NEW: Adventures in Hell (working title) #1: Guilt and Other Strong Emotions. PG-13, BtVS
Title: Guilt and Other Strong Emotions
Series: Adventures in Hell (working title)
Author: maryfic
Disclaimer: Not mine, as usual.
Feedback: Yes, please.
Distribution: NHA, Soulmates, ask?
Cross-posted to nekid_spike for the November Challenge of Purgatory, with a taste of Mini Nekid Guest Dru, and Nekid Guest Willow. Phew.
Summary: What if you’d been sent to Hell and got stuck along the way? Could you depend on anyone to get you out?
Rating: This story, PG-13, overall series, most likely Adult.
Pairings: It will end up Willow/Spike/Angel, with Xander/Cordelia.
A/N: AU post Becoming. This was a very short chapter - I am never good at back story.
The summer after Buffy killed Angelus was dead, literally. It wasn’t even July yet, and Willow’s hair was sticking to her neck from lack of activity in the air. The vampires Angelus had gathered in his fight against the Slayer had fled, and Spike had taken Dru somewhere, she supposed. Her bedroom was once again safe from random visits of the undead kind, and yet Willow was unsatisfied with the ending.
She should be happy that the reign of terror was over, but all she could feel was sadness, and guilt. Her dreams were filled with images of blood and swords and fire, and things she’d never seen before. All of this could have been prevented if she’d only gotten the spell right! Instead, Buffy was gone, Giles and Xander were by turns freaking out and not caring - and Willow? Willow was drowning in things she didn’t understand.
***
Could vampires spontaneously combust when they weren’t in the sunlight? Spike had been wondering this for nearly a week, watching Dru parade around in a shift because, as she said, “It’s too hot, Spike. I’m on fire. Brr!” And then she snapped at him. Which was arousing, to be sure, and generally led to a bout of once infrequent rough and tumble. With Angel gone, his life and fortunes were much improved. In Brazil, of all places.
He cursed out loud as he rolled off the bed and stuck to the sheet. Dru was out for the night, as per her new independence, and no doubt the populace of São Paulo would feel it by morning. The rooms they’d found (he’d found) were breezy enough - if there was a bloody breeze. And he shouldn’t need one. Vampire = temperature equilibrium, in most cases. But in actuality, he took on the temperature of the air around him, and this air was definitely heated.
The blond pulled on linen pants and went for the door to have his own fun when Dru’s little table of hoodoo yanked him to a stop. The small carved wooden figurine caught his eye first - it was of a male figure being gripped by the waist by claws and held upside down. “Huh. Nifty.”
Then his eye was drawn to the spread of cards, larger than her usual, and it wasn’t a deck or pattern he recognized. Sliding into the chair, Spike leaned over to take a better look at the designs. They looked voodoo like in origin, he recognized a few symbols and laughed at what he thought they meant. Focused prominently in the center of the design was an angel. “Of bloody course, no surprises there. Have fun in Hell, Angelus.” Spike muttered with a grin. He wandered gleefully between mirth and rage when he thought of his sire now, and was very careful to avoid mention of him to Drusilla, naturally, if he wanted to keep his balls.
Thankfully, a breeze began to kick up then, blowing through the open windows to race along his neck and down his spine with a shiver of pleasure. Until he noticed the deck of cards hadn’t moved, and was in fact doing some odd spinning of its own.
Spike shouted and pushed the table away from himself, which only managed to pin his hands firmly against the wood, cloth, and two cards at the edge of the spread.
His eyes rolled back into his skull and he toppled from the chair, the spread finally moved to splatter around him as he lay there, trembling and unaware, vision of trapped souls echoing in his mind.
Spike never saw Brazil again.
End.
Series: Adventures in Hell (working title)
Author: maryfic
Disclaimer: Not mine, as usual.
Feedback: Yes, please.
Distribution: NHA, Soulmates, ask?
Cross-posted to nekid_spike for the November Challenge of Purgatory, with a taste of Mini Nekid Guest Dru, and Nekid Guest Willow. Phew.
Summary: What if you’d been sent to Hell and got stuck along the way? Could you depend on anyone to get you out?
Rating: This story, PG-13, overall series, most likely Adult.
Pairings: It will end up Willow/Spike/Angel, with Xander/Cordelia.
A/N: AU post Becoming. This was a very short chapter - I am never good at back story.
The summer after Buffy killed Angelus was dead, literally. It wasn’t even July yet, and Willow’s hair was sticking to her neck from lack of activity in the air. The vampires Angelus had gathered in his fight against the Slayer had fled, and Spike had taken Dru somewhere, she supposed. Her bedroom was once again safe from random visits of the undead kind, and yet Willow was unsatisfied with the ending.
She should be happy that the reign of terror was over, but all she could feel was sadness, and guilt. Her dreams were filled with images of blood and swords and fire, and things she’d never seen before. All of this could have been prevented if she’d only gotten the spell right! Instead, Buffy was gone, Giles and Xander were by turns freaking out and not caring - and Willow? Willow was drowning in things she didn’t understand.
***
Could vampires spontaneously combust when they weren’t in the sunlight? Spike had been wondering this for nearly a week, watching Dru parade around in a shift because, as she said, “It’s too hot, Spike. I’m on fire. Brr!” And then she snapped at him. Which was arousing, to be sure, and generally led to a bout of once infrequent rough and tumble. With Angel gone, his life and fortunes were much improved. In Brazil, of all places.
He cursed out loud as he rolled off the bed and stuck to the sheet. Dru was out for the night, as per her new independence, and no doubt the populace of São Paulo would feel it by morning. The rooms they’d found (he’d found) were breezy enough - if there was a bloody breeze. And he shouldn’t need one. Vampire = temperature equilibrium, in most cases. But in actuality, he took on the temperature of the air around him, and this air was definitely heated.
The blond pulled on linen pants and went for the door to have his own fun when Dru’s little table of hoodoo yanked him to a stop. The small carved wooden figurine caught his eye first - it was of a male figure being gripped by the waist by claws and held upside down. “Huh. Nifty.”
Then his eye was drawn to the spread of cards, larger than her usual, and it wasn’t a deck or pattern he recognized. Sliding into the chair, Spike leaned over to take a better look at the designs. They looked voodoo like in origin, he recognized a few symbols and laughed at what he thought they meant. Focused prominently in the center of the design was an angel. “Of bloody course, no surprises there. Have fun in Hell, Angelus.” Spike muttered with a grin. He wandered gleefully between mirth and rage when he thought of his sire now, and was very careful to avoid mention of him to Drusilla, naturally, if he wanted to keep his balls.
Thankfully, a breeze began to kick up then, blowing through the open windows to race along his neck and down his spine with a shiver of pleasure. Until he noticed the deck of cards hadn’t moved, and was in fact doing some odd spinning of its own.
Spike shouted and pushed the table away from himself, which only managed to pin his hands firmly against the wood, cloth, and two cards at the edge of the spread.
His eyes rolled back into his skull and he toppled from the chair, the spread finally moved to splatter around him as he lay there, trembling and unaware, vision of trapped souls echoing in his mind.
Spike never saw Brazil again.
End.