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Annie Sewell-Jennings
E-MAIL: Auralissa@aol.com
SUMMARY: After the world is destroyed by nuclear apocalypse, Buffy and Spike meet up in Australia for what may be the last summer on Earth. Buffy/Spike
RATING: NC-17
SPOILERS: Post-"Restless"
Author's site: http://geocities.com/anniesjennings/index.html
AUTHOR'S NOTES: This story was inspired by the story of "On the Beach" by Nevil Shute, as well as the updated version of the story as soon on Showtime, starring Armand Assante, Rachel Ward and Bryan Brown. The film is poignant, exquisitely shot, and subtly moving, as it displays the end of humanity in a very calm and remarkable way. I can't stop thinking about the movie. I dream about it. I contemplate it. I fear its possibilities. And I am inspired by it.
Thanks to Phillip-Morris, the unwitting sponsors of this work. Without my Marlboros, I don't know where I'd be. <plug plug> Also thanks to Alanna, for making me read "Iolokus" (XF genre by MustangSally and RivkaT, and a truly inspired piece of work) and therefore helping me acquire the bitterness that inspired Buffy and Spike's dysfunctional relationship in this piece. The Mooselet will always kick ass. Most of all, thank you Heather, for keeping me on the right track and keeping me writing this story, no matter what reservations I may have had about writing two fics inspired by the same film. This one is the fleshed-out version of what I truly wanted to write, and I'm glad that I could take the time to write this story in the way I wanted to write it.
Smoke unfurled from the cigarette, rising up from the slender
cylinder of burning and dying ash, curling and creating shapes
that seemed perfect for a woven blanket from Egypt. It rested in
the crook of the green crystal ashtray, scattering bits of ash
like incinerated snow onto the bottom of the glass. Slowly,
thoughtfully, Buffy picked up the cigarette and took a hit off of
it, contemplating her next move. She exhaled a stream of silvery
smoke, and then carefully decided. A choice painstakingly made,
difficult to part with...
With a wicked grin, she placed the Queen of Spades down on the
pile, and waited for Spike to make his move.
The peroxide blond vampire scowled at the hand that he'd been
dealt, and cut his dark blue eyes at her disapprovingly. "You're
cheating," he accused, and Buffy arched an eyebrow at him
teasingly, fanning through the selection of cards with a wily
expression on her face.
"I would never cheat," she scoffed. "You're the one who would
cheat at cards, o soulless one." With that, she kicked him,
stretching one pajama-clad leg across the bed and hitting him
right in the kneecap, smirking when he yelped and swatted at her
thigh with his hand. The strong lines of his shoulders gleamed
like pearls stretched across bone as he lounged across the bed in
nothing but his reliable and well-worn jeans, belt undone and
jeans riding low on his slender hips. She admired the lines of
his body over the fan of cards in front of her face, impishly
scouring his lean and muscled body with her eyes.
He caught her staring at him, and arched an eyebrow at her,
amused with her appearance. She sat Indian-style on the bed,
carmine fingernails tapping the patterned back of the playing
cards impatiently, scanning her hand for moves. Streaks of blue,
red, and magenta ripped through her light gold hair as it spilled
over her slender shoulders, and locks of it dipped invitingly
into the cleavage of her tank top. Embroidered dragons and tiger
lilies in different shades of green and violet shimmered on her
blue silk pajama pants, and her scarlet toenails were bright
splashes of color on her simple dark green bedsheets. He'd
convinced her after a week to ditch the trite red linens, and she
decided that he was right.
A smirk flowered on his mouth as he watched her, and he drew an
ace of diamonds from the deck, instantly placing it on the
discard stack. "For your information, Summers, I don't cheat," he
said haughtily, and Buffy arched her gold eyebrow, taking a hit
off of her cigarette before picking up Spike's discarded ace and
adding it to her hand. The vampire inwardly cursed; she naturally
had to take whatever he didn't want. "I always fought you quite
fairly."
She rolled her eyes and tossed hair off of her shoulder, no
matter that it was all pulled back into a frenzied ponytail so
that her colored highlights shrieked across her scalp. "Sure you
did," she said dryly. "And the Ring of Amara was completely fair.
Or attacking me when I was helpless that Halloween. Yeah, Spike,
you always fought fairly." She frowned at him as she discarded a
seven of clubs. "I always did wonder why you never used a gun on
me. Darla did once, but you never did."
