Challenge response: The English Patient (Spike and Joyce, PG)
Title The English Patient
Author Brutti ma buoni
Characters Spike and Joyce
Rating PG
Words 630
Note For the WriterConUK prompt challenge. Specifically for the prompts red, silk, beheading, smell of furniture polish, how would Spike feel if Joyce tied him to the bed, and Everybody Got Their Something by Nikka Costa… (Hey, I was the prompt person. I do prompts! Do not say you were not warned. Note that nowhere in my talk did I say I did prompts *well*.)
She twirled, silken and perfect, a dream-memory he treasured. The swords she used cut through air and vampires, indifferent and interchangeable. His dead brethren dusted, patterning the red-flamed air. Like he cared. All Spike wanted to think of was killing her. But the patterns swirled, mazy and kaleidoscopic, distracting him from his purpose, making him want to waltz with the dying dust, see how high he could go before he finally-
Hang on. Something not right there, and it wasn't just the endless run-on sentences.
It was the sharp scent of furniture polish which had reached Spike through the delirious dream. Chemical and unwelcome, it was a world away from remembered beeswax, the scent of his youth, of maids and effort and twice-yearly heavy cleaning when the menfolk made themselves scarce.
Long time since he'd lived in a house which smelt of polish. Which begged the question, where in hell was he?
(Also, why? But temporarily, that was going to have to wait.)
He opened his eyes. A bland beige room gave him no helpful information, except that it was a room that no one loved much. Good repair, a couple of half-arsed ornamental touches looking like leftovers from some other decorating scheme. Diagnosis: spare room.
He coughed, unexpectedly.
This told him two things. Firstly, he was ill. That was both weird and wrong. Vampires and illness didn't go together. Secondly, he was tied to the bed. That was far more normal. Still unexplained, though.
Spike contemplated the ceiling. It told him nothing. He looked back over the past few weeks (return to Sunnydale, zapping, incarceration, escape, being dumped by Harmony, humiliating crawling to the Slayer, imprisonment in a bath, handcuffed to Harris's reeking lounger… really just one long race to the bottom). The recitation told him little, though it made being tied to a bed in a suburban spare room seem a pretty logical conclusion.
Well. Shit.
He coughed again.
The door opened. Spike tensed, briefly, then relaxed as a completely unexpected combination of Joyce Summers and the scent of warm blood entered the room.
She was smiling. Hell of a lot odder than his dream. Spike pinched himself surreptitiously, without useful results. Apparently, he wasn't asleep, which meant it was real life which made no sense.
"So you're awake?" Joyce smiled. "That's good. I was starting to worry."
He tried to speak, but found the words coming out hoarsely. "What's going on? Why am I here?"
"Shhh, don't try to talk. You've been sick."
"I don't get sick." Despite the evidence to the contrary, Spike felt it was important to assert that.
She tutted. Actually tutted. Humans tutting at him was not something that Spike was prepared to accept. Unless they had him tied to the bed, and were holding out a mug of warm blood with a straw for him to drink from.
He drank. She explained.
Apparently, living off cow blood had been a major mistake. Just because it was cheap and available, didn't make it good for vampires. "You need omnivores' blood, at the least. Or carnivores, but Buffy said we couldn't take down a tiger and drain it for you, so it's plain old pig. Seems like you need a little TLC, so I said it was my turn to have you as a houseguest."
The pig's blood was nectar. Pure nectar.
When she took away the mug to let him swallow fully, he paused long enough to grin at her. "You're an angel. The good kind."
She fluffed up his pillows. "It's a pleasure. But you're staying restrained, okay? I don't want Buffy going crazy at me."
She was nice to him, and she gave him a real bed and warmed his blood.
Being tied to Joyce Summers' bed was no problem at all.
***
Author Brutti ma buoni
Characters Spike and Joyce
Rating PG
Words 630
Note For the WriterConUK prompt challenge. Specifically for the prompts red, silk, beheading, smell of furniture polish, how would Spike feel if Joyce tied him to the bed, and Everybody Got Their Something by Nikka Costa… (Hey, I was the prompt person. I do prompts! Do not say you were not warned. Note that nowhere in my talk did I say I did prompts *well*.)
She twirled, silken and perfect, a dream-memory he treasured. The swords she used cut through air and vampires, indifferent and interchangeable. His dead brethren dusted, patterning the red-flamed air. Like he cared. All Spike wanted to think of was killing her. But the patterns swirled, mazy and kaleidoscopic, distracting him from his purpose, making him want to waltz with the dying dust, see how high he could go before he finally-
Hang on. Something not right there, and it wasn't just the endless run-on sentences.
It was the sharp scent of furniture polish which had reached Spike through the delirious dream. Chemical and unwelcome, it was a world away from remembered beeswax, the scent of his youth, of maids and effort and twice-yearly heavy cleaning when the menfolk made themselves scarce.
Long time since he'd lived in a house which smelt of polish. Which begged the question, where in hell was he?
(Also, why? But temporarily, that was going to have to wait.)
He opened his eyes. A bland beige room gave him no helpful information, except that it was a room that no one loved much. Good repair, a couple of half-arsed ornamental touches looking like leftovers from some other decorating scheme. Diagnosis: spare room.
He coughed, unexpectedly.
This told him two things. Firstly, he was ill. That was both weird and wrong. Vampires and illness didn't go together. Secondly, he was tied to the bed. That was far more normal. Still unexplained, though.
Spike contemplated the ceiling. It told him nothing. He looked back over the past few weeks (return to Sunnydale, zapping, incarceration, escape, being dumped by Harmony, humiliating crawling to the Slayer, imprisonment in a bath, handcuffed to Harris's reeking lounger… really just one long race to the bottom). The recitation told him little, though it made being tied to a bed in a suburban spare room seem a pretty logical conclusion.
Well. Shit.
He coughed again.
The door opened. Spike tensed, briefly, then relaxed as a completely unexpected combination of Joyce Summers and the scent of warm blood entered the room.
She was smiling. Hell of a lot odder than his dream. Spike pinched himself surreptitiously, without useful results. Apparently, he wasn't asleep, which meant it was real life which made no sense.
"So you're awake?" Joyce smiled. "That's good. I was starting to worry."
He tried to speak, but found the words coming out hoarsely. "What's going on? Why am I here?"
"Shhh, don't try to talk. You've been sick."
"I don't get sick." Despite the evidence to the contrary, Spike felt it was important to assert that.
She tutted. Actually tutted. Humans tutting at him was not something that Spike was prepared to accept. Unless they had him tied to the bed, and were holding out a mug of warm blood with a straw for him to drink from.
He drank. She explained.
Apparently, living off cow blood had been a major mistake. Just because it was cheap and available, didn't make it good for vampires. "You need omnivores' blood, at the least. Or carnivores, but Buffy said we couldn't take down a tiger and drain it for you, so it's plain old pig. Seems like you need a little TLC, so I said it was my turn to have you as a houseguest."
The pig's blood was nectar. Pure nectar.
When she took away the mug to let him swallow fully, he paused long enough to grin at her. "You're an angel. The good kind."
She fluffed up his pillows. "It's a pleasure. But you're staying restrained, okay? I don't want Buffy going crazy at me."
She was nice to him, and she gave him a real bed and warmed his blood.
Being tied to Joyce Summers' bed was no problem at all.
***