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potluck
Dreams from the last few days: Sunday morning--Spike pretending to be a swishy gay man on some Buffyish mission, entering the back room of a supermarket where startled people looked up from chopping meat. Me hiding in a closet with someone. A cat above my head, leaping onto my scalp and digging its claws in. Going through the back of the closet and finding the hidden room of a girl imprisoned by her own timidity; me telling her to get out, go. Freudian much, Anna? Woke up and wanted a doughnut; thought dreamily: I need to check my doughnut. Looked down at my belly, thought: the world is too much with us. Dreams from this morning: Blair Sandburg was heading home, by scaling across the ledges and roofs of buildings in downtown Seattle--in the dream, this was the in thing to do, like those hobbyist rockclimbers who pick random objects around town to climb. He was also extremely tense--not as endearing as in the show. I was sort of thinking this in the dreamscape, but channeled through Jim, who needed to figure out how to relax him. Heh. Later, dreamed I was over at a friend's house to play canasta, but was in a psycho mood. Three friends at the table, waiting on me, while I putzed around in their bathroom. Put on lipstick, bigger than my mouth. Came out and they all had their heads down on the table, tired of waiting. Picked up cards and said, these aren't canasta cards! They were more like coupons clipped from the paper, and I explained that they needed face cards. Uh...right. Freudian. Much. Many thoughts over the last several days. Realized I have been slowly coming out as an alcoholic. A more problematic process than it was sexually. And I thought about why. With sex, it's like, whatever. I accepted that when I was thirteen, and in my own private value system never felt there was any stigma associated with this. Granted, I don't go to work each day and scream, "Gay here! I'm gay! Hey look, still gay!" But that may simply be because I don't have a big gay life to scream about. Coming out about slash...I came into slash. Found like-minded souls, a home online, and so on. Mundanes can stay out of the clubhouse. Granted, if my boss picked up a copy of hot smut off the printer and I had to claim it as my own, it'd be awkward. But the weird thing is, it's not just the sex. It's the whole shmear. It'd be admitting first, that I'm a geek about a TV show, and then not only am I geeky about it, I write fan-fiction, and not only do I write fan-fiction, I write erotic fan-fiction, and not only is it erotic, it's gay, and not only is it gay, it's gay male erotic fan-fiction based on a TV show, and no, I'm not a gay male, thank you for noticing, sir. Funnily enough (she said with irony) I think I'd care a lot less about what people thought if I could say, "Oh, hey, sorry about using the printer but I had to get a hard copy of my Big Gay Story to edit because the magazine needs it by Thursday so they can cut my five-thousand dollar check." Paid and published? Well then, who cares what it is. What sucks about alcoholism is all the baggage that comes with it. Tell someone you're gay and you're pretty much expected to be living the gayness; same with slash--you're a slasher, you read and write, and you share this joy with your posse. With booze, you don't say, "Hey, I'm an alcoholic, and boy do I love to drink! Mix me up one of those margaritas!" And then there's all those cope books and talk shows and movies and crap, teaching everyone else how to see you and box you...and okay, this is sounding a lot like the normal kind of coming out, except it was never a hassle for me. What I fear with the whole alkie thing is that people will start giving you knowing looks, and watching their own behavior, and sharing unwanted advice, and if you're neurotic, you're not just neurotic, you're "exhibiting the classic behavior patterns of an alcoholic personality" just like their father or uncle or whoever they had some shitty experience with, and so they'll avoid you just in case you start staggering around and whaling on them. Which is just stupid, because I'm much more likely to giggle and cuddle and then fall over and sleep. I've somehow missed out so far on the exciting opportunities of being an alcoholic, that whole Leaving Las Vegas lifestyle, with the bingeing and bar crawls and semi-conscious sex. Pity. I really am an addictive personality, I guess, with a frosting of obsessive compulsive. With the whole non-drinking thing, I've been channeling elsewhere. Writing like mad, for one. And this weekend, I listened to "Hanging by a Moment" by Lifehouse approximately seventy times in the space of seven hours. By all that's right and holy, I really should be sick of this song by now, but it's a musical bubble of pure Spuffy with which I oxygenate myself. And here's the thing: my behavior with writing is way more dysfunctional than with drinking. With drinking, I pretty much just have a half-pint once or twice a week, lie around lazily, and then sleep. With writing, I ignore my laundry, I forget to pay my bills, I hunch over my keyboard and go long periods without eating until I feel sickish, I spend tons of money on books for backstory that I don't