Halloween II

Transparent Lies


His palm itched. It itched so badly that he wanted to chop off his hand. He looked at the scar, acquired a year ago, and went to find Drusilla, to tell her he was leaving for a while. This was nothing new for them. They had spent five years apart before Prague. She had been in Paris, he in London. When you’re immortal, place becomes commonplace and time gains irrelevancy.

He found her finally, in a tiny town on the edge of the rain forest, where demon didn’t matter for the right amount of cash. She was entangled with a chaos demon; his huge antlers budding as Spike looked on, slimy mucus dripping off the newly sprouted buds. He may have been an old one, but he looked pretty dense.

“Dru! What the bloody hell are you doing? Kissing that?”

She pulled away, and patted the chaos demon on the cheek. “I’ll be right back, my love.” She stood, and led Spike away from him, turning to her childe with a distant smile on her face. Slime dotted her white challis dress, the smell disgusting him, and he grimaced.

“You need to leave. The sunshine beckons, and you must go.”

His hand burned. “What the bleeding hell are you talking about?”

“It’s all written there, in the palm of your hand. You have given in to the light, handed over your control, and it can never be the same between us, Sweet Willy. Go now, go to the sunshine.”

“Dru, why? Why are you doing this?”

Her eyes were hooded, completely unreadable, and she motioned with her hands. “I kiss you, my William, my Spike, and you taste like sunshine and ashes. You don’t kill like you used to, only drink. You have no heart for the slaughter and mayhem like you did before. You no longer belong to me. You made a deal with the sunshine, and it cannot be broken, you know that. You knew. Go, William, I have nothing more to say to you. I will search for my pleasures alone.”

“Dru, Dru, you’re not making sense.”

“Don’t need to make sense, not when the hand burns to touch, the heart yearns. The body cries for relief. Don’t need sense, only truth. You are not mine to hold any longer.” She turned her back on him, and waved her arm. “Go now, before I lose myself.”

Cursing, he went to the garage where he’d stowed the car. “I’ll get you back Dru! I’ll be back for you.”

He killed the innkeeper in a fit of pique, and loaded cases of whiskey into the front seat of the car. When he started driving north, he started drinking. When his body yearned for sleep, he drank and drove on. When his demon roared for blood, he drank and drove. When the voices in his head quieted, and his thoughts were his own again, he drank, and drove endlessly onward. Back to the source of his disquiet.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

She stretched and moved, the slow, controlled movements alien and foolish, but she did so anyway, to please him. Her concentration was dulled, she couldn’t think, couldn’t dwell on what she was doing the way that she should.

She knew that Tai Chi was a warrior’s art, and a warrior’s dance, each slow motion gliding into the next position. The only dance she wanted to do was the quickstep—swirl, punch, move, dip, jab, the movements she was accustom to, the dance she was used to. The dance she used nightly, to protect her life and everyone else’s.

She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, so tall and bulky beside her. So forbidding. So…not another. Complete opposites. Her hand itched, and she thoughtlessly scratched at it, spoiling the ballet and breaking his concentration.

He looked at her, his sad eyes castigating, and she dropped her head and picked up a towel, dabbing the sweaty trails that trickled down between her breasts and the back of her neck. “So, Angel, I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Yes, Buffy. I’ll be right here.” So much he wanted to say, and she was so far away from him. She had kept him distant, ever since the incident with Acathla, and he pondered what could have changed between them, why she would shut him out of her life and out of her heart. Why? Why, Buffy, but he didn’t ask the question, fearful of her answer, and she didn’t choose to enlighten him. Deliberately chose to keep him apart from her.

He watched her scratch absentmindedly at her hand again, and started forward. “Is there something wrong? You keep scratching your left hand….”

She stopped in mid-motion and looked at her hand. The scar flared red against her pale palm, and she closed it quickly into a fist, preventing him from looking. “Nothing. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He sadly watched her leave. He knew that things were different, knew they could never share the closeness like before. Something changed, sometime before he had lost his soul, and he couldn’t put a finger on what.

Dejected, he picked up his book, and sat down by the fireplace, absently sniffing her towel. Something struck a chord in his memory, and he put the book aside, smelling the towel and closing his eyes. Concentrate. What is that?

When a picture of his evil grandchilde entered his mind, he dismissed it. Buffy would have nothing to do with Spike, he thought. Then again, if that was true, then why was a towel that she’d just dried off with permeated with their mingled scents? Angel tossed the towel down, and grabbed his jacket. He had to find Buffy. Tonight.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

She knew the minute he arrived in Sunnydale. The scar on her hand flared a bright, pulsating red, and burned like crazy. This was ridiculous. He couldn’t hold her to something that she said a year ago, before all the tumultuous happenings afterward. Could he?

