A
Long, Strange Journey
Author: Chrislee
Summary: Buffy, Spike and Angel set circa
"The Girl in Question"
**
Angel had been alone with Buffy
for an hour now. Spike didn’t like it. He kept imagining all sorts of
things: tears and sex chief among them. He couldn’t quite remember why they
had decided to do it like this. After all, they’d come to Rome together.
Walking the streets gave Spike a terrific headache, what with the constant
and pervasive smell of garlic lingering around every corner, in every hall
and alley.
They’d even flipped a freakin’
coin to see who would go first. It hardly seemed fair that Angel won the
toss. Hadn’t Spike sacrificed himself for her? Bloody hell.
Spike patted his coat pocket for
his smokes and then reached in and pulled out the crumpled pack. If this
kept up, he’d need another pack. Pronto. He pulled out his Zippo and lit
the cigarette and sucked in a lungful of chemicals and tar. Now that’s what
he’s talking about. Okay, sure, technically he couldn’t actually taste the
cigarette- but Spike had total recall; he could remember the tang and burn
and it filled him with simple joy.
What in blazing hell could they
be doing in there?
Spike slid down the wall and
dropped a wrist over his tented knees. Just a few short hours ago, he and
Angel had been watching Buffy from across a crowded club. That should have
been it. She was alive (both he and Angel had agreed that there was no
point going on if Buffy wasn’t safely in the world and yes, it was true,
they were both fucking drama queens); she was healthy and whole and so
flamin’ beautiful Spike (and Angel beside him) had stilled and watched,
anticipating the moment when she would, sensing him (them) turn and meet
his (their) eyes.
She hadn’t turned. She’d danced.
She’d twirled and laughed and flung out her arms and bared her belly and
lived a whole life in the time it took for KC to “Get Down On It.”
*
“We should go,” Angel said.
“What?”
“We should go.”
Spike had looked over at Angel.
“Go if you want,” he said. “But I didn’t fly half way across the flamin’
world to not at least talk to her.”
Angel’s eyes narrowed. “You see
her, right?”
“I see her,” Spike replied.
“Well then you see she’s over
us.”
“Her closure is not my closure,”
Spike said. “Besides, she’s probably drunk and doesn’t realize we’re here.
If she knew we were here…”
“What,” Angel interrupted.
“She’d throw out the welcome mat? You’re an idiot, Spike. Look at her. She’s
happy. She’s free. That’s what we wanted for her. And that’s only part of
it. Have you ever tried rescuing Buffy?”
Spike pursed his lips
thoughtfully.
“You might recall, then, that’s
she’s not exactly a damsel in distress.”
“Okay, whatever, she doesn’t
need rescuing; but that’s not the point.”
Angel smiled indulgently.
“That’s why we came.”
“Well,” Spike sniffed, “maybe
that’s why you came, but there was subtext for me.”
Angel laughed.
“You’re really going to let her
sail off into the sunset with that ponce?” Spike asked.
Angel shrugged. “I love her.”
“So do I,” Spike said miserably.
*
The smart thing to do, of
course, was get drunk. Angel remembered a little demon tratattoria where
they served a little O positive on the side. It was still there and he and
Spike ordered a bottle of Jack and a couple chasers of the other. Both
tasted mighty fine.
“What were we thinking?” Spike
asked a third of the way through the bottle.
“I’m assuming that’s a
rhetorical question,” Angel replied, refilling both their glasses and
signaling to the bartender for another round of blood.
“Only slightly rhetorical. I
mean, why did we come all this way if we’re just going to let him have
her?”
“I don’t think he has
anything Buffy doesn’t want him to have,” Angel said, tossing back the shot
glass of blood.
Spike grimaced. “That doesn’t
make any of this more palatable.” He tipped another glass of Jack down his
throat and leaned closer to Angel. “You know what he’s doin’ to her, don’t
you? I mean, you do remember Darla and Dru.” Spike actually felt his
eyes water a little at the mention of Drusilla’s name.
Or perhaps it was just the
liquor talking.
“Maybe they’re just friends,”
Angel said reasonably.
Spike snorted loudly. A couple
Chaos demons a few booths down turned to stare in their direction. “Friends
my arse,” Spike said. “The Immortal doesn’t have friends. He has
conquests.” Spike arched an eyebrow at Angel. “’sides, when did you get all
philosophical when it comes to Buffy and her relationships?”
“Not philosophical, Spike,
pragmatic.”
Spike settled back against the
leather booth and crossed his arms. “Right. You’ve always been
incredibly practical when it comes to Buffy. That girl brings out the
sensible in all of us.”
Angel’s mouth twitched. “I see
what you mean. Let’s go.”
That’s how Spike came to be
sitting on the floor in the hall outside Buffy’s apartment. The whole way
over from the bar they’d argued about who would get first crack at
convincing her that fraternizing with The Immortal was insane. Spike
thought he’d be better at it because he was more eloquent, you know,
because of his former career as a poet. Angel nearly busted a gut laughing
at that.
