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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.
They didn't make it home.
Slow creeping of fingers, a dance of hips, brushing multicolored
hair out of eyes that were coated in jewels and heavy with
lust... She had started it, not him, the kiss that had made him
pull over on the cliffs leading to her house on the beach, the
Cadillac that she had stolen filtering moonlight
through glass
and somehow making the outside world even more surreal than it
had become. Slow, sliding, needy in spite of how much she wanted
to be alone and dead. Passion still existed inside of her, fire
and heat, and he tasted the sparks and embers on his tongue when
she slid her mouth across his. She was still alive.
And so was he.
Crashing waves from the beaches below collided onto the rocky
cliffs, but Buffy wasn't concerned with these nighttime noises.
She yearned for his touch, for touch in general, for his
fingertips that contained the whorls and spirals of Sunnydale to
etch themselves into her body until she bled American blood.
Creating passion of a dead world here in this slowly fracturing
remnant of humanity was important, and she kissed him with all of
the breath in her body. Kissed him until his mouth hungered for
other places, for the juncture of her neck and shoulder, for the
sweet hollow of her throat, and then she would allow him her
body. It wasn't like her body mattered anyway. Not anymore.
Hunger fueled his descent, his slow assault on her senses,
escalating passion and heat emanating from her slender snakeskin-
sheathed body. She was stretched out across the driver's seat,
slender legs propped up on the steering wheel, ankles beaded with
jewelry and feet strapped to platform sandals. The thin straps of
her snakeskin dress were beginning to slide down her shoulders,
revealing inches of skin that seemed to stretch for miles. Pale
in moonlight but toned by summer light... He hungered for her
beyond reason and craved to feel her skin on his.
The Cadillac's seats reclined far into the backseat, and Spike
took advantage of that fact as he positioned himself over her,
shedding his leather duster as she chuckled and reached to her
side, unzipping the sheath of snakeskin that coated her petite
form. It was insane, doing this on this cliff, but the world had
gone crazy anyway. One brief excursion into insanity wouldn't
complicate matters any more than they were already complicated.
Fucking the Slayer when there was nothing left to slay wouldn't
hurt him.
And not when she was all he knew in the world.
Multicolored threads of hair spilled over the seat as she tipped
her head back and arched her hips, the dress sliding down her
body and to the floor of the car. Her breasts were round and
sweet, full enough but not in a voluptuous manner, like a
Victorian woman painted in light. Silk panties remained, colored
black, contrasting harshly with her skin. These slid off easily,
down her thighs and pooled on the floor. The shoes were left on,
those ankles so slender he thought he could break them with his
bare hands. They glittered on the steering wheel, her legs
slightly parted, and her fingers went to remove her panties when
he stilled them. He wanted to touch them. Wanted to slide the
silk off of her and reveal all that should be revealed.
Chipped black fingernails, bitten to the quick with worry, began
to move down her hips. That was Spike, all right, wanting to
polish his nails one minute and then tear them to shreds in the
next in his unfocused lack of attention and thought. Haste and
hormones propelled his actions, and now his fingernails slightly
dug into her skin as he removed her underwear. "Draw blood," she
murmured. "I don't really care."
Chuckling, the platinum vampire scratched behind her knees, and
she moaned, feeling her blood rise to the surface of her skin.
"You know, Slayer, I always knew that this would happen," Spike
said lowly. "Knew you'd give in sooner or later."
A ghost of a smile flickered across her blackberry lips. "May as
well be now then," she said softly. "Because there's really no
later left." Time was filtering through the hourglass at a
frightening pace, spilling to emptiness, and then the world would
stop. And her fright consumed, her cloistering fear of death
impossible, and she kissed him to drown out the screams of the
dying world.
Black cotton followed her clothing as Spike pulled off his shirt,
and he hastily unbuckled his black boots, abandoning her body to
strip himself. She watched him, watched his elegant fingers and
his taut, muscled abdomen, hard and contoured so well that she
thought of scratching him to mar the perfection of his skin. The
worn buttons on his black jeans complied easily with the
vampire's demands, and she smirked when she saw that his pants
were the last article he had to remove. "Living dangerously,
Spike?" she asked, referring to his lack of underwear, and Spike
grinned at her wickedly.
"Well, I'm here, aren't I?"
A moan escaped her lips as she felt his weight settle on top of
her, silver and gold clashing and fighting underneath the light,
as the waves from the sea screamed below them. Far, far away...
The world was so far away, gone to her, disappearing underneath a
cloud of haze and radiation. Black nails dug into her shoulders,
and crimson ones grabbed his. She wasn't here in this car to have
him make love to her. Nothing slow or possibly sweet. He would
fuck the past into her, ramming memories of what Sunnydale had
been into her body and her mind.
