1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15
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.
It wasn't a bad place to die in.
The sound of waves crashing followed them from the winding and
rocky road to her house, which perched over the precarious and
dangerous cliffs with a mammoth size and spaciousness. It was a
condominium that had been abandoned by any and all vacationers,
as there weren't too many people deciding to run away right now.
There wasn't anywhere to run to. Large, modern arches and a
pretty garden that was dying of neglect and running wild were
bonuses, as was its large loft of a bedroom decorated in black
sheets and its spacious bathroom with a Jacuzzi that she rarely
used.
But she did like the glass wall.
The downstairs living room area, which jutted out over the
cliffs, possessed a wall made of glass. Nothing but glass,
separated by thin metal that kept the individual panes from
shattering at the first gust of wind. They sloped upwards,
leaving part of the ceiling exposed to the sky, and the first
thought that Spike had was that if he stayed down there too long,
he'd incinerate and ruin the glass. Placing his hands behind his
back, the black fingernails threading through and through,
slightly covered by the cuffs of his oversized duster, Spike
looked out the window and contemplated leaving.
Leaving might be the best idea for him, though not for her. If he
left, she'd probably go back to her old way of living. The way of
living that had gotten her this far and this fucked-up. It wasn't
his concern. Her problem, not his. But Spike was thinking about
it, his hands fidgeting somewhat anxiously with the lack of
attention that he was prone to. Ritalin probably would have
helped, but Spike wasn't into drugs like she was.
She was upstairs right now; he heard her ruffling in the loft,
maybe tidying up or maybe trying to find a bottle of some sort of
strange medication that could numb her to the impending end.
Didn't matter to him as long as she had a flask of something and
an ashtray for his ubiquitous cigarettes. Shrugging off his coat,
Spike turned away from the windows and placed the duster on a
footstool the color of wine, a little worn for the wear and not
in her style. The place had probably come furnished.
Spike sat down with a sigh, his body slightly bruised from their
rough tumble in her Cadillac and then the post-coital sit upon
the not-so-cushioned rocks. Groaning, he shifted, his long limbs
never finding comfort, and then placed his hands behind his head,
looking out at the Australian beach where he would soon die.
Spike smirked when he thought of asking the Slayer to stake him,
to spare him his misery when the day ended. Maybe that was why
she'd so vacantly offered him her neck earlier. Not much to live
for anymore.
Music began to pump through the stereo, an expensive system that
must have been looted from somewhere in Australia. Stealing had
never bothered Spike; it had once bothered her but not anymore.
He didn't recognize the voice or the melody, but it was slow and
sweet, with a bass line that throbbed like a bleeding heart.
Arching the scarred eyebrow upwards, he watched with a slow
calculation as Buffy descended from upstairs, her face freed of
makeup and her hair bound back in a large tortoiseshell hair
clip, piled high on her head in a kaleidoscope of frenzied color.
She had changed out of her snakeskin dress into a simpler pair of
flared blue jeans that frayed and tore at the cuff. Bare toes
painted scarlet curled down the stairs as she walked, and she
fidgeted restlessly with the strap of her red satin camisole top,
a black bra strap rebelliously sliding down her shoulder.
She looked like a girl strung out on too many drugs, but she was
beautiful anyway.
It was Sheryl Crow that she was playing, something strangely
different from what played in her clubs, as Sheryl sang about
rivers and tides. She was an indulgence of Buffy's, and she
played this song a lot. It was calming, tranquil, and the bass
line often coincided with the rhythm of the crashing waves on the
cliffs. Sheryl murmured on and Buffy walked down the stairs, her
eyes scouring the shores for some semblance of hope on the
horizon, like a ship sailing in from America to tell her that she
could stop worrying and that everything was going to be okay.
Instead, she heard the silence of Spike's nonexistent breath and
knew otherwise.
Wearily, Buffy leaned her head against the glass, errant threads
of magenta and ruby spilling down from her poorly-restrained mass
of variegated hair to crowd her face. Her reflection glinted back
at her, and she didn't recognize herself in her glass wall. "Sun
will be rising in an hour or so," Buffy said lowly. "There's a
spare bedroom if you want it. Or you can always..." Her voice
trailed off, and Spike read her implications until she turned
around and smiled viciously at him. "Stay here in the glass."
Spike scowled at her and turned his eyes to the view that was
painted in the first lightening of blue. The sea glinted like a
knife underneath the partially-full moon, and he walked to the
glass, his eyes glimmering coldly and malevolently. The eyes of a
murderer - Spike had taken many lives over the years, but none of
them could compare to the lives that men had taken themselves by
pressing that stupid little red button. Tilting her head, Buffy
pressed her head against the glass and watched him. "What's it
like to be a murderer, Spike?" she asked. "What's it like to
kill?"