Spike shrugged at her, frowning a little as he contemplated the
card that she had thrown out of her hand. "I once went to a gun
shop and picked up a weapon," he confessed, leaning back a little
and remembering the day with much glee. He smiled a little
dreamily and gazed off at the curtained glass door. "A rather
nice little handgun. Held it in my hand, fired off a couple of
rounds, but you know, killing you with it would just be too
quick. Too easy. What would I brag about later on to Dru or to
the other demons at Willy's? That I killed the Slayer with a bee-
bee gun?" Spike shook his head, flipping through his cards and
looking down at the spread of diamonds, clubs, spades and hearts.
"Besides that, I had all these great plans for killing you."
Arching her eyebrow, Buffy took another hit from her cigarette
and exhaled, exasperated with Spike's rambling remembrances.
"Really?" she said, her tones flat and disinterested.
Spike didn't notice her rampant disapproval, and if he did, he
didn't care. "Yeah," he said, a half smile on his ripe mouth. "I
was going to carve you up and feed you to the dogs, or maybe
stuff you and give you to Dru as a present... They were nice
little plans. A gun would just be... Boring." He shrugged, and
Buffy looked at him with flat, disbelieving eyes.
"And if that wasn't the most charming speech I've ever heard,
then I don't know what is," she said drolly, and Spike threw a
cracker at her head, watching when she burst out into gleeful
laughter.
"Sod off," he said, taking her card and discarding a three of
hearts. She picked up his card and slammed down a seven of
diamonds, a proud smile on her face.
"Gin," she announced, fanning out her cards on the bedspread to
display her triumph over him. Spike scowled at her, leaning over
to look at her cards.
"You cheated," he accused, and Buffy grinned lecherously at him,
shaking her head and pointing out the sets to him. He threw down
his hand in irritation, disgruntled with himself for losing to
her, and Buffy grinned wickedly, crawling across the bed, the
silk dragons on her pajama pants glistening with a dozen
multicolored threads. Lithe muscles flowed like water underneath
the shimmering dragons, and Spike watched her warily, feeling
himself want her just from the expression on her face and from
the motion of the embroidered dragons on her legs.
Impish eyes sparkled like California waters as she nuzzled his
nose with her own, brushing her lower lip against his in a
whisper of a kiss. "Now, Spike," she murmured, moving her tongue
to just barely breeze between his lips, "if you keep that up,
you're going to be a *really* sore loser." Impishly, Buffy
grinned and ducked her head back behind his ear, softly licking
the sensitive area that always made him shiver. Spike hissed as
arousal shot through his body, grabbing for her and digging his
nails into the tattooed small of her back. He growled at her and
flipped her on her back, and Buffy grinned at him beguilingly,
drawing up her knee and wrapping it around his waist.
Slowly, she drew her tongue down his cheekbones, tasting the
sharpness of bone underneath taut skin the color of the moon, and
she saw the way that his eyes liquefied when she did it. She
smiled, draping her hands down his back, feeling the rich
coolness of his skin, kissing the juncture of his neck and
shoulder, licking the pronounced clavicle and then nipping
playfully at his throat, eliciting a moan and a chuckle from him.
Her hands dipped lower as she suckled on his neck, dipping into
the waistband of his jeans, and she felt the silken coolness of
his hardened cock, stroking it with her thumb. Spike hissed a
breath out, and stopped her hand with his. "But you were the
winner this time," he said, and she arched her eyebrow at him
provocatively.
"Winner takes all," she said, squeezing him slightly and causing
him to suck in his breath shortly before hastily agreeing with
her.
"Oh, yeah," he said, and when she unbuttoned the fly of his faded
denims, she smiled mirthfully at him, claiming the prize that she
had collected from her skillful game of gin. "You know, I
still... Still think that you cheated..."
A false pout landed on Buffy's ripe little mouth, and she arched
her eyebrow haughtily at him. "Spike, it's not my fault that I
was dealt a good *hand*," she said, emphasizing her last word by
giving his hard cock another squeeze. Spike groaned and then
finally shut up, arching his hips and giving her the opportunity
to remove the one article of clothing that he wore. "Now, you
just lay back and tell me if you think I cheated..."
And with that, she flipped him on his back, lowered her mouth to
him and Spike hoped that this was the afterlife he got when the
world ended.
Molten honey surrounded him slowly, a warm tongue descending low
on his erect cock, gliding around the tip before slowly
descending on him, brushing her plump lower lip against the
sensitive underside. Multicolored locks of hair spilled down on
his thighs, magentas and mulberries spilled with boysenberry
threads, all with the occasional natural honey gold shade.
Fingers lightly cradled his balls, and he felt like he was
sinking into her, moaning and arching, and if his heart could
beat, it would have been with the chaos of a timpani.