even really read, and after staying up too late editing something I stagger into work and get very little accomplished. Wacky. I don't even know if I am alcoholic, but the twenty-question standardized quiz I took told me I was. I failed it pretty badly. That's what you get for rigorous honesty. "Do I ever feel regret after drinking?" Well, duh. What college graduate hasn't? I have some issues with that test, actually, but it's hard to offer an objective critique that doesn't sound like sour grapes. Ha ha ha. Onward to Buffy. I realized this weekend with a moment of "Oh, yeah!" insight why I got so freaked by some of the discourse surrounding Spike/Buffy. Especially the accusations (admittedly not pointed at me but at a stereotype of dippy fangirl) of writing fiction as sex-with-actor by proxy. I've always said that one of the characteristics I related to in slash was being "out of the frame," i.e., there is no female body in the picture. And so now as I take my first steps into hetfic ever, there's a self-consciousness at having a female body in the frame. Am I Buffy? I'm so not. And of course I have some level of ambivalence about that. I like her as a character, but I wouldn't enjoy holding myself up in comparison to her, morally or physically. Physically, she's everything I'm not: young, perky, slim, blonde. She's every guy's ideal. And I'm conflating SMG and Buffy here a bit, I admit, because in body they are one. And so anyway, the whole finger-pointing vibe I see when someone accuses Spike/Buffy writers of just wanting to boff Spike-James-Marsters by proxy is: "How ridiculously laughable and pathetic you are, you loser fangirls!" Fuck that, I say. That's someone else's issue, not mine. But it's natural to feel vulnerable, I think, and at the risk of picking up the issue by association, like some skanky rash, I'll just be over here playing in my happy Spuffy bubble where I can write without someone psychoanalyzing my motives. I feel my inner bitch scratchin' to get out, B. Wanna go kill something? I've made a page to collect my noirish Buffy scribblings. It's also a sidebar link, off the Spike image. I'm keeping it low-key right now. Don't want to think about it as anything except jots in progress at the moment. Figured I'd make it somewhat accessible though, in case anyone wants to tag along. posted 1.14.2002 @ 6:15pm -- right-click here to grab a link hanging by a moment She met his eyes. "I know," she said quietly. She gave a small smile, and to distract them both from the real risks said, "You should've seen my feline leap across the snowy rooftops." Spike raised a brow and glanced past her toward the window whose draft she could feel against her back. "Bloody hell," he said, then glared at her. "Well, you'll not be leaving that way." She watched his eyelashes lower as he mused to himself. "Have to smuggle you out. Take the freight elevator. There's a tunnel leadin' out the cellar. Used it a coupla times myself." "Know your escape routes," Buffy affirmed lazily. Tired of talking, she pushed Spike onto his back and rolled on top of him. He held her hips obligingly while she shifted. She had his full attention now, and wished she were wearing a skirt. The breeze from the window was chilly and zippers were complicated. She yanked down his, though, and rotated herself against him as if buffing a floor. His fingers tightened and she teased him like this for a minute, but her own breath hitched as the rhythm picked up, and next thing she knew she was on her back and his cold hands were sliding her jeans and panties off. He left her sweater on. It was cold, she was cold, but his head dipped between her thighs and she forgot to notice, and a hazy while later after cries and hair-tossing and arching, Spike slithered up again, cheeking a path up her belly and breasts until his face loomed above hers. His cheeks were flushed. That was her blood, she thought. Her blood from before, warming his dead skin. "Tell me how evil I am," he breathed. "I'm evil, aren't I, love?" Desperation laced his voice, and with it a new hunger. "The evilist." He fumbled at his trousers, clumsy, cursing, urgent, and then thrust into her as she lifted to meet him. "Oh god," he said, the cords of his neck thick with effort, his voice tight. She buzzed beneath him as he rode her. He was like music only she could hear. When he moved inside her, he wrecked himself and she grew reckless. He watched her like a hawk, focused completely on her, eyes burning into hers as if he didn't know whether to hate or love her, slaying her with every thrust. She came twice, seizing him, and then his eyelids fluttered shut and his chin lifted, and he was gone, the way all men eventually left, disappearing somewhere else at the important moment. He groaned and half-collapsed on her, nuzzling his face against hers. She stroked the tatters of his shirt, and his belt clinked as he drew away. After he slid off they lay together side by side on their backs for a few minutes, limbs splayed bonelessly. Dinner and a tumble, Buffy thought, sitting up at last and reaching for her jeans. Spike too had gotten up from the bed, his own trousers zipped. He wandered through the debris of his room, hunting for something, bent down and drew an undamaged