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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.
The city was falling with such an incredible grace that it barely
seemed like falling at all. A divine splintering, a magnificent
crumbling, like watching stained glass windows in a cathedral
break into a thousand multicolored pieces. The towers of metal
and glass that had once scraped the skies above Melbourne were
now topped with fire, burning slowly in effigy. Smoke unfurled
with gracefully intangible whirls of gray, blanketing the
bedraggled citizens with a premature death shroud of soot and
ash.
Crumbling stars of ash hit the windshield of the Cadillac as
Buffy drove over the bridge, a pair of sunglasses perched on her
nose and music blasting from her stereo. She refused to
acknowledge the sights that she saw, the huddled masses of people
crowding hopelessly on the steps of the City Hall while the navy
blue banner rippled in the wind. "THERE IS STILL TIME" it
proclaimed, and Buffy had to believe that there was. She had just
reclaimed her life. Just discovered hope. She couldn't lose it
now.
Not while she still had peaches in her front seat.
The small globes in varying shades of tangerine and darker dusk
rolled in the passenger seat as she turned, and the plastic bag
that they were encased in rustled as Buffy rolled down her window
and lit a cigarette. She had managed to buy the last two dozen
peaches in Melbourne from her cigarette dealer, all for her
vampiric lover. The only one who could make her forget that the
winds were coming. The one who could keep her from drowning.
So she bought him peaches and cigarettes and gave him herself for
dessert.
Flickers of fiery red tickled the bridge of her nose, and Buffy
wiped them away with her hand, driving down the winding road that
stretched and curled through rippling green grasses and over
steep, rocky cliffs. She was driving furiously away from the
city, refusing to acknowledge anything that she saw, denying all
that displeased her. It was the best way to live her life right
now - ignore the future. Dispose of the idea that she *had* no
future.
With a twist of her slender, rosary-decorated wrist, Buffy
cranked up the dial on the radio, playing Placebo loudly on her
CD player. Music blared from the speakers in the old Cadillac,
and the wind rushed through her hair, playing with the fine ends
of her dyed magenta streaks. Houses were perched on the edge of
the colorful Australian coast, glass windows lined up to view and
display the natural jewels of the ocean and sand. Her own house
was nearby, with her own lightning-colored lover still sleeping
in their rumpled bed. A glint of mischief lighted her eyes as she
thought of how she'd wake him up, squeezing a peach's juices into
his mouth. They'd make love and stave off the inevitable, and
smoke cigarettes afterward in bed.
She exhaled smoke and inhaled another helping of tobacco and
nicotine, craving the addictions that had sustained her:
cigarettes and Spike. She was a junkie for death, whether she
could smoke it or fuck it. Ironic, now that she thought about it.
She was obsessed with death and terrified of it.
They both were, because she thought that she might be dead
underneath her false joy.
Beads on her rosaries jangled as she turned her turn signal on
and turned into her driveway, the peaches rolling in the bucket
seat like a solar system of tangerine fuzz. The sun was setting,
and she took her sunglasses off, revealing bejeweled and darkened
eyes, covered in her layers of mascara and eyeliner, her mouth a
boysenberry pair of silk. She was velvet sheathed in blackberry
juice, decked out with rosaries wrapped around her wrists and
wearing a silk violet dress that slid around her body like a
snake's skin. It fell around her knees, and her feet were bound
in sparkling violet sandals that had lilies embroidered across
the slim straps. Armed with a bag of peaches, a cigarette, and a
coy smile, Buffy walked up the steps to her house and into it,
ready to share her fruit with her lover.
Her smile fell when she saw him.
Face pressed to the glass, surrounded by a scene of twilight
falling on ocean waves, like a jewel had been cracked and left to
dye the skies, he was bent over the window, surrounded by the
beach. If the glass hadn't been there to shield him, he would
have tumbled to the cliffs below. Sheathed in black as always,
the leather duster covering his lean, spare body, he looked like
a hybrid between a widower and a punk. His shocking blond hair
was sleek and slicked back, pushed away from his face, and Spike
looked dangerously sensual. He wasn't the only one with a love
for all things sad and lonely - he was often never more beautiful
than when he was in mourning.
His white palms were spread across the glass, black fingernails
flashing like obsidian against the clear window. Silently, Buffy
watched his hands, feeling horror crawl beneath her skin like a
languid predator when she noticed that he was shaking. He was
shaking. Trembling. He showed no reflection, this vampiric
creature with a face so sultry that it should be committed to
canvases and preserved throughout all time. Immortality should
have done that, but...
And then she knew.