Shrugging, the vampire continued his languid seduction of the
sea. "Fun," he said. At her rather disappointed look, Spike
laughed shortly. "What did you expect? Some long, flowery sonnet
on how you hold human lives in your hands? It's not playing God,
not for me. It's just plain *fun*." His eyes smirked at her in
synchrony with his mouth. "Maybe you should ask Angel some time.
When he's soulless, he's got a whole different viewpoint on
killing. With him, it's like that. Like taking life and
possessing it, or some bullshit. He always went off on it in the
early days. I think he was trying to write a book for a while,
the bloody wanker talked so much about it."
Her voice was practically Arctic. "Angel's dead."
Spike's smirk didn't falter. "So he is."
Still chuckling over this latest barb, a barb that didn't even
cut her cooled skin, Spike closed the distance between them by
claiming her mouth as his, possessing her as though she was a
vase or something ornamental. Sheryl continued to sing as she
kissed him back, fingernails digging into the nape of his neck,
something that she increasingly liked. Spike had a wonderful
neck, long and slender, and his Adam's apple bobbed hypnotically
as she kissed him with her eyes wide open. Red tangles of hair
fell in her eyes as she kissed him with a ferocity that she
thought she'd lost, and Buffy was happy to see that it still
existed.
When she surfaced from the kiss, still gasping for breath, she
began to tug insistently at his shirt, ordering that it be
removed immediately. "You do know how fucked up this all is,
right?" she said, her voice hoarse and breathless. Spike saw her
carmine-tipped fingers wrapping through the cotton of his shirt
and groaned, wanting her more than he wanted to live.
"Oh, God yes," Spike said roughly, and she slipped off her
camisole, red satin flying on the floor near her flared and torn
jeans. Breasts encased in black silk that glinted in the
moonlight were beautiful, and Spike felt a sudden urge to do what
he couldn't comprehend. He felt the urge to touch them, but
slowly, to graze his fingertips over the juncture between silk
and skin, to caress instead of crush. And so he did, reaching out
a fingertip so that half of his finger traced the thin line
between fabric and Buffy. She moaned, arching her back so that
his breasts poured into his hands, and Spike greedily took
advantage of her want and need. Roseate nipples pressed
insistently through the silk, and his thumb rotated one over the
silk, soft and almost sweet, and Buffy hissed in a breath.
"You're..." she started, but was interrupted by a moan low within
herself when Spike trailed his fingers lower, barely grazing his
skin, until he was lining the juicy crevice underneath her
breast. She was going to tell him that he was being too nice, too
soft, until she decided that she wanted this softness. Wanted
Spike to go slow. To tease instead of pound. "Oh..."
The heat of her skin was an inferno encased in velvet, and Spike
was obsessed with it, infatuated to the point of absolute madness
and insanity. Buffy's reddened skin was magnificent to behold, as
though a spark glowed in every pore. She then pulled him apart so
that she could pull his shirt over head, never ruffling his
slicked blond hair. Acres of skin the color of bone glimmered,
and Buffy dipped her head down to taste his nonexistent sweat.
Her hot little pink tongue flicked across his nipples, and Spike
groaned, feeling himself harden in an instant, lengthening and
swelling at the promise that she was giving.
Chuckling slightly, Buffy began to undo the buttons on his faded
black jeans, and he instantly took off hers in response, feeling
the concave smoothness of her stomach and her thin, jutting
hipbones underneath the slightly baggy jeans. She'd thinned,
hardened in places that he didn't think possible, wasting away
along with the world that she'd left behind. Hardened so much
that she'd become fragile in the process.
Grunting, Spike whipped her jeans off of her so fast that she
felt denim scrape along her skin, burning in a fashion that
wasn't entirely unpleasant. She was left in nothing but her
underwear, and she stripped him down so that he was naked, thus
upping the ante. Swooping gracefully, the girl who had once been
known as a Slayer licked seductively and devilishly at his taut
nipples, and Spike sucked in a breath when she scraped his
sternum with her sharp little teeth. Vampiric tendencies --a
lesson learned from stalking her prey. "Christ," Spike muttered.
"I don't think He's out there anymore," replied the Slayer, and
he couldn't argue with her on that one. As she licked a trail
down his abdomen, Spike reached around to her back, undoing the
clasp of the black satin bra and releasing her from its bindings,
his hands instantly gravitating to her breasts, groping her
harshly and roughly, and she nipped naughtily at his shoulder, a
delicious move.