enameled box from a pile of wood that was once chair, opened it with a grunt of surprise and removed a cigarette. The lighter hunt looked to last quite a while longer. When she was dressed again, boots and coat on, and he was standing, cigarette lit and smoking in one white hand, they stood at opposite sides of the room and didn't look at each other. Buffy wasn't sure what dead boy was thinking, but the ache in her chest was familiar: a twist of meaningless happiness; longing and hope. All the wrong things to feel, but she couldn't stop feeling. Or maybe they weren't the wrong things to feel; she wasn't sure anymore. Angel, Riley, Spike--it was just one lost boy after another ever since pulling on her little red slayerhood. She couldn't remember any more what was normal and what wasn't. She and Spike, they fought together and occasionally still fought each other, and if she kept her eyes on the epic drama of good against evil she could sometimes kick free of the aching undertow of her feelings for him. Which was probably for the-- "Best be going, then," said Spike, looking around for a place to put out his cigarette and then mashing it out in the shards of a lamp. He met her eyes. "'Fore the breakfast service begins and the hallways fill up with--" "Spike." He stopped, waiting for her to go on. He looked almost polite. She took a deep breath, then ducked her head. "Nothing." "Right then." With a warning to quietness, he led her out through the apartment. Buffy glanced around as she passed, impressed and annoyed by the deep rugs, the deep fireplace, the deep sofa. He had the whole deep thing going for him. "This undercover gig isn't exactly a hardship, is it," she groused. Spike turned his head and smirked unnicely. "Tables've turned, haven't they? Gettin' a taste of life underground. Everyone up above got the big-screen telly, the well-stocked fridge, while you scurry through their sewers and eat scraps." "Well, tonight we had pie," she shot back, unable to think of a more suitable retort. "Goody for you." He paused at the front door, first to pull on his coat, then to scrutinize her. "Here," he said, taking his cloak off a hook to wrap around her shoulders. "Wear this. Put the hood up if you're in the open." His brow did the wrinkly worry thing, which she liked better than the wrinkly vamp thing. "I should come with, make sure you get home safe." "No," she said firmly. "Now let's go." The halls were deserted, the freight elevator not in use, and they descended unspeaking to the basement, where Spike held her back briefly with one arm and poked his head out to make sure no one was around. They wound through what appeared to be abandoned subkitchens full of pots and crates, past big humming machines and down corridors with pipes that ran along the ceiling. Concrete walls gave way to brick, and lights became more scarce. The entrance to the tunnel was in an empty wine cellar with a dirt floor, behind a dusty piano. "Not sure how far this goes," he said, while Buffy skeptically assessed the dwarf-sized door and pulled out her flashlight. "Guess I'll find out." She hesitated, looked up at him. He was staring at the door in a fixed way, thinking his cryptic thoughts or just avoiding her. Faced by his heroic profile she wanted to tell him, I love you or maybe just take care of yourself. She couldn't help it. She was wired that way. And he turned his head and gazed down at her finally, as if he'd heard the words she wasn't saying, as if she was music only he could hear. His eyes were grey and unblinking, his face smoothed of expression, the corpse of a monster or cold marble of an angel. And when she couldn't bear good-bye another moment, he kissed her, and it was like kissing snow, except for that deep fire place inside her that didn't stop burning. Every big movie moment had to end, and she gave what she hoped was a convincing smile before she turned and left him. When Buffy kicked her way through the bricked-up conduit and discovered she was only a few hundred feet from the tunnel she'd come to consider her freeway home, she felt a stab of guilty pleasure. She stepped back through just long enough to hang Spike's cloak on a heavy piece of rusted wire extending from the inner wall. Trysts 'r' us, she thought, dragging a few wooden pallets in front of the hole she'd made and giving her handiwork a second's smug regard before dusting off her hands and heading toward the command center. She entered perkily but stopped midstride in the middle of the room as all eyes turned her way. It was only then that she remembered the bite on her neck. She feigned a casual movement to check the collar of her coat. Her collar was up, and her hair was down, and she smiled at her friends self-consciously, unsure just how much of the night's events were covered. "Good--" Xander paused ostentatiously to check his watch. "--morning, sunshine." His voice brimmed with the kind of cheery that wasn't. "I thought you were turning in for the night. Help Dawn with her homework, I seem to remember you saying." "Took a walk instead," said Buffy with short defiance, skimming a glance around the table to take the collective temperature. Dawn thankfully absent, Tara sleepy, Willow only slightly frowny, Xander...Xander. She