Harshly, she kissed him, a burning and smoldering one, wanting to
light his dead skin aflame and set him on fire with the heat that
her body emanated. She was fucking death right now, and Spike's
long cock pressed between her legs, hesitating briefly.
Understandable, this brief pause, as they both suddenly
remembered the hatred and the battle, the past simmering and
smoldering. How many times they'd tried to kill each other, only
to be found preparing to screw each other into oblivion.
But Buffy knew. She knew what she needed. What she wanted. She
wanted to remember Sunnydale and California, the Hellmouth and
her friends, and Spike could give her that.
Forcefully, Spike entered her, and she screamed from the contact,
from the length and the power of him, throwing her head back in a
shower of rainbow-colored silk. He was sheathed in her heat, in
the fire and hell that was her, coupled together in a mixture of
frost and flame. It was better than he wanted it to be, her body
glistening with sweat and brocaded in silvery light, as though
she had been kissed by fairies rather than by a vampire. The
Slayer's fingernails dug forcefully into his back, urging him to
drive deeper, to forage everything, to push into her until she
couldn't breathe.
And that was exactly what Spike wanted.
Greedy fingers scoured his back, and he kissed her as he pushed
into her, his cool tongue colliding with her heated one, battling
for dominance in a war that neither one of them would ever win.
One hand tangled in her hair, the chipped fingernails devoured by
her mass of multicolored hair, shining like a shattered prism in
the strained silver. Faster and faster, the tempo built, and all
the memories came flooding back to her in a deluge of drowned
possibility.
The way that Willow smiled, really smiled, with all of her
happiness curving her mouth in a matter that was absolutely
charming. The constant courage of Xander, strong and capable, and
how he could always make her fight laughter. A perfume of books
and paper clinging to Giles's clothing, so that he always smelled
beautifully of libraries and history, and Riley always smelled of
honeydew and wheat. She felt a rush and mistook her impending
orgasm for the power of battle.
And Angel's hands...
With a scream, she came, shattering into a thousand pieces, as
though she had exploded like one of those dreaded disasters that
had destroyed the world. He came behind her, not noticing that
she was starting to cry, and not noticing that he was starting to
cry as well. Both of them disintegrating from the hard shells
that they had created into melted glass, frail and brittle, ebbed
away by the wave of radiation and hell. "Oh, God," Buffy
whispered, and they didn't separate.
They just remained there, silently weeping, tears streaking black
eyeliner down her face as her mask melted.
*****
Kaleidoscopic threads of hair fluttered behind her as she sat on
the damp rocks, a cigarette placed carefully between her fingers,
watching the tide come in. The cliffs were dangerous and deadly;
she had read stories of cars veering off the winding roads and
falling down on the rocks, some accidents and some suicide
attempts, and yet the ocean was tranquil and beautiful to behold.
Like liquefied gemstones topped with frills of lace, the waters
lapped at the shores, waves crashing and exploding like fractured
glass. The former Slayer contemplated life and death as she sat
there, sandals abandoned but bejeweled in her fake glitter none
the less, as the vampire sat next to her and smoked.
The wind blew his leather duster into a frenzy of black, dramatic
and harsh around his elegant face, and Buffy leaned her body
slightly into his, legs together except at the knees, spread
apart for balance. Slender snakeskin fluttered in the sea breeze,
and Spike found that he now saw the girl that he had once
despised and grudgingly respected from before. Contemplation and
sadness moved across her face in a fashion that made her
difficult to hate, as Spike had always had something of a soft
spot for her in pain. Not enough to spare her life, but enough to
make him quiet. Perhaps it was just watching the majesty of her
beautiful agony - like looking at fine art.
Sparks flew off of her cigarette as she flicked ash off the tip,
and Spike turned his head to hers. "When did you begin to smoke?"
he asked, and she shrugged slightly.
"Before the bombs," she said. "Waiting for the war to escalate
to
that point... I don't know. Too stressful, I guess. Everyone was
smoking, watching the television set nonstop, on pins and needles
or something pointy. And I was so afraid, so frightened of what
could happen, that I started to smoke along with the rest of the
world." A dry smile curved her mouth, the blackberry color
smudged and swollen by kisses. "Of course, there's no reason not
to now."
Wryly, Spike smiled. "Point taken."
Smoke was tossed on the wind as he falsely exhaled, his dead
lungs expelling the cigarette smoke and throwing it at the mercy
of a soulless breeze. These were the winds that would eventually
bring hell and radiation down on them, the traitorous breeze
tasting of saltwater and coconut. She flinched slightly, fearful
of her silent murderer, and wondered what it had been like for
her family and friends in Sunnydale. She wondered if their deaths
had been silent. Wondered if they had been sweet.
"Did they know?" Buffy asked softly, and Spike shook his head.