In the end, Angel won. It seemed
to Spike that he always did.
*
“So, you came all the way to
Italy to tell me that T.I. is a no-good scoundrel, is that it?” Buffy said.
“Okay, when you put it like
that…” Angel paused. “T.I.?”
“The Immortal is pretentious,
don’t you think?
Angel shrugged.
“And does Spike feel the same
way?”
“Do you really need to ask that
question?”
Buffy smiled. “No. I guess not.”
Angel crossed the room and sat
next to Buffy on the settee, not too close, though.
“The thing is - we know
him. We’ve had dealings with him.”
“I think the dealings, as
you so delicately put it, were actually with Dru and Darla, weren’t they?”
Buffy’s face was perfectly serene.
Angel was less successful with
his expression. He felt each knuckle of his spine snap into place.
“You don’t know him like I do,”
Angel said. “People don’t change.”
“Don’t they?” Buffy tucked a
strand of her longer, blonder hair behind her ear and sighed. “In my
experience which, granted, doesn’t compare to your centuries of living,
people do change. All the time.”
“We’re not talking about me,”
Angel said.
“I wasn’t, actually,” Buffy
replied.
“Oh,” Angel said. “Oh.”
Buffy rested her hand on Angel’s
knee. He felt the heat of her small palm travel up to his groin, lodge in
his belly and the hard knots in his spine, which only moments ago had held
him rigid, began to melt.
“Do you have any idea how much I
loved you?” She whispered.
Angel was careful to keep his
face neutral at Buffy’s use of the past tense. Loved. As in no longer.
Apparently it was a literal question; her face was expectant.
“I know I hurt you, Buffy,” he
said.
Buffy lifted her hand from
Angel’s knee and pressed her fingers against his lips, effectively
preventing him from continuing.
“I neither need nor want an
apology from you, Angel. The other thing I don’t need or want is your
protection.” Buffy’s fingers drifted away from Angel’s mouth and for a
second he mourned the loss of their warmth. “You can’t keep blowing back
into my life whenever there’s a new guy on the scene. I’m young; there’s
gonna be a lot of new guys.”
Angel grimaced. A lot. Great.
“You can hardly take offense,
Angel. I mean you’ve had a lot of lovers, right?”
Was she teasing? Surely, she was
teasing.
“I mean,” Buffy continued, “I
can name a handful right off the top of my head: Darla, Drusilla, Cordy, that
werewolf, what was her name…”
“Stop,” Angel said. He stood up
and crossed the room. “I get it. Your life isn’t my business. Point taken.”
Buffy smiled. “So we’re on the
same page?”
“Yeah.”
“Great. Send in Spike.”
*
Spike didn’t like the look on Angel’s
face when he came out of Buffy’s apartment. He wasn’t sure what he’d
expected: a post-coital flush or white-faced grief. Instead, Angel looked
stoic, closed off. Wait, that’s how Angel always looked.
“She’s ready for you,” Angel
said.
“Is she okay?”
Angel scratched at his jaw. “Do
you have any smokes?”
Spike looked at Buffy’s
apartment door and reached into his pocket for the last of his cigarettes.
He handed Angel the crumpled package. Surely this wasn’t good.
*
“Spike.”
Buffy was waiting for him. She
sat on the couch with her feet tucked under her, a glass of red wine
balanced on her folded knee.
“Wine?”
Spike thought of the Jack
Daniels and said: “Sure.”
Buffy nodded towards the bottle
and the glass: just one other glass, clean, so Angel hadn’t been given the
same offer. Spike took that as a good sign.
He poured himself a healthy
measure and moved to sit down on the couch. (Not too close.)
“So, how are you, pet?”
Buffy giggled. “You’re kidding,
right?”
“I don’t understand.”
“You flew all the way across the
world to ask me how I am?”
“Not exactly.”
“You know, there are phones and
e-mails these days. So much more efficient, especially for someone with
your challenges.”
Challenges?
“Buffy, I…”
“Let’s cut to the chase, why don’t
we?”
Spike thought it wise to stay
silent.
“I - am - an - adult.” The words
left Buffy’s mouth like bbs from a gun. “I can go where I want and do what
I want and, frankly, fuck whom I want…not that that’s any of your
business.”
The least Angel could have done
was soften her up, deflate the obvious balloon of her anger. Still, the
flame of colour on her cheeks, the snap-crackle of electricity coming from
her skin reached out to Spike and licked him, a tongue of desire. He felt
it, a tantalizing hum that sped through his lifeless blood.
Did he dare touch her? He wanted
to, desperately. She was looking at him, her eyes dark and dangerous. It
had been a long time since he’d seen that look in her eyes. Since before
he’d gone up in a blaze of what he’d hoped would be glory, but what had
turned out to be just a blaze. Bloody amulet.
