Fic: Touching the Fire Chapter 3
This does get a bit grim for a chapter or two. It will get more cheerful eventually, promise!
Now up to Chapter 6 on Elysian Fields and not far off the end.
Rating: NC-17 or thereabouts.
Pairing: Spike/Buffy
Touching the Fire
Chapter 3
Spike clambered warily over the heap of debris which was all that was left of his home. Stupid word, “home”, for a wandering vampire. They were supposed to destroy homes, not build them, rip the hearts out of their owners, frequently literally, not have their own hearts torn out, not literally, but even more painfully than that.
There wasn’t much left of the bed. Fair enough; they’d missed it plenty of times, after all. The coverlet looked OK at first glance, but a single tug was enough to make it disintegrate. The fancy rugs were stinking the place out with the smell of charred wool, and the candle holders were dangling forlornly from the walls, their charges not much more than shapeless puddles of wax beneath them. It was a sodding mess, that’s what it was. It didn’t help that some poor sod’s casket was partly hanging loose from the wall, and the grenades had revealed a load of dead tree roots tangling themselves along the wall.
There wasn’t even anywhere much left to slump and feel sorry for himself. The upper part of the crypt had fared a touch better, but he was feeling quite vulnerable right now, and the sight of the sepulchre he and Buffy had used so recently, yet so very long ago, was not calculated to help with that. The bed collapsed as he tried to sit on it. Of course it bloody did. He’d had good times on that bed. It seemed like the final insult to trash it too.
He sniffed away the moisture from his eyes. Definitely not tears, just a reaction to all the smoke and charring. Time to clear this place out before dawn made it impossible to cart things to the dump. Starting with the rugs, once beautiful and full of raunchy memories, now desperately sad and more than a bit pathetic. Much like their owner.
Some nit had left a dumpster outside their house overnight, within sight of the graveyard gates. They would have a shock when they started their pansy house remodelling or whatever in the morning and found it full of Captain Cardboard’s leavings. Out of Spike’s sight, out of his mind, though. Very definitely a Someone Else’s Problem Field.* He was going to miss those rugs, with their glowing colours. And the glowing girl he’d shagged on them, and under them that time.
Ah well. She’d change her mind. She always did. Then it would be another call on the cellar dweller, another violent attack on his body, another violent (but so good) exploitation of his body. Whatever the girl needed. She would be back. If he kept telling himself that he’d believe it.
Shaking his head to clear the mental picture of her face, sorrowful, pitying yet totally resolute, he got to work. Just as well he’d lifted a brush and pan from that convenience store a few weeks back. There would be plenty of work for them; almost nothing was left intact.
Those bloody eggs. How had the great wanker got them into the crypt in the first place? Any fool could see some of them were fake, but some were most decidedly not, and they had to be his first target. He wrenched one of the candle-holders off the wall and twisted it till it snapped, leaving a lethally sharp pint. A spike, you could say, and he did, with a mirthless laugh. Just to be sure, he went round every one of the eggs which had survived the grenade more or less intact, and punctured each of them several times. Most cracked, showing they were made of cheap plaster. Some released an ugly green goo, oozing from the hole he’d made. Stupid fucker hadn’t even managed to finish the job and make Sunnyhell safe for puppies and little girls. No, leave that job up to Uncle Spike. He could take the rap for being the Big Bad, but he could actually make sure the Slayer’s home town was protected while the incredible Tin Soldier marched back to his jungle den. He pushed the debris into a heap. It could all get shoved down the tunnel towards the sewers in due course, along with everything else the bugger had destroyed.
If his heart could beat it would have stopped. Had that bonehead bastard who thought a uniform justified any sort of bloody action really destroyed everything? His precious corner too?
His lips twisted wryly at the thought of his precious. Not a frigging Ring, though that Amara jobby would have been bloody useful if he’d still had it. No, he might have the morals and lifestyle of a Gollum, but not the jewellery obsession. His own precious stuff was far more important to him than that.
The corner of the undercroft was dark, even to his vampire sight, and looked as if a load of smoking trash was piled up there. He sighed. If that stuff was beyond reclaim, chip or no sodding chip he would hunt that toy soldier down and snap his neck off. And his bit of stuff too. How in hell had he married that one, in less than a year since abandoning Buffy? There was no punishment cruel enough, no words extreme enough for that toe-rag piece of horse droppings.