"No," he said. "I got out of there pretty late in the game, and
they were all still certain that it wouldn't come to this. Guess
I was right all along about your team of imbeciles, wasn't I?"
Harshly, Buffy whipped her head around and glared at the vampire,
and he tilted his head, acquiescing to her point. "Well, I never
said I was going to bloody well be *nice* afterwards." He
grinned. "Drusilla and I would always-" His voice was interrupted
by a waver that he didn't want to think of. Drusilla, draped in
her outdated finery and old-fashioned mind, addled by the past
and by their sire, was gone. Dead forever, annihilated by the
dropping of the bombs on Rio. "She never had a chance."
Shortly, Buffy laughed. "None of us have a chance, Spike," she
said. "We're all royally fucked. Up a creek without a canoe."
"Without a *paddle*, you ninny," Spike said, and Buffy glared at
the vampire. "Well, if you can't use an expression properly, then
don't use it at all."
Rolling her eyes, she turned her head, deciding not to argue
semantics with him. It was pointless anyway. They were screwed,
no matter how it was said. They were both lost in separate
memories unified by their clash in life, and then she spoke, her
voice hushed. "You remember the strangest details, don't you,"
she said aloud. "Like scents or favorite foods, or watching
movies while eating burned popcorn."
Wistfully, Spike smiled. "Yeah," he said, a dreamy note in his
voice. "I remember how Dru always liked to steal her dolls from
the children she killed and then name them after their owners.
She had the greatest sense of humor."
Wryly, Buffy stared at him. "You have strange memories."
Spike snorted sarcastically, picking up a coil of highlighted
magenta and twirling her own hair in her eyes. "You have strange
hair," he said.
Buffy arched a honey-colored eyebrow in his direction, eyeing his
lightning-colored hair pointedly. "And *you're* one to talk,
bleach-boy?"
Roughly, the vampire tugged on the stolen curl of magenta while
her scalp ached. "Fuck you," he said obstinately, and she
laughed, a little insanely, a little drunkenly, a little
strangely. She was feeling all of those things. Mad, sloshed, and
bizarre. Everything was disoriented and fucked beyond belief.
Like glass was inside of her veins instead of blood. Perhaps that
was why she had done what she had done - fucked Spike in her
stolen Cadillac, and then cried after it was all over.
But she didn't know why he had fucked her and then shed post-
coital tears.
"You're still daft, you know," Spike said, and Buffy hated that
she was mildly charmed by his British slang. Spike could be
charming, if a girl liked his brazen wit that was honed and
sharpened like a scythe. He could be charming like broken glass
was charming, dangerous but beautiful nonetheless. "We both are."
"I think that the real morons out there are the ones who started
this whole mess to begin with," Buffy countered, and Spike
laughed shortly at her.
"Yeah, and of what nationality are they again?" he reminded.
Buffy flinched. It was true. America, home of the free and land
of the brave, had fucked up royally as they were prone to do.
Freedom and independence might have meant something before time
had stopped so rapidly and ruthlessly, but apparently the
definition had waned somewhat over the past few months. "You
certainly didn't see the Brits getting involved in all that
nonsense. It was you stupid Americans who had to go all John
Wayne and step in."
Buffy bristled, her eyes flashing dangerously at him like
electrified seawater. "You know, you're awfully quick to judge
for someone who hasn't even been *back* to London since the
Beatles broke up," she said snidely. "Come on, Spike - let's not
lay the blame on the country. Let's blame the *men* and their
testosterone-fueled politics that fucked the whole world up
beyond any and all recognition. If they could just keep their
penises out of their politics, then maybe I'd still have a home
and a family and you might still have Dru!"
A fist connected solidly with her face, and Buffy took the blow
easily, returning it harshly and cruelly. It didn't matter that
he had just slept with her; she wouldn't take the blame for the
end of the world. Not when she had saved it too many times to
count. Not when she had given up everything that was her and had
to suffer through a year of numbness because of her birthright.
She had done her job as mankind's protectorate and no one had
remembered that - and it was worse to hear it coming from someone
who knew that she was the Slayer.
Even if it was a peroxide-blond vampire who needed to ash his
cigarette.
Menacing eyes glared into hers, flickering like obsidian, and
Buffy grinned at him malevolently and violently. The voice of
Faith whispered inside of her head like a devil, low and sexy,
predatory and cruel. Go on, B, Faith said. The violence is the
best part. And somehow, it was good. Tenderness had just weakened
her defenses; Spike tore them down and then tossed them back up
at regular intervals. Now was a good time for those defenses to
be fucked to hell, and it was also a good time for Buffy to get
fucked to hell with them.