The sky was beginning to lighten outside, birds singing, but
Spike didn't care. Let the sunrise incinerate him. Let it all go
bad. He didn't give a shit anymore. Turning to ash on the
Slayer's skin would be a fitting way to die. Another crime for
her to commit - it would add guilt to her conscience, and he'd
always thought her beautiful when miserable. She was exquisite
now, sensual and dead, and he forcefully took off her matching
panties, revealing her tight little body that he picked up and
slammed against the window, hoping to break the glass and send
her to the rocks below. A merciful death compared to what was
coming.
The clip fell from her hair when Spike entered her, and a rainbow
of magentas and rubies spilled down across her shoulders,
threading through the thick gold that was too long for her own
good. Trickles of color and silk were splashed across his
starlight shoulders, and she rocked back and forth, wrapping her
legs around him as he pounded into her against the glass,
challenging fragility and delicacy with the dominance of his
cadences and rhythms. Moaning, she whispered words of nonsense
and beauty as she felt her climax building, building from nothing
but the brutality of their sex. The angle of his thrusts shifted
slightly, exploding with cool collision with her clitoris, and
she sparked like a fire, embers burning bright and brilliant
inside of her veins, like coals heating up after a long death and
stillness.
When she came, it was violently, fingernails digging into the
luxurious skin of his back, and her feet scraped and clutched at
the backs of his thighs, clutching him desperately as he followed
shortly thereafter, falling into the blistering heat and moisture
of her.
And then the sun was beginning to crown the horizon, a worse heat
filling his body. //Face it,// a part of him whispered, //and die
like this rather than whatever's coming ahead.//
But he couldn't.
Gasping with fear, Spike pulled backwards, nearly dropping the
thin girl who'd wrapped herself around him so gracefully.
Irritated, Buffy turned her head around to look at the window,
and when she saw what he saw, she sighed and relinquished her
hold on him, understanding. "Sorry, Spike," she said, her voice
carrying little apology. "The loft will be safe. Go upstairs and
close the blinds on the door. Go to bed."
Spike was ashamed. Ashamed of not being able to kill himself. Of
not being able to face the sunlight. How was he going to cope?
How was he going to handle it when the world finally claimed him
in the coming months? Immortality was a bitch indeed, if only
because his seemingly unlimited time was running out.
Irritated, he walked up to the loft, glancing briefly at the bed
with its red linen (so trite for her) and then roughly pulling
the blinds closed, not bothering with dressing. Let him see if
she cared - and at this point, he doubted that she did. He didn't
care if she did. He hated her for bringing him here and revealing
his true cowardice, and he hated her for being so glassy and
cold. Hated her for changing along with the rest of the world. If
she'd been sunny and sweet, pure as the fucking daisies, then at
least she'd be familiar. At least she'd be something.
But then again, he might have changed too. Apocalypse could do
that to a person - or a vampire.
"Hell," Spike muttered, moving sluggishly and wearily to the bed,
"maybe you can teach an old cat new tricks after all."
"Dog," she said, emerging from the downstairs in all of her
glorious and precarious nudity. "If you can't use a metaphor
properly, don't use it at all." He actually barked a laugh at
that, her remembering his earlier words, and lazily covered
himself with the sheets, closing his eyes to hear her rather than
see her, lit in slits of dangerous dawn. Drawers opened; he heard
that, and he also heard the rustling of sheets without feeling
her getting into bed. He guessed that she was covering up the
door to the balcony to protect him from the light, and almost
wished she wouldn't. Maybe he could kill himself if he slept
through his suicide.
Cowardly way to go, old man.
She didn't want another day. Didn't want the time to continue
moving. It was like a journey with compressed mileage, a drive
through never-ending countryside that would eventually stop with
a tragic car accident. That was what life was nowadays. It was
waiting for morning and wishing that it would always be night. It
was looking for death and fearing it.
It was sleeping with the enemy because he was an enemy and not a
stranger.
Sanity through insane acts, she thought to herself, climbing into
the summer sheets and looking at the way the black bed sheet
covered the light. She could trick herself perhaps into thinking
that it was still nighttime when day had actually dawned, but she
could never fool herself into thinking that she hadn't just slept
with Spike. No lies there. She only wished that she had pretended
the night away, back into the blind embrace of pills and booze
and make-believe, but it had happened.
It would probably happen again.
Lying as far away from him as possible, turning her back to Spike
so that Buffy could pretend that she was alone. Folding her hands
in mock prayer, Buffy slipped into a troubled sleep, the last
line of the song filtering through her head and leading her into
nightmares.
"Time watches everyone cling, honey now, don't bail on me..."
*****
The lyrics belong to Sheryl Crow, and are from her song,
"Riverwide", which can be found on _The Globe Sessions_ LP.
*****
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15