Rubbing her hand on her workout pants, she stretched, did some handstands, anything to keep her mind off her hand. Her hand, that would not allow itself to be forgotten. Her hand, the same hand that had touched him, caressed his skin, sealed their pact. Frustrated, she started jumping rope, slowly at first, then faster, until the rope was a blur.

She tossed the rope aside, and paced the floor instead. Her stomach knotted with the memories of what she’d done. She had sex with Spike, her mortal enemy, her arch nemesis. She didn’t regret any of it, from the hurried fuck in the alley to the other one...in her room. She couldn’t regret it. What was done, was done. But there were repercussions, just like always. She measured everyone against him now, even Angel.

Angel. Her gentle vampire. Her love. Somehow, those words no longer held the meaning they’d had, before he became Angelus, before he’d tortured Giles, awakened Acathla, forced her to kill him. The love was still there; she still cared about what happened to him. But it wasn’t the end-all-be-all love that she thought it always would be. He didn’t occupy her every thought anymore, didn’t make her feel…. That was the problem. He didn’t make her feel anymore. Didn’t make her yearn, didn’t make her burn like…Spike.

That was the problem. Spike. He had ruined her, completely and totally. He should have just killed her; it would have been less of a torment. She wouldn’t have to pretend to like people, wouldn’t have to go through the motions every day. She would be…completely miserable, she realized, dead and gone to the world. Never to see its wonders. Never to see him again.

She raked her hands through her hair, and blew a stray out of her face with her mouth. Goddamn vampire. Why did she make that deal with him? It wasn’t worth all this.

She tried to work out for a little longer, and the phone rang. While she talked to her mother, she heard his voice through the receiver and her heart stopped beating. He was there! At her house, waiting for her!

She ran all the way home.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Angel stood in the doorway, gritting his teeth, and Buffy pushed him to the side, eager and anxious to get to Spike’s side. She consciously pushed her mother aside and grabbed him by the shirt, throwing him down on the counter top as she ground herself against his groin, unable to stop her body’s betrayal. She gritted her teeth, growling gently under her breath, and invited Angel in, more to stop herself from fucking him there on the kitchen floor than for any kind of backup or moral support.

And when he mentioned Willow and Xander, she knew in her heart that he wouldn’t hurt them, because she cared about them. There was something different about him, something untouchable. Something that hovered right below the surface, just out of reach. He kenned that she knew, and grinned up at her impishly. She dragged him off the island, and he turned to look at her mother. “See you around, Joyce. Thanks for the chocolate.”

Buffy shot a look over her shoulder to her mom. “You made him hot chocolate?”

Joyce shot her a look. “He is still a guest in our home, Buffy.”

She rolled her eyes and followed the two vampires out the door and down the street, desperate to save her friends.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Spike watched them, watched how they stood there, so far apart. The air was oppressive, thick with unsaid emotions and inexpressible feelings. He looked at the Slayer, her guilty eyes avoiding Angel, and Angel, trying so hard to read her. Her eyes landed on Spike, and she couldn’t tear them away. Couldn’t stop looking at him. She watched him rant and rave with dispassionate eyes, and jabbed at him verbally, her snarky comments striking nerves and drawing blood. Angel watched the by-play between them, watched them ripping each other to shreds, and in his heart he knew. He knew for sure that he’d lost her.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

He climbed her tree and sat outside the window until she got home. He’d watched her climb down the damn thing enough, when he’d stalked her, trying to kill her. For a moment he forgot why he didn’t want to kill her, and his demon slobbered in feral anticipation of a bloodbath. Then he remembered, the golden skin, the golden eyes, and there was an internal howl of frustrated evil, echoing in his ears and deafening him to her approach.

She climbed to the fork of the tree, and found him there. She glared, then passed by him out onto the roof. He followed her, and sat on her windowsill.

She started stripping off her clothes, not caring. He’s seen me at my worst anyway, she rationalized. She put on her tank and pajama pants, and climbed into the bed, and still he sat, his eyes never leaving her form. When she finally looked at him, he held out his hand.

In his palm, the scar shown like a neon stripe, burning red against the darkness of the room.

She said nothing. She held her hand out for his inspection, her own scar shining brightly. “What does that mean?”

“What do you think it means, kitten. It’s time.”

Her eyes went wide, the whites showing all around. “Time for what?”

He leaned closer and she shrank back, until her back was against the headboard. His face was so close, she could smell the whiskey, taste his cigarettes on her tongue. “Time to fulfill our pact.”