"You don't know anything about Dru," Spike said, his voice
growling like hot velvet. Like a tiger in heat. "She was
everything. Damaged, a little deranged, but still innocent and
pure in a lot of ways. She didn't deserve what the world did to
her."
Frustrated and furious, and oddly aroused by the anger inside of
Spike's eyes, Buffy glared at him coldly and threw her cards down
on the table. "Willow. Xander. Giles. My mother. Riley. Angel."
Her voice could have frozen icicles on that last one. "Those are
the people that care about me. Those are the people that love me.
And you don't know *shit* about them, Spike, so don't think that
your nutty girlfriend is the only victim of a cruel, cruel
world."
It wasn't nice when it was over; Buffy knew that now. It didn't
always have to be cuddles and kisses and pillow talk. It could be
rocks and cigarettes and harsh barbs. These things were
satisfactory as well. And they could also make her burn with
anger and arousal in a way that was something as harsh as a
nuclear blast, an atom bomb, or something as poetic and
blistering as the war that had wrecked her mind beyond belief.
He looked into her seemingly sweet face for a second and saw
nothing of the girl who had once giggled like a ninny and worn
pastels at night. He only saw a girl in running mascara and
snakeskin, a girl whose slender body was a little too thin, even
thinner than she had once been, and a girl who was waiting for a
death more physical than the one she had inflicted on herself.
Buffy Summers was suicidal in a way, like one of those idiot
cutters that they made bad television movies about, slicing into
herself because she couldn't stand who she was. Resentment was a
powerful drug.
But there was also something about this girl that was just as
infuriating as the one from before, and something raw from her
periods of numbness that had lifted just for tonight. Special
occasion and all that - fucking good old Spike. "We're all
victims, is that it?" Spike asked, tossing his cigarette in the
rocks in a fashion that made her angry. Littering was a pet peeve
of hers when the Australian beaches were so brutally beautiful.
"I don't think I'm a victim."
Buffy laughed cruelly. "Well, duh," she said. "You hunted mankind
for centuries. That would make you the predator, you shit."
His smile widened considerably in the dark, the moonlight
glinting off of silver-white teeth that had killed thousands.
Teeth that could sink in the ripeness of her slender neck and
drink her dry if he wanted to do it. "Yeah," Spike said lowly,
his eyes beginning to glow with burning amber. "I guess it
would."
The sound of a growl broke through the air as his face changed
and the demon possessed him, hunger and rage fueling the desire
for her blood. But what he didn't expect, what he didn't foresee,
was Buffy tilting her head to the side and exposing her neck,
multicolored strands of hair clinging desperately to her sweaty
and glittery skin, offering him her blood. She wasn't begging for
death as some had done, not whining or pleading like a simpering
schoolgirl. She just didn't care if he killed her. "Whatever"
said the bend of her throat.
And, well, that wasn't any fun at all.
Irritated and somewhat saddened by the figure of this hollow girl
who didn't give a rat's ass if her mortal enemy on, Spike
swallowed his hunger and reverted to his more familiar façade,
eyes dying from burning gold to a softer blaze of blue. "Oh,
hell," he muttered, and Buffy looked at him with empty eyes as
clear as the Australian sea, a haughty but meaningless smirk on
her blueberry mouth. "You're not worth it anymore anyway."
A snide remark whipped from her tongue as she spoke. "Nope," she
said. "Neither are you."
None of them were worth anything now, but she still thought that
she might screw him again. He had been wonderful, exactly what
she needed, pounding into her with the coldness of death and
reminding her that she had once been someone. Reminded her of the
Buffy who had worn pretty little designer outfits that revealed
what others couldn't have and made smart-ass comments that others
had wet dreams about. She liked that Buffy. She didn't know who
this one was.
Maybe Spike could teach her.
So she kissed him again, wet mouth sliding over wet mouth, both
tasting of burned tobacco and of each other. She thought that she
tasted her kiss on his tongue as it tackled hers, and that she
tasted of menthol and madness. It wasn't a bad flavor, but it
wasn't as beautiful as she had once been. Her hands slid around
to embrace the nape of his neck, fingers curling into the ends of
his white-blond hair, too artificial to ever be real, but that
was Spike in a nutshell. When she finished kissing him, her
fingers stayed there, touching his hair that wasn't damaged by
bleaching. Vampire perk, she supposed.
"I'm not done with you," Buffy said softly, and Spike shook his
head. He wasn't done with her either. Not finished with the woman
who had once tortured him both sexually and physically. He had
plans for her, if only because it didn't matter whether or not
she was the Slayer now. In months, they'd be corpses and dust,
respectfully.
So Spike kissed her again, ferociously, using the teeth that
she'd bowed to earlier and nipping playfully at her tongue, until
she took him off the rocks and drove him to her place.
And she reminded herself that nothing mattered anymore.
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