relaxed a notch. "What's the what?" she asked, approaching the table. "We're going over the plans you brought," said Tara. "Since when did we become the night shift?" Buffy wondered, sitting down on a crate slightly distant from the rest. "Tuesday," said Willow, checking with the others. "Tuesday," Xander confirmed while Tara nodded agreeably. "Oh." Sitting down had been a mistake. Buffy felt the waves of tiredness begin lapping at her sense of perk. So much for the second wind, hello suckage of blood loss. Willow was smiling faintly at her. "This is the fuzzy Buffy. As in fuzzy headed," she added. "Not fuzzy wuzzy." "This is the very fuzzy Buffy," Buffy said. "Fuzzy Buffy want a look at the new badness?" asked Xander dryly. He pushed the thin piece of paper her way, and Buffy reluctantly dragged her crate closer and smoothed out the paper's folds. It was a blueprint, larger than she'd expected. After a moment, she turned it clockwise. "Okay. Tired me, but--what am I looking at?" "Well, Spike said it was plans for a weapon, and I recognize some of the symbols." Willow leaned across the table and traced along lines of print. "These are runes, part of an incantation to the dark powers, specifically the demon Kespet. I'm working on a translation now. The rest of the writing is some kind of demon language I don't know, but mixed with Latin--what I've been able to make out so far are standard spell ingredients for black magic. Verbascum thapsus, achillea millefolium--" "Gesundeit," said Buffy. "So, do we know what this thing does?" Willow and Xander exchanged a glance, and Willow sat back down next to Tara. "We think it go boom," said Xander. "And put heap big hurt on humans." "We, uh, we don't really know," admitted Willow. A touch of hope lit her eyes. "We thought maybe Spike had more information." "He said he was on the outs for this. Some secret cable--" "Cabal," Willow snuck in gently, like Giles used to do. "--acting inside the Reich. I don't think he knows anything more than what he told me." She glanced around. "I could ask him," she suggested, careful to make it sound like she didn't care one way or the other. "That's probably a--" began Willow. "Unnecessary," broke in Xander. "A big unnecessary." "A good idea," Willow said, giving him a pointed look. "I'll ask him," said Buffy, smoothing her hair down over the left side of her neck. "You feeling okay?" asked Tara kindly, tilting her head. Buffy started at the sudden question and felt her cheeks pink under the other woman's direct, witchy gaze. Naturally the others were looking all too interested. "Me?" Buffy squeaked. Get a grip, girl. Do not squeak. "Great. Fine." "You just look a little..." Tara hesitated as if reconsidering whether to finish her observation. "Pale," she offered apologetically, giving a half-shrug. Buffy gave a rueful half-smile in return. "My winter complexion isn't exactly helped by our new subcontinental lifestyle." "It isn't exactly helped by this either," said Xander sharply, reaching out and twitching aside her hair before Buffy could stop him. She knocked his hand away and covered the wound instinctively. "You gonna tell me that's frostbite?" Anger had darkened Xander's face. Unable to answer, Buffy darted a look at the women. Willow looked stricken, Tara shocked. "I should have staked that walking cadaver years ago." Xander leaned in and stared Buffy down. "And next time I see him, I will." Buffy's face hardened, and out of the corner of her eye she could see Tara anxiously swing her gaze back and forth between the two of them. "Xander," said Tara. "I-I'm sure that Buffy--" "Sure that Buffy what," Xander interrupted, not breaking eye contact with Buffy. "Sure that she let herself be a tasty juice box to a bloodsucking fiend? Sure that she gets off on being kibble for the undead?" "Don't," whispered Buffy. "What's wrong, Buffy? Too close to the bone? Well, somebody's got to say it. Because I'm only saying what the rest of us are thinking. This whole six-feet-under philia was hard to take when it was just Angel--and I never thought I'd say just Angel, but at least he had a soul." Willow's voice was a hollow reed. "Xander--" "And you can just save the my-boyfriend's-a-freedom-fighter rebuttal, because as far as I'm concerned that Nazi uniform he's wearing is exactly what he should be buried in. Except he won't be buried, he'll be dust, and I'm guessing the uniform too, but that's not the point." Buffy stood, and Xander moved to block her. "Don't," she warned. "At some point you're going to remember you're the Slayer," said Xander, mere inches between them. "Or he will. And I wouldn't take odds that you'll be the one to remember first." She stared at him, stony-faced, while he searched her eyes. "Back off," she said deliberately, "or I'll back you off." Xander didn't move, and Buffy shoved his chest hard enough to send him flying several feet. He landed flat on his back, and before he could get up she leapt and straddled him and pinned him down by the neck, ignoring the alarmed cries from Willow and Tara. "If you hurt him," she said, leaning forward, "You will never see me again. Any of you. Any of you," she repeated. Her voice was cold and shook with fury. She let go of his neck and stood as Xander