Anger gave him the energy his despair had withheld from him. He wrenched away bits of lumber which had once been part of his bed. Behind them were the tattered remains of his sheets. He’d had a full set of bedding and a bed before he started screwing the Slayer. Now, nothing. He ripped them away. Behind them was a small cabinet, one he’d rescued from the dump a year back, scratched and battered then as now.
But it was intact. The drawer stuck, and he had to use subtlety as well as vampire strength to pull it open, but once he could see inside he released the breath he hadn’t realised he’d taken in a sigh of relief. Yeah, subtle and Spike. Mixier than his Slayer would ever have admitted.
Wandering vamps don’t usually accumulate stuff any more than they create homes. Spike was not a normal vampire, however. Inside the drawer there was a dark green velvet bag with a drawstring holding it closed. He stroked it tenderly, relishing the slightly rough sensation as it dragged as his hand moved in the reverse direction. He pulled the bag from its space and looked round for somewhere to sit to engage with his prize.
No bloody where. Not so much as a sodding log or stool to sit on. A collapsed bed or the floor. All the choices left to the proud Master Vampire. He didn’t know that his brow ridges had sharpened or his eyes yellowed until he felt the fangs begin to emerge. No sense in that, man. Put them away. Not even enough light to look at stuff down here.
One-handed, he climbed up the ladder. GI Joe hadn’t trashed that at least, though how in hell he’d managed to leave it alone who knew? Up there he perched on the sarcophagus, shifting to allow the moonlight that came in through the grubby window to shed a little light on his trophy. He’d have to work on getting the electric going again soon.
Now, however, he had one focus. He tugged the edges of the bag and pulled them open. First out, a small, carved, Victorian box. He’d kept that with him through all his travels, since leaving his mother’s home. It reminded him of her, in the days before his stupid, crass decision to cure her forever. Inset into the top was a glass or crystal dome - no idea which - and under that two types of hair, one sandy, the other grey,both curly, were plaited together and twisted into a kind of knot. Around the bezel there was pattern made of inset rare woods, a picture of a rural idyll, the sort that had never bloody existed of course. It summed up the pathetic loser he’d been, still was and always would be. Nevertheless, he stroked it reverently.
He flicked open the box lid. Inside, still safely hidden, were some letters in faded, spidery Victorian script, some battered, sepia-toned photographs, including one of Drusilla, magnificent in Edwardian evening dress, all pouty bust and projecting bum, just as he’d liked them back then. At the bottom was a small leather-bound book, untouched as far as he could see. Something very much not for sharing, but that he couldn’t bear to throw away. He flicked open the cover and found an inscription, written in a careful, immaculate Copperplate. “William H Pratt, August 1873”. Long, long dead that jerk, and better so. His poems could stay there with the rest of the junk.
Belying the angry thoughts, he replaced the box’s contents with exaggerated care, closing the lid and clicking the tiny catch. Then he pushed his hand further into the velvet bag. He pulled out a few bits of silver, the chains and Punk rings he’d enjoyed wearing for a while now. He choked just a little as he felt the death’s head on the sturdiest of these, remembering the time he had presented it to the love of his life, long before the unenchanted him knew that was what she was, and she had accepted his offer of himself, life and missing soul, with such an intensity of joy even now he couldn’t help smiling at the memory.
He rested his accoutrements on the slab next to him, after a moment’s thought stripping off the silver chain he’d been wearing all day to add to the pile. Then he retrieved the final and most precious of his precious objects. A little, plush, pink pig. It was completely intact, beady eyes staring back at him as if nothing had gone wrong, as if his relationship with the pig’s first owner was not just intact but healthy and thriving. As if there was a future for him in this world instead of an eternity of dust and ashes.
There was no bed as such, but he and Buffy had made do with the tomb on which he sat (a thousand years ago) this afternoon. It was wide enough and long enough for what he needed. He curled himself round the stuffed toy, hugging it to his chest. At last the tears came, hurting as they needed to, pouring out the misery that this might be the end, that sodding Action Man had stitched him up good and proper, that he would never hold his girl, pretend she was his girl, service his girl again.
The little pig rested in his arms. It didn’t judge him. Never had. And to his powerful senses, it still smelled of her.