Her voice fluttered to him like the noise of a frightened bird's
wings, fragile and desperate. "When did it happen?" she asked,
tears strangling her words. He saw her in the glass, saw the
silhouette of dark shadows poured into the slender shape of a
young woman.
"Yesterday," he said, his voice dark and empty. "Diagnosed at
the
medical university. Sick since three days past. Dead now. They
euthanized her."
The first. The first case. The first case in Melbourne had been
reported. As if to punctuate this statement, the wind fluttered
in, blowing her hair around her face in a tumble of colors, and
plastic rippled, until a noise hit the floor. Spike turned around
to see peaches rolling around on the floor in a scattering of
deep orange and vermilion, the fruit scattering around her feet.
The wind of the dusk sent her dress fluttering around her slender
knees, and her hair was a mess of magenta and blond.
Blackberry lips trembled as she whispered, clinging to the
doorframe for support. Shattered green eyes looked at him
pleadingly, begging him to lie to her for once in their brutal
relationship. "No," she whispered, her fingers clutching the
doorframe. "No, no, no... It's not true... Not so soon..."
Bitterly, he cocked his head at her. "It's been three months,"
Spike reminded, and she shook her head emphatically, refusing to
acknowledge that.
"But there's not enough time left," she whispered, choking on her
own terror. She felt like she was trapped in a nightmare where
she was trying to scream and only breathless pleas would come out
of her mouth. She couldn't scream for help. "There's not enough
time left before..." She choked on her own words, and felt like
she was going to stumble. "No, no..." Delirium rattled and shook
her, and Buffy wobbled on her feet, unsteadily and uncertainly.
She felt like choking.
Roughly, Spike walked to her and grabbed her shoulders, spinning
her around to face him. "What's wrong, Buffy?" he sneered, never
delicate, never sweet, even when delivering her death sentence.
Brutal as always. Harsh and cutting. "Didn't have enough time to
cope with that fact? You had a head start on it all if you don't
remember." His voice was cold and biting, like a blast of cold
air, and she refused to let herself shiver in the arctic
bitterness of Spike's voice.
Instead, she fought his cold accusations with heat, fire drawn up
from the rage and despair that she had bottled underneath globs
of mascara and eyeliner and multicolored shades of magenta,
carmine, and cerulean. Furiously, she pushed him backwards,
raging emotions coursing through her veins. "Fuck you!" Buffy
shouted, her mouth twisted in her anger. "You had over a hundred
years to live your goddamn life, and I had eighteen! Eighteen
years and..." Her terror overtook her, strangling her, until she
was barely able to speak. "It's not enough..." she choked. "Not
enough..."
He looked at her and saw a girl stumbling on platform heels,
irises that no longer bloomed crisscrossing across her feet and
dark violet turning her into the color of a plum, a fruit that no
one would ever enjoy again. She was a relic of a world that was
dying around her, mascara streaking down her face as everything
that she had become melted into rivulets of black ink. And he was
a man who had seen centuries pass with the assumption that he
ruled the world, only to fade away into the scenery along with
her.
"You think a hundred years is enough?" Spike said, approaching
her and crushing a perfect peach underneath his boot. She winced
at the fruit's disintegration; she couldn't swallow her flinch in
empathy for the fruit's death. "It's *not* enough. Not when
you've spent those years assuming that immortality was yours. Not
when you never had the opportunity to prepare for something like
this. Not when you never thought about it." Enraged at the
thought that his eternity had suddenly been stolen from him, that
there were weeks left to his existence instead of centuries, he
crushed the peaches underneath his feet, stomping on the delicate
fruits until their lovely-colored insides were scattered and
smashed into the carpeting. "So don't you assume things about me!
Not when there's days left and I can't..." He choked. "And I
can't bear to even *think* about dying!"
With one snarl, one inhuman and demonic roar of indignation and
rage, his face changed into the mask of the demon that was him,
that possessed and fueled him, eyes glowing with amber
desperation and anger, and he kicked the wall, crushing the
forest paint. And then he braced himself against the wall,
refusing to cry, refusing to be weak and stupid and human like
she was. Refusing to weep over something so stupid and useless as
his own death.
Gentle hands washed over his shoulders, and Spike sighed, his
face shifting from demon to human again, eyes fading from
incandescent gold to a tumultuous sapphire, as tumbled and
disturbed as the oceans outside. Slowly, she wrapped her arms
around his waist, pressing the warmth of her body to his cool
solidity and leather, and inhaled the smell of cigarettes and
centuries that permeated his skin.