gasped in air. "Buffy." She turned and Willow was in her face, angry and appalled. "You can't just knock around your friends every time you hear something you don't like." "Something I don't like?" Buffy snapped back. "Try threats of homicide against the man, the, the thing I--" She stopped, exhaling with frustration. "The thing you what?" Willow stared at her. "Buffy, Xander's right. I mean, we've all been pretty supportive if not actually understanding about Spike. And, okay, he kind of grows on you, in a twisted creature-of-darkness way. But if it's more than just kicks on the side, then--" "Then what?" Buffy challenged. "Then you need to let it go." Willow's regret was obviously real, but the voice of moral authority left Buffy dry-eyed and cynical. "You need to get over him." Buffy turned away, arms crossed. After a minute, she turned back. Willow was unbudging, Xander was standing a few yards off to one side behind her, face still clouded with dangerous feeling, and Tara looked on with concern. "There's something I need to tell you," Buffy said. posted 1.12.2002 @ 6:04pm -- right-click here to grab a link end of the week I've somehow managed to take (1) angst about work, (2) angst about my list presence and fan relationships, and (3) angst about my writing, and triangulate myself to a place where my worries balance each other out so perfectly that I achieve a weird kind of equilibrium. I've been eating like a pig to keep from drinking like a fish. Four hundred pounds and stone-cold sober--doesn't that sound like a happy goal to shoot for? Maybe if I keep stuffing my face like this.... Here, have a chip. Other fall-out from my restless sobriety may be the sty-like presence of my apartment and my disinclination to do laundry. I have a strange energy at times, and I channel it into online, fannish stuff, and writing. Then it catches up with me. Thought about seeing a movie tonight. Thought about writing. Instead, crashed hard and slept for a few hours. The desire to kick people--that is probably just hormones. I post to lists and my posts are ignored. </angst> This is perhaps the lowest end of the blogging see-saw: when one descends to gloomy, self-absorbed wittering. Up on the other end of the see-saw I can see the bright shiny topics of interest, tied to the handle like balloons. So airy and colorful and perfectly rounded. Fun! Fun balloons! I get suspicious of people who don't bare their necks. Fandom is all about these primate rituals. I trust people who show vulnerability, who make gestures of self-deprecation, who when you come up and sniff them will sort of roll their head and make friendly monkey noises. Or groom your nits. Then you in turn feel comfortable baring your own neck, or grooming their nits. We have now reached that point in our broadcast where we can no longer pretend blah blah blah. posted 1.10.2002 @ 10:08pm -- right-click here to grab a link outlawed miracles And then, snarling as the plaster dust settled, he began to methodically destroy his room. Buffy's heel slipped on the snowy roof and she yelped as she fell flat, grabbing a ventilation pipe just in time to keep from sliding into the icy street below. "Like a cat," she muttered ironically to herself, breathless and glad no one could see her. She pulled herself up one-handed and swung a leg over the roof's peak. "Whoof," she said, eyes widening a moment as the cold shingly roof made itself intimate. Then she jumped upright and dusted off her coat and pants. Across the narrow alley she could see the fourth-floor windows of the Hotel Arcadia. Room interiors glowed through sheer white drapes, and she counted the windows east to west under her breath. "Right," she said, craning her neck to peek over the edge of the roof and then pulling back. "Just fifty feet down. No problem. Hello, kitty." Thus bolstered in confidence, Buffy backed up several paces, eyed the two-foot ledge that was her target, then bounded across the slippery roofline. As she leapt through space all she could think was, what the hell am I do--, but before she could complete the idea she smacked up against the bricks and had to grab quickly for purchase. She stayed there a minute, catching her breath and reknitting her nerve, then picked her way carefully along the ledge which was luckily without snow. Ahead of her she could see the stripe of light from Spike's window, painted yellow against the shadowed concrete. From inside the room came a tinkle and a small crash. Buffy shimmied up to the recessed window and peered around the edge. The gauzed drapes were so thin she could see through easily. Nice room, she thought. Or it would have been if someone who was probably her hot-headed boyfiend hadn't trashed it. What looked like nicely faked antique furniture lay wrecked and scattered, chairs tipped over with their arms ripped off, tables smashed. As she skated her gaze across the room, Spike strode into view with game face on, ripping a canvas painting to shreds and mouthing something she didn't think was art appreciation. It was cold and she was about to enter, but instead she froze, breath halting in her chest as Spike dragged a girl off his bed. He gripped her wrist, on which a piece of torn rope dangled. She was crying and cringing