Thought disappeared as she slowly descended on him, moist mouth
taking him in and inviting him inside of her. Groaning, Spike
arched his hips and she assaulted him with her tongue, taking him
from the hilt to the tip, and her hands slowly, gently rotated
his heavy, aching testicles. Buffy was a master at oral sex,
something that he never would have suspected of the Buffy of old
days in California. The girl who wore prim little skirts and
dainty handbags would never have thought messing herself with the
dirty business of blowjobs. But the woman in leather and black
eyeliner, the woman who had stripped her hair of its innocence by
tainting it with a myriad of different colors, was a champion of
the sport.
"Oh, Christ, Slayer," the vampire moaned, and the Slayer moved on
him with an increasing rapidness, her hands following her mouth,
and he felt himself near the verge, approaching climax, moaning
and clutching the emerald bedsheets for dear life. His orgasm
built and he fell into it, throwing his head back and groaning as
he came, and she slowed her motions, coaxing him and moving with
him, swallowing his seed effortlessly.
He didn't want to think of how much she must have practiced since
her jaunt to Melbourne.
Sleepy bedroom eyes lifted from his lap, and Buffy arched one
dusted gold eyebrow at him, her hair a mass of shimmering colors
as it fell down her back like a distorted rainbow. "I told you
that I never cheat," she said archly, and Spike watched her as
she rolled elegantly off the bed and to the bathroom, the dragons
on her pajamas glinting at him wickedly as she left him on the
sheets.
Water splashed on her face in droplets of crystalline liquid,
clinging to the delicate planes of her face, and she washed the
taste out of her mouth, never being one for the taste of semen,
replacing it with mint and the promise of burned tobacco. She
glanced behind her, not expecting to see his reflection, but she
did see a cigarette burning in the ashtray, smoke filtering
around the room and staining the sheets with its charred perfume.
She looked at her eyes in the mirror, peering at herself, trying
to find what had changed inside of her and realized that what had
changed could be seen in no mirror or looking glass.
After all, he didn't have a reflection.
She wasn't sure what had happened. She only knew that playing gin
with Spike and winning/losing (and occasionally cheating, though
she'd never admit it to him and fuel his nasty fires) had begun
to mean more to her than her old jaunts to the warehouses.
Colored lights and cocaine were no longer necessary, not when
she'd shifted her addictions over to the peroxide blond smoking
in her bed and trying to stack the deck in his favor. She
wouldn't lecture him - she wasn't a hypocrite. That was his job.
Her makeup drawer almost beckoned, begging her to put on her face
and go dancing, go fucking, do something other than sit here and
play innocent games with him as he stroked her hair or touched
her face, or argued with her until she wanted to kill him. It was
frustrating, infuriating, hateful and spiteful, and yet it was
all that she had left in the ruined world. She was fractured and
fragmented into a thousand pieces, but he was slowly putting her
back together by grinding her into a powder and pouring her into
a glass, instead of scattering her to the winds like he should be
doing. This tug of war relationship was the best thing that she
had going for her, and so she kept it going.
She didn't have the time to be alone anymore.
Suddenly, a scrap of paper flew in her face, and Buffy spun
around, startled. It was just him, of course, a wicked smile on
his face while his black fingernails contrasted sharply with the
party. Just two weeks since he'd painted them and they were
already chipped. He bit them when he was bored, and sometimes he
bit her. Just playing though. He wouldn't kill her, and she knew
it. After all, he didn't want to be alone either.
"You've been invited to a party," he said, and she scowled at
him, snatching the piece of paper away from him while tucking an
errant strand of magenta behind her ear.
The little piece of paper was inscribed with the American flag.
The old Star Spangled Banner, in all of its glory, twinkling at
her with the tarnished pride that it carried now. Just seeing it
made her heart ache. Buffy quickly looked past it, and read the
engraving on the note. It was, indeed, an invitation to a party.
A banquet, actually. A dance to celebrate the Fourth of February,
a sort of joke to the fact that they'd never have what they all
wanted to have - Independence Day. They were inviting any
Americans that may have escaped the United States, trying to
celebrate their dead homeland one last and desperate time.
Quietly, Buffy took the little piece of paper over to the sink,
turning her back on Spike, looking down at the invitation.
America... To see it assembled in its broken pieces one last
time, to talk to others who felt the burden and the guilt of
loving a country that had destroyed the Earth, was something that
she dreaded and desired all at once. She hated her homeland as
much as she loved it. She remembered the liberty and idealism,
the history painted in a wonton need for independence, and how
awfully that history had ended.
The Stars and Stripes shimmered at her with the boldness of the
crimson colors, and Buffy traced over them with her fingertip,
hungering for the country that had been blown to smithereens.