As always, comments make me very happy.
Now up to Chapter 6 on Elysian Fields and not far off the end.
Rating: NC-17 or thereabouts.
Pairing: Spike/Buffy
Touching the Fire
Chapter 3
Spike clambered warily over the heap of debris which was all that was left of his home. Stupid word, “home”, for a wandering vampire. They were supposed to destroy homes, not build them, rip the hearts out of their owners, frequently literally, not have their own hearts torn out, not literally, but even more painfully than that.
There wasn’t much left of the bed. Fair enough; they’d missed it plenty of times, after all. The coverlet looked OK at first glance, but a single tug was enough to make it disintegrate. The fancy rugs were stinking the place out with the smell of charred wool, and the candle holders were dangling forlornly from the walls, their charges not much more than shapeless puddles of wax beneath them. It was a sodding mess, that’s what it was. It didn’t help that some poor sod’s casket was partly hanging loose from the wall, and the grenades had revealed a load of dead tree roots tangling themselves along the wall.
There wasn’t even anywhere much left to slump and feel sorry for himself. The upper part of the crypt had fared a touch better, but he was feeling quite vulnerable right now, and the sight of the sepulchre he and Buffy had used so recently, yet so very long ago, was not calculated to help with that. The bed collapsed as he tried to sit on it. Of course it bloody did. He’d had good times on that bed. It seemed like the final insult to trash it too.
He sniffed away the moisture from his eyes. Definitely not tears, just a reaction to all the smoke and charring. Time to clear this place out before dawn made it impossible to cart things to the dump. Starting with the rugs, once beautiful and full of raunchy memories, now desperately sad and more than a bit pathetic. Much like their owner.
Some nit had left a dumpster outside their house overnight, within sight of the graveyard gates. They would have a shock when they started their pansy house remodelling or whatever in the morning and found it full of Captain Cardboard’s leavings. Out of Spike’s sight, out of his mind, though. Very definitely a Someone Else’s Problem Field.* He was going to miss those rugs, with their glowing colours. And the glowing girl he’d shagged on them, and under them that time.
Ah well. She’d change her mind. She always did. Then it would be another call on the cellar dweller, another violent attack on his body, another violent (but so good) exploitation of his body. Whatever the girl needed. She would be back. If he kept telling himself that he’d believe it.
Shaking his head to clear the mental picture of her face, sorrowful, pitying yet totally resolute, he got to work. Just as well he’d lifted a brush and pan from that convenience store a few weeks back. There would be plenty of work for them; almost nothing was left intact.
Those bloody eggs. How had the great wanker got them into the crypt in the first place? Any fool could see some of them were fake, but some were most decidedly not, and they had to be his first target. He wrenched one of the candle-holders off the wall and twisted it till it snapped, leaving a lethally sharp pint. A spike, you could say, and he did, with a mirthless laugh. Just to be sure, he went round every one of the eggs which had survived the grenade more or less intact, and punctured each of them several times. Most cracked, showing they were made of cheap plaster. Some released an ugly green goo, oozing from the hole he’d made. Stupid fucker hadn’t even managed to finish the job and make Sunnyhell safe for puppies and little girls. No, leave that job up to Uncle Spike. He could take the rap for being the Big Bad, but he could actually make sure the Slayer’s home town was protected while the incredible Tin Soldier marched back to his jungle den. He pushed the debris into a heap. It could all get shoved down the tunnel towards the sewers in due course, along with everything else the bugger had destroyed.
If his heart could beat it would have stopped. Had that bonehead bastard who thought a uniform justified any sort of bloody action really destroyed everything? His precious corner too?
His lips twisted wryly at the thought of his precious. Not a frigging Ring, though that Amara jobby would have been bloody useful if he’d still had it. No, he might have the morals and lifestyle of a Gollum, but not the jewellery obsession. His own precious stuff was far more important to him than that.
The corner of the undercroft was dark, even to his vampire sight, and looked as if a load of smoking trash was piled up there. He sighed. If that stuff was beyond reclaim, chip or no sodding chip he would hunt that toy soldier down and snap his neck off. And his bit of stuff too. How in hell had he married that one, in less than a year since abandoning Buffy? There was no punishment cruel enough, no words extreme enough for that toe-rag piece of horse droppings.