from him--it was the girl from the street, Buffy suddenly recognized. Will paralyzed, she watched in rising anguish as Spike grabbed the girl's hair and tipped her head back. He held her upright with one hand and stroked her hair with the other, ignoring the ineffectual blows she tattooed on his chest. He inhaled her, tilted his head, fangs at her bared neck. Buffy didn't move. She could be through that window in two seconds, stake out, but she couldn't move-- Spike tossed the girl back on the bed and lowered his face into his hands. He stood there a minute while the girl sobbed; while Buffy gripped brick hard enough for it to crumble unnoticed. When he raised his face from his hands, it was stripped of demon and she saw that he'd been sobbing too. Buffy's heart ached so hard, so suddenly, it was as if it had stopped beating and only just started again. She remained on the ledge as Spike eased the girl off the bed and from the room, manhandling her with care as she became more violent. She heard him yell something that sounded like penny. The bedroom door opened almost at once and a bright red demon met Spike on the threshold and took the struggling girl from him. Comments were exchanged before Spike banged the door shut behind them and turned to face his room. Buffy paused one more moment to watch him survey the wreckage, but when he picked up a broken table leg she hastily kicked in the window and hopped inside. He stared at her, amazed and blinking, while she walked over and took the splintered wood from his hand. She threw it to one side where it landed on the capsized deck of a dresser. They both watched as it promptly rolled off and bounced on the floor. "Way to slay the dresser," said Buffy. "In fact, a fine job all around," she added brightly. "Any particular reason your place looks like Billy Idol's hotel suite after a bad show, or is it always like this?" "What are you doing here?" asked Spike. His voice was harsh and low, and his eyes burned with barely banked fury. She'd seen that look before, and not just in his eyes. She reached up a hand to stroke a tear from his face, but he turned away and did it himself, roughly. The violence coiled in him would have made her hesitate another time, but she'd seen his hard-won self-control and she felt only normal slayer wariness. She looked around at the closest debris and absently righted a chair. Tried to. It tipped and she caught it. She let go. It tipped and she caught it. She let it fall with a sigh. When she looked up Spike was watching her, broody, mouth a tight line. "What," he repeated slowly and distinctly, "are you doing here? Come to spy on me? Catch your pet vampire having a crisis of faith over the dinner menu?" His voice was so dark it could have eclipsed the sun. "Hope you had a good laugh. Should've jumped in sooner though, love; staked me yourself." "Shut up!" Buffy cried. She'd have smacked him if he'd been three feet closer. The outburst, its lameness, seemed to take them both by surprise. They stared at each other, and then Spike's jaw twitched and he slowly uncurled a reluctant smile, ducking his head to one side as he looked away from her, ironical in his amusement. And then his gaze came back, striking her like a snake, making her heart skip, and there he was up against her, equally fast and...snakey. He held her tightly around the waist and tipped her head back with his free hand. Buffy realized she was in almost the same position as the girl had been, and shuddered with sudden heat. Non-slayer instincts kicked in, and she arched her neck back further. She could feel Spike hardening against her, his arm tightening against her lower back. See me with the swooning, Buffy thought, but then the seriousness of his need cut through her own dazed longing like a knife. He'd vamped out, and was looking at her neck with glowy-eyed hunger and bared fangs. His hand cradled the back of her head and felt better than a pillow. She could rest there. She closed her eyes. "Drink," she whispered and then gasped as his fangs buried themselves in her neck without hesitation, breaking like a shriek through her skin and mind, a shriek she didn't make aloud. And oh god it was so good, so incredibly wrong and good that she clawed at his back and ripped his shirt and didn't care and rubbed against him with her entire life as he jacked her up higher to ride his thigh and then frantically, frantically she was sucking in breaths as he drank. And then a blossoming heat made her cry out and he tore away. "Buffy!" "Oh," she said weakly, swaying in his arms. "Hello, kitty." He made a noise she couldn't decipher, and then she felt herself lifted in strong arms and carried. His bed was comfy at her back when he laid her down. "Nice mattress," she murmured, opening her eyes. He sat next to her, devamped. Concern was showing in his naked face, or maybe fear. "You all right?" He touched her hair, and she could feel that his hand trembled. "Bloody hell, Slayer." He sounded as if he'd been about to say more but his voice choked off. "Relax." She was dizzy, but after eight years of slaying she was well accustomed to measuring blood loss and knew she'd be fine. "I can spare a pint." "And a half, love," Spike said, still caressing her tenderly. "That's