Neither one said anything. Apologies never accompanied them. He
would never apologize for who he was, and she never said that she
was sorry for the hurt. They simply remained in their tumultuous,
hollow, despairing embrace, her eyes wide open and blank, staring
at the peaches scattered haphazardly on the floor. Peach juice
soaked into the carpeting, the remnants of her gifts to him
absorbed by shag. She didn't pick them up. She just watched them,
destroyed presents, some still whole and ripe, others ruined and
broken.
"There's never enough time," she murmured then, and it provided
neither one of them with little solace. Comfort was unnecessary.
She didn't speak, just moved away from him slightly, kneeling
down to the crushed peaches as though they were pieces of broken
stained glass from a cathedral. Her fingers dipped into the cool
juices, coming away sticky and sweet-smelling. The aroma of a
world gone by clung to her fingerprints, embedding itself into
the whorls and loops that defined her, and she felt like weeping
for everything that had been destroyed.
Buffy was hunched over the crushed peaches like a battered wife
picking up the pieces of her favorite vase, her hands slender and
shaking as she gathered up the remaining fruits and placing them
in a small pile, their bright and gay color ripe and lush in the
twilight. Purple satin shimmered in the indigo lighting, and her
hair spilled down her back in straight lines of rainbow colors
that seemed brighter than she was. He felt sorry about the fruit.
"Sorry," he apologized, and she murmured something that was
inaudible until she repeated it.
"Fourteen left," she said in a hushed tone. "Seven for each of
us. I had two dozen. But there are still fourteen left." She
turned around, a peach in each hand, and passed him one with
great solemnity. "One for each night, Spike. Seven days, seven
peaches. We'll give ourselves a week and then..."
She said nothing, let the sentence dwindle into oblivion, and he
understood her anyway. Seven peaches each until the day that they
ran out, and then they would let themselves die by their own
hands if death hadn't taken them by then. It gave them a limit,
gave them certainty, and he nodded, taking the peach from her
hand and cupping the small fruit with his fingertips. Spike
looked at it contemplatively, and then reached out his arm,
threading it through hers as newlyweds did when eating wedding
cake. But there was no joy or mirth in this impromptu,
bastardized ceremony as they sank their teeth into the relics of
the Old World, and taking a large bite out of what could have
been.
*****
Skins moved with the slow joyless sorrow of what had once been
fucking and had evolved into some sort of lovemaking. Raw,
anguished, pained and destroyed, her fingernails raked up the
column of his spine, drawing blood that wasn't his and staining
the forest sheets with the stolen essence of him. Strong, slender
male fingers drew her hair into his fist and crunched the colors,
crumpling the myriad of reds and golds into a ball of silk before
he cried out a groan and thrust into her. Muscles moved, juices
flowed, kisses swiped from mouths that tasted like forbidden
fruits.
Peaches, to be precise.
The night reflected on their moving, entwined bodies through the
glass wall, painting them with the splendid indigo of the
Australian night. Throwing back her head, she released a primal
sort of scream, a wail for pleasure and a noise of despairing
ecstasy. She was rapture in ruin, beautifully tainted goods, and
he was a dagger with a dulled and useless blade. Danger lurking
inside of his veins that had no purpose except to tear him to
shreds. He was surrounded in her heat and immolated by her
burning. Everything was afire.
Everything was already dead.
Juices from the peach stained the sheets, and she drew her knees
up around him, toes curling as she pulsed near the precipice of
absolute ecstasy, of releasing orgasm. Violet violence surrounded
her and impaled her on a slender, cool blade, and she screamed
for the absolute meaninglessness of it all, beautiful and broken,
battered and bruised, but flickering in the way that broken glass
catching sunlight used to do.
It was starting to rain, the water streaking the glass and
painting them with reflected water, and he tilted his head as he
pounded into her, seeing the tumult of a storm brewing. He wanted
it to take him away with it, away from the harsh reality of
making love to her. He wanted to disappear. Wanted something else
to kill him so that he didn't have to. She craved suicide and he
hungered for murder. They were damned indefinitely.
"Please, please, please," she pleaded into his ear, her mouth
opening and closing with the illusion of kisses. "Please..." She
begged for redemption, begged for death, but she was just begging
for release. And so that was what he gave her, sliding his cock
harshly across her swollen clitoris, watching her face contort
with the painting of bliss. "Oh..."
And he reared his head back and roared with rage as he came
inside of her.
Afterwards, when she fell into fitful and exhausted slumber, he
stood up and took the peach pits from the pillows, placing them
on the coffee table next to the wicker basket filled with
peaches. There were two now, twelve to go, and six more days left
before the end of them.
Disturbed, the vampire folded his hands over his eyes and refused
to look at them.