She climbed out of the bed, and went to the door, and his voice stopped her with the hand on the knob. “It won’t stop, Slayer. Won’t stop itching and burning, won’t stop reminding you until we’ve done it. Your hand will become like a living flame, and you’ll want to cut it off. You’d rather be without it than to have it burning you, every minute of every day, until you lose what sanity you have and hack it off with a saw. And even then, it’ll burn.”

She turned, and eyed him. “How do you know?”

He was staring at his hand. With a smile that was almost a grimace, he looked up at her. “D’ya think I don’t want to do it right now? If it bothers you to have a fire in your hand, what does it do to me? I feel like I’m dying, Slayer.”

She opened the door, and he heard Joyce’s soft, even breathing and steady heartbeat. “She’s asleep.”

“I’m taking a shower. You need one, before you lay a finger on me.”

He slipped into the bathroom, and was behind her in the shower before she could do more than let out a tiny eep of surprise. He put his hand over her mouth, then released it at her nod. She presented her back, and he was surprisingly gentle as he washed it with the loofah. Surprisingly thorough, too, as he brought it between the rounded cleft of her ass.

He tossed the loofah into the bottom of the tub, and poured her sweet vanilla-scented shower gel onto his hands. He took her shoulders and leaned her against him, then glided the shower gel onto her water-slickened skin, grazing her nipples with his palms until they were hard and burning in his hands. She rested her head on his shoulder, surrendering to the feelings, and he soaped her from head to toe, teasing her as he went. Her legs trembled, and he pushed her gently forward under the water to rinse off the soap.

She pulled him with her, and they kissed for the first time under the splashing water. He stroked her head and back, soothing with his touch, and she was startled by how much she actually missed him. All the good vamps to fight with were gone, she thought, as his tongue explored familiar territory. Her lips opened, and she let him inside again, despite her better judgement.

She pushed him away with a glint of mischief in her eye, and grabbed the bottle of shower gel herself. She dumped a hefty amount in her hand, and turned his back to her, lathering his body from head to toe with the vanilla scent. He let his head hang limply as she kneaded muscles he didn’t realize were sore, and sighed out loud when she brought her hands around the front to caress his ribs. She reached, and found his flat nipples, and pinched them lightly, until they stood erect and begging attention like her own. She pressed her body against his back, and ran her hand down his flat stomach to encircle the base of his cock, already erect.

She pressed her cheek against his back, and strummed his nerves with one hand, then reached with the other to cup his balls. Her tenderness was nearly his undoing. He bit his lip until the blood flowed freely out of it, and still could not help the tiny growl of pleasure that slipped out of his throat. She rolled his testicles with her hand, testing their weight, squeezing them delicately, all the while stroking back and forth hypnotically, his cock purpling with borrowed blood as she moved. She ran her thumb over the velvety head, raking it tenderly with her nails, and whispered in his ear, soft enough he strained to hear it over the running water.

“I’m gonna put your cock in my mouth this time, Spike. Last time, I didn’t get to, but this time, it’s the first thing I’m gonna do. I’m gonna run my tongue over it, I’m gonna use my teeth, I’m gonna lick it and suck it and roll it around in my mouth until you beg me to make you come. You’re gonna beg, and I’m gonna love it, Spike. Love it.”

Weak kneed and shaking, he turned, pushing her back until she was back under the water. He let the hot spray sluice over his body, warming him, then turned the water off and grabbed towels for himself and the Slayer.

They toweled off separately, ultra-conscious of the body across the room. His hair sprung into a riot of curls, and he combed his fingers through them to straighten them. She was there in an instant, pulling his hands away, and combing her fingers through his hair to loosen it back up, the locks springing free under her fingertips. “I like it curly.”

“I don’t.”

“Too bad.” She smiled impishly. “Don’t you want to please me?”

Her question struck him hard in the gut, and he nearly doubled from the blow, but realized she was right. He did want to please her, did want to make her happy. When did that happen? Was it part of the pact? Too horny to examine every thought and motivation, he left his hair alone, and hated it, but loved the secret smile it brought to her face.

All dried off, Buffy led him to her room, and turned to lock the door behind her. “Don’t want interruptions, do we?” She stalked him across the room, and he felt a tingle run up his spine, knowing that she was going to make good on her promise in the shower.

She reached up, and kissed his mouth, only for a moment, then dropped to her knees in front of him. His cock jerked in front of her, and she took it in her hand. She looked it over critically, her self-assurance evident as she looked at it openly. She touched it all over with fleeting fingertips, top and bottom, base to tip, and he thought he would explode from her explorations alone.