not the point." "Get me some water?" Buffy asked, just to get him out of her hair. He jumped up at once and sped from the room on this valiant and watery quest. When he was gone, she sat up carefully and removed her coat and boots. She rubbed the already clotted wound on her neck, prodding to determine how sore it would be and how visible. Though she already knew. "Big hickey," she said. Spike returned with water, which she gave a perfunctory sip before setting on the bedside table. Doing these small things kept her from having to focus on him, on how he stood awkwardly and at a loss in front of her, shifting from foot to foot. She hoped he wasn't going to want to talk. It wasn't pretty, when they did the talking thing. When there was something to talk about. "You just gonna stand there and dance with yourself?" Buffy asked, making a stab at archness and sparing him a glance at last. He was still wound up, muscles tense. If he'd been anyone else, anyone alive, she'd have guessed from his expression that he was angry at himself. She was a realist, though, and he was rebel without a conscience man. Spike cared about her, sure. That didn't mean he wasn't jonesing for a chaser. He uttered a short laugh and shook his head. His eyes had filled with wonderment, but his face held unresolved worry. "Oh, you're a mad bird, you are. Give Dru a run for her money, I sus--" He squawked as she yanked his belt and threw him on the bed. Bouncy mattress. "This mattress is--is better than all things chocolate," she said, turning and stretching out against the headboard. "I find this grossly unfair. Do you know I'm sleeping on burlap?" Spike rolled onto his side and propped his head up with one hand. The other stroked her feet lightly. "Didn't know that, pet. Chafes, does it?" "Mmm. Dunno. I'm not really sleeping on burlap." He smiled, and then shoved up next to her. They lay side by side, face to face. He played her ribs as if tickling piano keys. She unbuttoned his shirt, in no hurry. "Don't have to be so careful. You've ventilated the silk." Buffy tore the shirt down the middle and palmed his chest and Spike did that thing he did, which looked like he was taking a deep breath. Old habits die hard, he'd once told her, even when the rest goes easy. "I can't stay the night," she said. "Day, you mean. Nearly sunrise." "Then we'd better make this fast." But her fingers were slow again, and he didn't make a move. "Risky as hell, your comin' here. For both of us." She met his eyes. "I know," she said quietly. posted 1.09.2002 @ 10:53pm -- right-click here to grab a link dream with conga line and lizards Dreamed that a family, not mine, was going on vacation. I was watching the house for them, and taking care of a five-year old boy. We were sitting in a restaurant before the trip. Boy was at the table across from me, very cute. He said, "I love you," looking at me. I said back, in one of those sing-song voices you use for cute children, "Well, I love you too." Then he said, "I was talking to my mother," and he looked to her. Well, thanks, kid. Everyone filed out of the restaurant to the cars. But my mother and the family patriarch stayed behind. Someone, looking like Bob Balaban the actor, was impatient to leave. So I went to the restaurant window and signalled to my mother, who got up in response. Cut to interior of the house. Square dancing was going on, but in a circle. More like one of those conga line dances, I guess, where you shuffle along behind everyone else. There was a heavy lady with a cane dancing slowly, looking behind her to see the moves. I had once been in this house before, when it was empty. I had taken photographs of an elegant dyke. One picture was up against a stone wall. It was essentially a dream-revised picture of Spike. You can see it by visiting the Absolute Spike Galleries; click on the first gallery link, and look for the picture of him sitting on the floor and leaning against a wall, legs splayed, goofy twist to his mouth. In the dream he was a woman, and more solemn--frowning at me, even, as if uncomfortable with the situation--and the wall was a fireplace, and the woman's legs weren't splayed like that. So in short this was a whole different picture. Except the same. Shut up. The house was going to be rented by the large woman, and by a short scrappy butch woman who was obnoxiously upbeat to the point of having a personality disorder. I remember her doing arm-lifts in the big woman's wheelchair, just for the fun of it. Remember also two lizards in the house, that once had been tiny, now big and fat. They'd eaten a snake. Its shed skin lay in their pen. There were some cats in the dream too, I think. But I don't recall them as well. posted 1.09.2002 @ 5:42pm -- right-click here to grab a link high above the packed rooftops She had to smile in return, and then she turned again and rolled her eyes. Spike kicked the door in, right out of Benny's hand. He spared his demon manservant a brief and suspicious squint, a flicking gaze down waistcoat and trousers. Had to make sure the fellow was keeping himself tidy. Went with his whole image, having a presentable little twit on retainer. "Cloak, sir--" Spike was already shrugging his cloak off to drop to the floor, or would have been