Impatiently, Spike took the invitation from her, and she didn't
turn around, keeping her slim back to him. "You aren't actually
thinking of *going*, are you?" he asked, and her silence
irritated him. Celebrating the cause of their misery was foolery,
and she was contemplating going.
"Yeah, Spike, I am," she murmured finally. "I want to go."
Snorting, he threw the piece of paper in the air, and she stared
at him coldly as it fluttered to the floor like a dying bird.
"You can't be serious," he said, and she rolled her eyes, arching
one ashen blonde eyebrow at him.
"Quit telling me what I'm thinking of," she said, and he clenched
his jaw at her, looking at the obstinate little mess in front of
him. "I'm an American. Plain and simple. I loved my country."
He arched his scarred eyebrow at her as well, the white scar
tissue glistening dangerously. "Even after what it did?"
Harshly, she closed her eyes, blinking out his assaulting image.
"Yes," she spat, and she looked away, at the little piece of
folded invitation in his fingers. "Being an American is something
different now. It's not about pledging allegiance to a goddamn
flag or singing Bruce Springsteen songs. It's about bearing the
burden of sentencing billions of people to death. I carry that
responsibility, and I do it because these people deserve someone
to blame." She sighed then, wearily and tiredly. "But it's
exhausting. It's agonizing. It's horrible to stand there while
people spit on your shoes and blame you when you lost everything,
too. My family's dead. My friends are dead. My lovers are dead.
I'm all that's left, and no one can understand that. No one
should have to understand that."
She lifted her eyes to him and then snatched the invitation away
from him, crushing it in her fist. "But *these* people understand
that! They lost everything too, and they're going to die in a
foreign country alone and afraid, and if they want to have a
party for everything that they used to have, then fucking good
for them. And I'm going."
And then, brutally, he kissed her, because she had been angry and
she was incredible when she was angry.
Furiously, she resisted him at first, and then he pulled away
enough to calm her nerves so that she would agree to what he
wanted to give her. "Fine," he said, looking into the angry eyes
of the former Slayer and American. "Go to your party. But give me
tonight."
They fought as they made their way to the bed, scraping
fingernails against skin and clashing teeth and tongue before he
stretched her atop the sheets, the dragons shimmering on her legs
with the fiery blues and greens. He removed her pajama bottoms
with his teeth, pulling them down around her ankles and revealing
the magnificence of her small blue panties, silk, hugging her
hips and revealing a small inch between her navel and the edge of
her panties. She hissed when he touched her, as though her veins
were electric wires, and her back arched as he dragged his
fingernails lightly up her thighs, arcing when she moaned.
Teasingly, Spike flashed her a crooked grin, and she smiled
sweetly.
"You think that's the way to apologize to me?" she asked, aqua
eyes flashing at him. "By fucking me?"
Spike smirked at her. "Well, of course not," he said. "But it's
a
good start."
With that, he took off her panties and said that he was sorry.
Afterwards, as the light crept in through a crack in the curtain,
slivering down the room, she brought her hand up to it and let
the morning light dissect her fingers and palm. The sunlight
crucified her and her lover nuzzled into the crook of her neck,
watching the bright light cut through her hand and impale her
with dawn. He envied her absentminded ability to move her hand up
to the window with such languid grace, never minding the fact
that she could do what he couldn't do. Envy filled him, and he
wished that he could just walk so easily to the light and let
himself go.
But he was tethered to the world, and he was also bound to her.
So he stayed in her bed and watched her draw and quarter her own
hand with the innocence of the living. A greater death awaited
her, he supposed, and maybe his envy wasn't so warranted after
all.
Sighing, she turned her head to the side and looked at the full-
length mirror that hung on the closet door. She saw herself
painted in the colors of afterglow, the generous golds and
glistening sweat running across her exposed body, her hand
divided by sunshine. Buffy looked at the colors she had placed on
herself, and began to speak. "You know, half the time I look in
this glass and I don't see myself. And then I think that maybe I
understand a piece of you. What it's like not to have a
reflection. Not to see yourself in the morning when you wake up,
or after you've lost everything that you thought you had."
It was, quite possibly, the quietest confession she had ever
given him. Just the murmur that she didn't know who she was
anymore, and frankly, he didn't know who he was anymore either.
It was impossible to grasp one's self in a world where everything
had turned topsy-turvy all of a sudden.
Slightly, she tilted her head at him, and captured his eyes with
hers. "Come with me," she said. "Come see the last of America
with me."
And so he sighed, and watched her take her hand out of the light,
placing her sun-warmed hand on his chest, and knew that it was
only a matter of time before her skin couldn't interfere with the
inevitable. But until then, he may as well take what he could
have.
"All right."
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