Her lips brushed across the head, and he collapsed on the bed, unable to stand any further. She rearranged herself between his knees, and touched his scrotum, first with nimble fingers, then with her whole hand, watching his face for cues.

As she touched him, she talked quietly, her voice a bare whisper in the night. “What do you like, Spike? What do you want me to do? What do you want from the Slayer tonight?”

He rolled his head, unable to speak. She continued. “I must be doing it right, cause you’re not talking. I like your cock, Spike. So big. So hard. So cool in my hand. So, what do you want me to do? Shall I lick it? Shall I put it in my mouth?”

“God, Slayer….”

“I think that I will put it in my mouth, Spike. It looks like it needs personal attention. And you know, I’m good with hard, pointy things.” She held him firmly in her hand, and licked his cock from base to tip. She kept her gaze steady on his face, and watched his reaction. Swirling her tongue around the head, she put her lips around it, slicking it with the saliva that flooded her mouth. She slowly engulfed her cock with her throat, breathing shallow, and swallowing quickly as she relaxed and forced her throat to comply. When he was fully inside her, she swallowed and held still, allowing his girth to overcome the reflex to gag, then brought her mouth off of him, still holding the head between her lips.

His hands gripped the edge of the mattress, sheets bunching beneath his ass. My God, how hot was that mouth? Her heated mouth and the cool air combined forced a gasp from his lips. She swallowed him whole again, her tongue massaging the underside of his cock from base to tip as she swallowed, her throat tightening around him, almost painfully tight, but oh God, the heat, the heat.

Her touch. She was touching him everywhere. The sensitive parts of his inner thighs, the backs of his calves, his crisp pubic curls—her touch seemed to burn as well as he cooled off from the hot shower. When her hand cupped his testicles, he grabbed a pillow and forced it over his face to keep from shouting aloud. She watched him over the planes of his body, knowing she affected him, knowing that he was liking what she did. She’d thought about it enough in the past year. She planned this, and she wanted it to come off perfect. She wanted to ruin him like he’d ruined her.

She pulled and tugged at his balls, swallowed his cock greedily, her slurping and breathing the only noises in the quiet room. She loved this feeling, this powerful feeling that swept over her; she had him where she wanted him, and he knew it. When she finally took his cock from her mouth, he groaned aloud into the pillow, then moaned again when she sucked one of his testicles into that hot mouth, rolling it with her tongue and raking it with her blunt teeth. She lavished attention on his balls, having read that they were sensitive to stimulation, and she wanted this to be good.

Her hand stroked his length, and he looked down his body to watch her golden skin shining against his paleness. So close, so close to coming, he thought, and he must have made a noise to alert her, because she was on him again, her mouth on his cock, and moving her head with the rhythm of her heart. Down, swallow, up, breath, her body worked the beat, driving him out of his mind and over the edge.

He tried to pull her off of him by the hair, but her free hand slapped his hands away, and he started coming, his cool semen spurting into her throat. She slammed her face into his groin, her nose buried in his pubic hair, and swallowed, swallowed his load, not a droplet escaping her mouth. He was still hard, and she took advantage of it, climbing on the bed beside him and straddling his cock with her legs, rubbing her wetness along the shaft. This time, she would be in the driver’s seat. This time, it was all about him and her and sex and pleasure and keeping the bargain.

She raised up enough to position him, then her body engulfed him like her mouth had, slamming down onto him with a force that knocked the wind out of them both. Joined together, she reached up to kiss him once, her mouth resplendent with the flavors of come and sex and sweat, and he tangled his fingers in her hair to keep her there. She pulled out of his hands, and sat upright, raising and lowering herself on his cool length. He gained new respect for Slayers, and this one in particular. He had always known that they had wonderful muscle control; it was evident in the manner they fought, and the strength of the demons they battled.

Control like this came from practice. He had his demon contacts still, and she belonged to no one, neither human, demon, nor vampire. No, she had perfected the twitch of her thighs to raise her up, the clench of muscles to grip and grab hold of his cock. She had trained herself to synchronicity of movement, and he knew it. Without knowing how, he knew she had trained and studied, read and practiced for this night, possibly for the entire year.

It touched him deeply inside, and another piece of him belonged to her. Pride, lust, now this feeling of honor, that she cared about his pleasure, being good for him like he had her. Her movements became more frantic, her rhythm more frenetic as she rode him for all it was worth, stomach clenching in effort, teeth gritted as she drove herself down onto him, over and over, scalding his cock with her juices and his eyes with the vision before him.