except the handy bastard caught and hung it on the mahogany hall stand. Spike paused at the gleaming table on which his mail lay, felt his hat deftly removed from his head, from behind and without comment. "Coat, sir." Spike grunted and didn't look up from shuffling his handful of mail as the Hanomag removed his coat. He held up his right arm, transferred his mail from one hand to the other, let the coat be slipped off his left, returned to an idle scan of the addresses. Most of them, he could tell all he needed to from the envelopes alone. White cream, wax seal, a scent of rotting flowers: invite to another sodding ball. Ball, ball, interrogation, ball. Absently, Spike picked up a glass of brandy from the silver tray and killed it in two swallows. Had a forty-proof blood taste to it that warmed the cockles. He smacked the cut crystal back onto the silver, and left his hand there, spidered over the glass. Warmth was uncurling in his gut but something was wrong. "Another drink, sir?" "Something not right here." Spike let go of the glass and turned in a semi-circle, looking around the small foyer. "Off." He assessed the softly ticking clock, the poncey oil paintings, the lamp and its muted glow, before narrowing his gaze on Benny. Benny looked down wordlessly, then up again, then down again. Blinking, Spike followed his gaze to the glossy black-and-white tiles. Bare tiles. Yes. That was it. That nice cushiony feeling under his shoes he was used to-- "What the hell happened to my sodding rug? Real Persian, that was." "Unfortunately, sir, the sodding rug became...sodden. A unexpected delivery today. Balloon slugs. No courier and, alas, no note." It was only then that Spike finally noticed the bite marks all over the demon's face. Hard to make them out against the rough, brick-red skin. "Looks like you had a tussle." "Sir," Benny agreed. "I had to wrestle them to the ground. And--" "Squash 'em flat," Spike finished with a wince. "Quite. The rug has been sent out for cleaning. A reputable firm." "No note." Spike gave a terse laugh as he matched the style of the prank to its source. "Know who that was. Hrarffahr. Bloke's hasty calling in his poker debts and fancies he has a sense of humor. Bad combination." "Balloon slugs are not dangerous. To my kind." Spike raised his brows at the meaningful tone of voice. "If they attach themselves to a vampire they can drain one dry in under a minute." Benny paused, no expression breaking through the brick. "Or so I have been told, sir." "Hell," said Spike with feeling and astonishment. He gave it a moment's serious contemplation, then straightened and dismissed the assassination attempt with a one-shouldered shrug. "Oh, well. Man doesn't have enemies, he's no kind of man." He turned and entered his sitting room. Fire crackling, comfy chair. He removed his uniform jacket and flung it at a settee, then dropped into the armchair, propped his feet up, and started tearing open envelopes, casting each carelessly aside as he did and finding what intrigue and amusement he could in the feminine scrawls. "'Dear Colonel,'" he read aloud to himself in a light sing-song, "'please do not think me forward but I'm advised by a dear friend that you would enjoy an evening of fine music and company. My protegee will be playing the works of Iannis Xenakis--' Bludgeoning the guests to death'd be more honest." Spike skimmed the card into the fire, returned to reading. After a while he glanced to the side table and frowned. By now a second glass should have been sitting on the table, this one of blood. "Oy, you blasted--" he began, then cut his yell short with an oath as the demon materialized at his side. "Sir." Spike glared, tilted his head in subtle warning. "Dinner'd be nice." You oily-hoofed git. "Dinner was delivered earlier and is waiting in the bedroom, sir." "Wha--oh." He gave the demon an annoyed look. "That's not dinner." Which you well know, his tone reminded. "As I've mentioned before, sir, I'd certainly be glad to assist--" "No," Spike said, more fiercely than he'd meant to. Temptation made him angry; the sting of old humiliations made him savage. Standing, he loomed over his servant. "Get helpful and I'll skin you for it. Twice." He stalked into the bedroom where the girl lay tied up on his eiderdown, asleep. Drained by fear, likely. He shut the door behind him and moved to the bed, eyeballing her. Overripe, dark hair, buttonish nose. His gaze fixed on her plump neck, all white and soft. Like a marshmallow, even. And he'd wager it was as sweet. At that moment he felt he'd give his right arm for just one...small...snack. Spike turned abruptly away, ran a hand over his head. "Like a cat fed from a tin," he muttered. "Live mice nipping at my bloody tail, playing jumpsies." Furious, he kicked a hole in his dresser. Boot lodged in the shattered wood, he cursed. Yanked it out, and then with a tightening mouth put his fist deliberately through the wall. Once, twice, three times. Felt good. Game faced, he seethed. And then, snarling as the plaster dust settled, he began to methodically destroy his room. posted 1.09.2002 @
1:04am -- right-click here to grab a link
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My manager may not be the leader I want him to be.