"Fish?!"
Spike couldn't stop laughing. "He thought he'd scare someone ...with fish?!"
"It's not funny!" Except that Buffy couldn't stop laughing either. "Willow was really freaked out."
"Oh, come on, it's a bloody fish!" He wiped at his laugh tears and sniffled. "I swear, it's not just the soul. He lost his marbles too."
"I know, right? I mean, why is he all psycho demon qu'est-ce que c'est when you're..." What? A nice guy? The twin fang-holes in her neck begged to differ. She probably needed to be cut off. "...more. straightforward. Less with the fishy and more with the squishy." She pinched the air to illustrate.
"That's what I been telling Dru! I'm not like him; I don't go in for that namby-pamby hocus pocus rubbish. See slayer, kill slayer. That's what I do."
"It's like a job. Albeit an evil one."
"Exactly. I'm a vampire, not a buggery fisherman."
As she snorted a chuckle, he tilted his head at her. Either the whiskey goggles had set in quick, or she was a bit of all right. And who was it she reminded him of? It had been bothering him since Halloween, but tonight it was on the tip of his tongue. Those big, round eyes; that funny little nose; those lips ...the ones she was licking...
She caught him staring. He looked away, cleared his throat. She did the same.
Buffy didn't know what was going on anymore. The weirdometer was so beyond broken that hanging out with her most reviled nemesis was starting to feel normal. And kinda fun? No way. There's not enough Scotch in the world. ...Is there?
"If they could see us now, yeah?" Spike scraped at the whiskey label. "Having a laugh."
"Hoo Lucy." Buffy tucked her feet under her, propped her elbow on the back of the couch and put her hand in her hair. "We'd have a lot of 'splainin' to do."
"Let's not, yeah?" Conspiratorial, he turned toward her, knee nearly touching hers, arm draped behind her. "Leave 'em guessing. Drive 'em right mad. Or, moreso anyway."
"Better watch out," she said. "Angel might go so far as to bludgeon a frog."
"And stuff it in an envelope," he said, beset by schoolboy hysterics again, "to gently place on my pillow while I'm out."
Was the booze making him cuter, or had she just never noticed? Either way, she was mildly crushing on his giggle face. "Would Dru flip out too?"
"Flip out? She'd bust a bloody fuse. It'd prob'ly spark off some apocalyptic horror-vision or what-all; put her out of commission for days. She'd flip out, flap about..." Flap. Flapper. Clara Bow, that was it! Slayer was a dead ringer. God, did he ever have it bad for that bird... Dru used to cry in the theater, blubbering nonsense like Someday you'll be her taffy pull and stick in her shiny teeth forever. "Poor love."
Did he just smolder at her? "Days, huh? Remind me to drop her a note."
"Har har. Don't you dare."
"Doesn't matter. One of us will be dead before the night's over, right?"
"Right." He said this with a total lack of enthusiasm. "After the truce is up, we'll get right back to it."
"Yup," she agreed, equally cheerless. "Just as soon as we're done with the Scotch."
"That's the plan." He gave his chest wound an exploratory rub. "I think I'm almost completely healed."
"Huh." She breathed in, checked her ribs and pelvis for pain. "Same here."
Did she realize she was gyrating like a belly dancer and puffing her tits out? "Can't have that."
"Nope, sure can't." She slouched and eyeballed the opaque bottle. "How much more is left?"
"Couple more swigs, I'd say. For me. For you, about a trillion more lady sips."
"Lady sips?" She stole the bottle and gulped big, then wiped her mouth on his shirt sleeve. "I don't see no lady."
He laughed. "I take it back, pet. You carouse like a burly, unkempt manly man."
"Gee, that's just what every seventeen year old girl longs to hear."
He turned out his palm, envisioning the words written on a billboard: "You're not like the others."
"Granted..."
"No, I meant, that's what every seventeen year old girl longs to hear."
She nodded, chastened. "Ah."
A purple hickey had formed where he'd tasted her. "Though it is prob'ly true about you, innit?"
"I don't think 'the others' spend their Friday nights taking on pubfuls of demons, no. Or, even sharing a drink with one while plotting hypothetical revenge." Feeling him stare at her neck, she covered her bitemarks with her hair. "No, I'd say I've got that market cornered."
"Mm. Revenge would be sweet." He put his feet up on the busted coffee table. "What say we chop his legs off?"
"Ooh. That'd be keen." Looking at his blood-stained black jeans, she frowned. "They wouldn't grow back, would they? Like a salamander?"
He gave her you've got to be kidding me face.
"Well, I don't know! You're vampires, anything's possible."