*****
The peaches slowly disappeared over the turning days as the city
fell to its knees in the face of the radiation wave. Buildings
burned like bridges, and hospitals were crowded with the
suffering, who were released with cyanide into a better and more
forgiving place. Radio waves slowly dissipated, and the tight
unit of communication was slowly released into the wind like a
broken cobweb.
And every night the peaches were eaten.
*****
Six peaches rested in the nest of black wicker with silent
imminence, ominous and foreboding. They gleamed slightly in the
warm lamplight and candlelight that smelled of exotic fruits and
mulling spices, like cinnamon or mulberry. The dawn was going to
rise soon; the skies were brightening into lighter shades of
blue, and the heat was rising as well. She plucked two peaches
from the basket and refused to acknowledge that there were only
four left. Two days.
He stood out on the balcony, dressed in nothing, body bared and
sleek like a lynx's underneath the descending moon. She looked at
the silver of his skin, the cool tones of cream and coldness, and
ran the peach between his shoulder blades in hopes of making him
shiver. He did, turning around with hungry and consuming eyes,
bright like cut sapphires. "They're shutting off train service
tomorrow," he said, and Buffy ignored him. It was an
acknowledgement that the end was nearing, this slow shutdown of
services and humanity. "People are dropping like flies in the
streets. It's violent." He sighed. "Not a good place to be,
ducks."
She watched as Spike took a bite from his peach, tearing off a
large bit of the fruit while juice sluiced down his chin. He ate
with brutality, like he did everything else. She thought that she
loved him. She could have been just desperate. It didn't matter
though if she loved him now. There was nothing to be ashamed of
and nothing to pretend. She was in love with a murderer, a
soulless savage, someone who could smirk and throw cutting wounds
on her skin and then whisper about his history with peaches and
lovers.
"I wonder if it's a worse place to be than in Sunnydale when this
all first happened," she said, rolling the peach between her
palms thoughtfully. "I wonder if I should have spared myself the
trouble and stayed." Her voice lowered. "I wonder if I'm a
coward."
All that he did was kiss her slowly, letting her taste the juices
on his cool tongue, mingled with the coppery hint of blood that
she never questioned him about anymore. Nothing she could do to
save anyone anymore, even herself. It was the most genuine,
kindest kiss she'd ever received from him, and it made her want
to cry. Everything had changed, even him. Everyone was tired,
winding down, bowing to the blade. "Don't think," Spike murmured
when he pulled away from her mouth. "Just eat your peach and come
to bed, luv." And then he turned around, the muscles of his body
moving like a sly god as he moved back into their bedroom.
Wind blew in from the ocean and tossed her hair into a tumult,
painting the skies with the multicolored dyes of Buffy's hair.
The angel's wing sleeves of Buffy's white silk nightgown
fluttered gently, flaring around her hips and moving around her
slender legs, and she thought of dying with her friends. Perhaps
holding Willow's hand when the blast came, or maybe curling in
her mother's lap when the radiation waves filtered through the
city. The worst was not knowing what had happened.
But her destiny was sealed. She had certainty as to her end. She
was just terrified of accepting it as truth.
Sighing, Buffy lifted her peach to her mouth and let the juices
flow through her lips, expecting to taste the sweetness of the
fruit travel across her tongue and saturate her senses. Instead,
she tasted horrible bitterness, decay and death, and her stomach
lurched, weakness encompassing her body, dizziness consuming her.
Buffy lurched forward, gagging on the taste of the peach and the
horrid sickness that moved through her like a freight train, and
vomited over the side of the balcony, throwing up peaches and
something that seemed red in the light of the brightening dawn.
Blood. She had vomited up blood.
Weakened and still nauseous, Buffy stumbled backwards, grasping
the wall of the balcony for support while clutching the guilty
peach in her palm. Her hair flew across her face as a sweat broke
out, and she tasted her own vomit and bitter peach in her mouth.
Gasping, she felt the waves of nausea slowly dissipate, and she
lifted a shaking hand up to look at the peach with a horrified
expression twisting her mouth.
It was rotten.
Panicked and despairing, Buffy looked up at the sky, seeing the
stars revolve suddenly at a speed that was rapid and frantic.
Time... She was watching time move with the speed of a thousand
angry birds, and she felt tears spring to her eyes while her head
and the stars spun in synchronicity. Buffy slowly slumped down
the wall until she was sitting on the floor, and the peach rolled
out of her trembling fingers. "Oh," she whispered, her voice
ragged and worn, and she knew that the fruit was not the only
thing rotten. She was rotting, decaying, disintegrating. She was
dying.
The peach just rolled absently on the planks of the balcony, its
spoiled insides glistening in the rising light.
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