompted another round of giggling from us smorgasbord entrees, leading to a loss of motor control that resulted in me smearing gold paint all over Spike's big toe. (Gold is the new red, which is the new black. Duh.)
"You're smashed, pet," Spike confided, gazing down at me with bright blue eyes.
"Aint't that the truth!" I succumbed to a giggling fit, drowning hard in the warm haze of booze and fatigue, the dynamic duo coming on the verge of a long, hard day. We'd been on the road, and we'd battled – and defeated – a nest of vampires. And we'd missed dinner, and rented a boat under the pretext of hunting a Loch-ness monstrosity. Only Sasha and Blake had picked up a couple six packs of beer and a bottle of vodka, so the demon-hunt had turned into an on-lake party.
We are in Missouri someplace called 'Lake Table Rock', which is a pretty dumb damn name for a lake…if you ask me.
There's a Loch Nessy type monstery demon here somewhere. Eatin' people. That's why we're here. It's business. Pure business. All business.
Oh oh oh, my head hurts.
Blake's reply was lost to the din, but Spike laughed in reply, and said, "Yeah."
I am interested in what he said, really I am, but damn this empty tummy and bad bad beer. My whole world is afflux, kaflux, amok…sumthin' like that.
My limbs felt heavy as I dragged my hand back to the gold bottle of nail polish, and it took four tries to get the brush into the little hole.
"Oh, I'm wrecked, smashed, ruined," I remunerated, counting all of the ways that the booze had fucked me up. I have a big vocabulary. It took a while, and I got distracted before I'd finished.
Blake, oh Blake, my hunky, handsome honey boo… You're soooo beaut-ti-ful… Oh oh oh,
You're motoring
What's your price for flight
In
finding mister right
You'll be alright tonight
Stupid stupid earbug. Can't get those lyrics outta my head…
By the way, it's been three days since Spike joined our little troupe, in case you're wondering. He's fit in just fine, peachy even, though it was initially a challenge to figure out how we were gonna bring along his bike. Ultimately, we wound up hitching a trailer to the van, which has worked out pretty good.
Spike's motorcycle is cool. It's old, and it's called an 'Indian'. He's promised to take me for a ride just as soon as we get a helmet that'll fit.
Spike's been rooming with Blake, though, with each passing day the sexual innuendo flyin' between him and Peggy gets thicker n' heavier. Just a matter of time till they hook up, I reckon.
It bugs me 'cause Spike is you know supposed to be Buffy's property, but I try not to let it get to me. I keep my mouth shut. I avert my eyes when their lips are so close that they might as well be kissing.
Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck, I need to pee. Only my limbs are too heavy and my mood too lazy, and if I can't summon the energy soon, then I'm gonna have a humiliating accident.
My head is swimming, and the conversation is a blur, and my stomach feels like it belongs on my outside. I reached out, blind due to my spinning thoughts, and grabbed hold of the closest support, which happened to be Spike's leg.
"Oh God," I moaned, clinging to his calf like it was the only solid thing in my whole wide world. "I'm gonna puke."
"Not on my foot, yer not," Spike replied, but he pressed a cool, soothing hand to my forehead, and it felt so incredibly good. He stroked back my hair and rested his fingers against the back of my neck and that coolness was the only source of relief for my entire miserable body.
"Told you not to drink so much so fast, Bit," Spike chided, but unlike Buffy or one of the other adults in my life, his voice bore no real reproach, only compassion and understanding.
I love Spike so damn much that I want to cry.
Just then my stomach heaved and I lunged for the side of the boat, spewing the contents of my gut into the dark waters of Table Rock Lake. Spike's hands were right there, offering support, and I suspect that I might've collapsed into the water without him.
"Dawnie, are you okay?" Ling Ling appeared off to my right, and the voices of all the others quieted. They, witnessing my humiliation.
"I love you, Spike," I mumbled, too soft for the others to hear, I hope. But it had to be said cause if I died, then I wanted him to know.
"I love you too, Nibblet," Spike replied with an amused chuckle.
"Ling, I'm dying," I managed to tell Pandapple before my stomach heaved again, and more fluid poured forth from my mouth and nose. Choking, I gasped for air, and the raw vodka made my eyes sting and water.
"Shhh," Ling Ling said, sounding also amused. My treacherous so-called friends… "You're not gonna die, Dawnie. But you're gonna feel like shit in the morning."
Just then this huge tentacle whipped up out of the water and twined about Ling Ling's neck. She had no time to react. Eyes bulged. No scream. Then she and the tentacle disappeared with a quiet splash.
The Table Rock Lake monster, I presume.
Fuck.
End Part 8.