"We don't grow our parts back."
"Okay." She swirled her drink. "Then why stop at his legs?"
"Slayer!" Shocked and impressed, Spike shoulder-nudged her. "You're evil!"
"Well come on, I mean if you're talking ultimate revenge, you can't go wrong with the Lorena."
"Bloody right you can't." They clinked glasses again. "I couldn't do it though. No man can do that to another man."
She sighed. "I couldn't do it either. Not 'cause I'm a man, but because..."
"Yeah." He sighed. Love. It sucks.
"So, I guess the jillion dollar question is, what's the ultimate dismemberment-free ...revenge scenari... oh."
Before she finished talking, the scenario flashed in her brain.
His, too.
"I... am drawing a blank," he said.
"Me too. Oh well!" Face burning, she knocked back her shot. "More, please."
He poured her another, checked the bottle. "Almost gone."
"Good. I'm ready to get back on you-- on, to... Hurting." She shut her eyes, mortified.
"...Yeah. Me too."
The song filled the awkward silence.
Strangers waiting
Placing the bottle between his legs, he chipped at his black fingernails. "We could, you know. If you wanted."
"Wha--? What do we-- C-could, what do you mean?"
He turned his eyes to hers. "You know what I mean. The other ultimate revenge?" He watched her turn even redder, nearly the shade of her hickey.
"W-w-what are you talking about? We didn't-- Decide on..."
"A real rough ride at the Red Spur? Could be a kick."
"A... Huh...?"
"You? Me? Roll in the hay? A little Blitzkreig Bop? The old--" He gave up. "Sex, Slayer. With me."
"Ew. What? Ew!" She covered her ears and talked herself out of it; he was not cute. Not cute! "You disgust me, Spike, on every level, in every possible way, and I can't believe you would even suggest--"
"Well, you're not my cuppa either, but--"
"Look, I get that you're a guy so you'll sleep with anyone, but I'm... I would never, with you, never ever! Ever! Blech," she said, shuddering for added effect.
"All right, all right. Point taken. No need to get high and mighty about it." He took a drink. "For what it's worth, you turn my stomach, too."
"Yeah, whatever, Unsnap Boy."
"Morbid fascination, that. You're a slayer. I've never seen one naked."
"And you never will!"
"Never got to see Clara Bow in the flesh either," he grumped. "And need I remind you, you're the one with the sleeping-with-the-enemy fetish, not me."
"I do not have a fetish! He wasn't my enemy when I met him, you idiot, and why am I even justifying myself to... Who's Clara Bow?"
"Only the hottest female that ever lived! Much hotter than you. A thousand suns hotter than you. Or, she was, anyway. Point is, she had sex appeal. You, you're like a... dead, angry fish."
"Whoa, I don't know anything about your trampy ex-girlfriends, but--"
"She wasn't my -- Look, it was a stupid idea, all right? Let's drop it."
"Let's!"
"Polish this off, get back to business as usual."
"Thank you! God."
Streetlight people, living just to find emotion
"I'm not a fish," Buffy pouted.
"I said let's drop it."
"You're dead and angry."
He had to give her that. "Yeah, okay. ...Look, you're not a fish, all right? You'd prob'ly be a right tiger--"
"I am a right tiger. I think."
"--with somebody else."
"Anyone but you."
"Anyone?"
"No, I'm not a--!" She groaned. "You know what I mean."
"You're a perfectly chaste tiger. You think."
"I am. And just because I had a thing with Angel doesn't mean I'm into vamps. It wasn't about that."
"Of course not. He's an embarrassment to the species."
"Exactly. Wait."
"Who are we kidding? You couldn't handle a real vamp."
"Uh, yeah I could." She gestured at the wreckage. "Case in point."
"That's fighting. Fighting and fucking is..." Different how? "Well anyway, you saw what happened. It goes on and on ...and on."
They were momentarily silenced, trying to find the bad in that.
"Yeah," Buffy said, an unwelcome flush coming over her. "Fight-wise, we're way too much alike."
"Right," Spike said with a chuckle, "I mean, you and me, that would be like, oil and..."
"Oil," she offered. Why were her nipples tingling?
"Exactly! And who would want to mix that?" He adjusted his pants. "It's boring."
"Totally boring." Shielding her nipples, she fanned herself. "And also, wrong."
"Not so much an issue for me, but--"
"Sick," she volunteered. "It would be sick and, and twisted."
"Yeah! Sick and perverted and naughty and... just..."
She licked her lips. "Bad."
"Very." Slayer + Clara Bow + wet lips = "Very..."
With a hot exhale, their mouths met.
Next up: porn.
|