She reached behind her, and tugged on his balls with her hands, still in sync with her motions. Down, release, up, tighten, repeat again and again and drive the vampire completely off—he could see her plan burning in her eyes. She never took her eyes from him, even when he closed her out with his lids. Every time he opened his eyes, he could see her, staring at him, pushing her way into him, infecting him with the need for her warmth and her heat and her life.

She crashed herself onto him, over and over, and could feel the burning coil beginning deep in her gut, down, down deep, where her body and his body connected. She reached, and his hands were there to catch her as she fell forward, flexing and bending and pushing and pulling. Panting, she gasped, “I need it I need you bite me Spike bite me so I can come please baby just bite me—“ moving constantly, never stopping. She tossed her damp hair to the side, and he found his marks there on her neck, obliterating marks left by the Master years ago.

He could sense the waves inside her beginning to build, feel the pulling as they slipped against the other. She dragged her clit down the length of his shaft, pulsing against his chill, warming his length with her depths, and bent his head to the side of her throat. He nibbled and teased at the scar there, his scar, his mark, and she pulled him by the shoulders, her nails scoring half-moons in his flesh. His demon roared, and she sputtered, but still he waited, waited for the right moment. He licked her succulent flesh, the smell of blood and lust so close to the surface, sucking it gently until it reddened, a cherry, ripe and succulent in his mouth.

She gripped his head to her throat with her nails, digging into his curls, tugging on his hair, and she hissed, “Now!” He slipped his fangs into her, and the pain catapulted her over the top. She collapsed, his fangs and cock still buried in her, and he drew hard on her neck, hard enough to bruise a human. Each pull corded their muscles, hers with another spasm and his with effort, but they were both transported by the sensation. He tasted the sweet honeyed nectar that flowed from the golden goddess above him, and nearly swooned at the heady flavor. Her power thundered through them both, and she bucked on top of him, slamming herself into him to bring on orgasm after orgasm.

She opened her mouth to shriek her completion, and found his throat so close to her, so close under her mouth. She clamped her teeth on the corded muscle and shook her head like a dog, all gentleness gone from her in the primeval drive for satisfaction. He bit her neck again with blunt teeth, and opened the gashes his fangs left in her neck, and a fourth orgasm slammed into her, her jaw clenching and his skin splitting with the added pressure. His blood mingled with her saliva, pooling in her mouth until she swallowed convulsively, and she tasted him. More than that, she knew him.

Flickering images of his life and unlife danced behind her eyes, and she turned away from them, afraid of what she would see. She pulled back instead, to look in his eyes, and saw more there than she expected. More that she feared. So she closed her eyes, and rested her head away from him on his shoulder, coming down off an exceptional endorphin high that seemed to reverberate through her body still.

When her breathing had steadied and her heartbeat was once again slowed, she rolled off of him to lie next to him on the bed. She looked at her hand, and the scar was pale and silent. The contract fulfilled for another year.

Still examining her palm, she casually asked, “Did you mean what you said in the magic shop? About love?”

He stared at the ceiling of her little girl room, wishing for a cigarette. “Sure did. Wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t.”

“I’m—I’m breaking this thing between me and Angel off in the morning. Not because of you, or this. You’re right. We can’t be friends. We can’t do this. I can’t trust him, not anymore.”

“I know, kitten. And it isn’t easy. Dru threw me out. Said I smelled of sunshine. Told me I was covered in you. And she’s right, I probably am. Don’t want to kill you anymore, if that’s any consolation.”

“It’s different now, isn’t it Spike?”

“Yeah. Challenging before, could I actually get the Slayer in bed? Now, we have to. Should have known when you pulled the little knife trick last year.”

“It was still good. Just what I needed. You?”

“Yeah. Been practicing, huh?”

“No!” Silence. “Well, yes. I didn’t want to seem like a childish virgin again. Wanted to have a little experience. Okay, a little practice. Getting in sync, you know?”

He chuckled, and sat on the side of the bed. She looked up at his back. “So, you’re going now?”

He bent, and threaded shaky legs into his jeans. “Yeah. Gonna go find Dru and convince her she’s wrong, and we really do belong together.”

He dressed silently, and she didn’t speak as well, just watched him as he prepared to go. “Same time next year?”

“Yeah. Same time. Next time, I won’t fight it. Will you?”

“And have my hand in flames? Not bloody likely.” He bent over, and kissed her on the forehead. “Till then, Slayer.”

She watched as he ducked his head and exited her window, dropping from the roof onto the ground. She stood, and ran to the window, watching his back as he left. Then she threw herself on the pillow and cried for lost love and casual sex, and wondered why she felt so bereft without the mingled smells of leather, tobacco, and whiskey.