Anger gave him the energy his despair had withheld from him. He wrenched away bits of lumber which had once been part of his bed. Behind them were the tattered remains of his sheets. He’d had a full set of bedding and a bed before he started screwing the Slayer. Now, nothing. He ripped them away. Behind them was a small cabinet, one he’d rescued from the dump a year back, scratched and battered then as now.
But it was intact. The drawer stuck, and he had to use subtlety as well as vampire strength to pull it open, but once he could see inside he released the breath he hadn’t realised he’d taken in a sigh of relief. Yeah, subtle and Spike. Mixier than his Slayer would ever have admitted.
Wandering vamps don’t usually accumulate stuff any more than they create homes. Spike was not a normal vampire, however. Inside the drawer there was a dark green velvet bag with a drawstring holding it closed. He stroked it tenderly, relishing the slightly rough sensation as it dragged as his hand moved in the reverse direction. He pulled the bag from its space and looked round for somewhere to sit to engage with his prize.
No bloody where. Not so much as a sodding log or stool to sit on. A collapsed bed or the floor. All the choices left to the proud Master Vampire. He didn’t know that his brow ridges had sharpened or his eyes yellowed until he felt the fangs begin to emerge. No sense in that, man. Put them away. Not even enough light to look at stuff down here.
One-handed, he climbed up the ladder. GI Joe hadn’t trashed that at least, though how in hell he’d managed to leave it alone who knew? Up there he perched on the sarcophagus, shifting to allow the moonlight that came in through the grubby window to shed a little light on his trophy. He’d have to work on getting the electric going again soon.
Now, however, he had one focus. He tugged the edges of the bag and pulled them open. First out, a small, carved, Victorian box. He’d kept that with him through all his travels, since leaving his mother’s home. It reminded him of her, in the days before his stupid, crass decision to cure her forever. Inset into the top was a glass or crystal dome - no idea which - and under that two types of hair, one sandy, the other grey,both curly, were plaited together and twisted into a kind of knot. Around the bezel there was pattern made of inset rare woods, a picture of a rural idyll, the sort that had never bloody existed of course. It summed up the pathetic loser he’d been, still was and always would be. Nevertheless, he stroked it reverently.
He flicked open the box lid. Inside, still safely hidden, were some letters in faded, spidery Victorian script, some battered, sepia-toned photographs, including one of Drusilla, magnificent in Edwardian evening dress, all pouty bust and projecting bum, just as he’d liked them back then. At the bottom was a small leather-bound book, untouched as far as he could see. Something very much not for sharing, but that he couldn’t bear to throw away. He flicked open the cover and found an inscription, written in a careful, immaculate Copperplate. “William H Pratt, August 1873”. Long, long dead that jerk, and better so. His poems could stay there with the rest of the junk.
Belying the angry thoughts, he replaced the box’s contents with exaggerated care, closing the lid and clicking the tiny catch. Then he pushed his hand further into the velvet bag. He pulled out a few bits of silver, the chains and Punk rings he’d enjoyed wearing for a while now. He choked just a little as he felt the death’s head on the sturdiest of these, remembering the time he had presented it to the love of his life, long before the unenchanted him knew that was what she was, and she had accepted his offer of himself, life and missing soul, with such an intensity of joy even now he couldn’t help smiling at the memory.
He rested his accoutrements on the slab next to him, after a moment’s thought stripping off the silver chain he’d been wearing all day to add to the pile. Then he retrieved the final and most precious of his precious objects. A little, plush, pink pig. It was completely intact, beady eyes staring back at him as if nothing had gone wrong, as if his relationship with the pig’s first owner was not just intact but healthy and thriving. As if there was a future for him in this world instead of an eternity of dust and ashes.
There was no bed as such, but he and Buffy had made do with the tomb on which he sat (a thousand years ago) this afternoon. It was wide enough and long enough for what he needed. He curled himself round the stuffed toy, hugging it to his chest. At last the tears came, hurting as they needed to, pouring out the misery that this might be the end, that sodding Action Man had stitched him up good and proper, that he would never hold his girl, pretend she was his girl, service his girl again.
The little pig rested in his arms. It didn’t judge him. Never had. And to his powerful senses, it still smelled of her.
As always, comments make me very happy.