Now she’d set her glass down and
was turned towards him, relieving him of his glass and was she, no she
wasn’t…
Yes she was!
Spike watched, mesmerized, as
Buffy started to slip the buttons of her green shirt from their holes. In
seconds, her shirt was in a demure pile on the floor and Buffy’s pale,
silky skin was exposed, her nipples poking provocatively through the gauzy
material of her bra.
Spike blinked and tried to reign
in his thoughts. He couldn’t smell Angel on her, but the possibility
that she might actually let him touch her before Angel- well it was
obviously a trick. Had the BuffyBot somehow been replicated?
Spike stood up and backed away
from her. It.
“What have you done with Buffy?”
Buffy reached to the clasp at
the front of her bra and slipped it open. Spike’s cock twitched gratefully
as Buffy’s breasts, (smaller than Spike remembered, but every bit as
lovely), were fully exposed.
Spike’s tongue worked against the
roof of his dry mouth. How likely was it, he wondered, that he could adjust
his raging hard-on without Buffy noticing.
“I could help with that,” she
said coyly.
Apparently, not bloody likely.
*
If this girl was the BuffyBot,
there had been some marked improvements. For one thing, when Spike slipped
his tongue deep into the moist mink of her quim, the taste and smell of her
was so intoxicating, Spike had to pause for a moment lest he pass out
(figuratively speaking) from sheer joy. It was one thing to fuck a vampire;
quite another to fuck a real girl and something quite extraordinary indeed
to fuck a Slayer.
Buffy’s slim hips tilted up to
meet him and Spike sank his mouth into her like she was a peach; he had
every intention of eating her until her juice was slick against his chin
and sticky on his fingers. He could barely contain himself; his cock was a
steel pipe. Spike slid his hands under Buffy’s perfect ass and pulled her
closer, tunneled deeper with his tongue. This was no robot beneath him; his
mouth met organic, earthy nectar and soon enough he could feel the deep
down vibrations of her orgasm quivering against his tongue.
Buffy came hard. Her back arched
up off the floor. Spike couldn’t remember the last time he’d wanted
anything as badly as he wanted Buffy. He turned his head to one side, and
rubbed his wet mouth against his shoulder.
“Wow,” Buffy sighed.
“Bloody, right,” Spike said.
“And that’s just for starters.”
Buffy shimmied away from Spike
and propped herself up on her elbows.
“Do you think Angel is still
outside?”
Spike shrugged. He reached out
with a long forefinger and stroked the bare, plump lips of Buffy’s sex.
“Go see,” she commanded.
*
Spike could barely walk; his
cock was a massive weight in his jeans. His reluctance to poke his head out
into the hall was slightly more complicated by the fact that Angel would
smell Buffy’s come in a nanosecond and Spike would likely end up with a
split lip or broken nose. It was all well and good to say that they were in
this rescue mission together (the term now seemed completely ridiculous
since Buffy was clearly in no need of rescuing) and quite another to
pretend that either of them had anything but their own selfish interests at
heart.
He paused at the door that led
to the hall wondering if there was anyway to defend himself.
“Angel,” he said. “Before you
hit me, I should explain.”
He pulled the door open a crack;
the hall looked empty. Had the blighter left? Spike pulled the door open
wider and stepped out into the hall. Angel’s fist connected with his
cheekbone: a freight train of power.
“You fucked her?” Angel said
incredulously, cocking his fist again.
Spike righted himself and held
up his hands defensively.
“She was all over me like flies
on shit,”
“You’ve got the comparison
partly right anyway,” Angel said.
“I think she might be the Bot,”
Spike said.
“The what?”
“Robot. Long story.”
Angel took in a visible breath.
“There’s no way a Robot smells like that!”
“Okay, right.” Spike closed his
eyes and remembered Buffy’s muscles spasming against his tongue. “Clearly
human.”
“Stop thinking about her,” Angel
said.
“She came on to me, mate!” Spike
declared haughtily. “Now I’ve got this.” He gestured to the lump in
his crotch.
“Serves you right,” Angel said.
“She wants you anyway.”
“What do you mean?” Angel said.
“She asked me to see if you were
still out here. I guess she wants you.”
Angel straightened up
noticeably.
“Couldn’t finish what you
started?”
“Oh I finished just fine,
Peaches,” Spike said.
Angel smirked and glanced down
at Spike’s crotch. “Really?”
“Really, really,” Spike said.
*
Buffy was in the shower. Angel
could smell the scented steam wafting from the bathroom door: vanilla and
citrus, smells that were both incredibly familiar and tantalizingly sexual.
Angel stood in the living room
and wondered what he should do. Christ! When had he gotten to be so damned
indecisive?
“Are you coming in here?”
Angel took a tentative step
towards the bathroom.
“Come on, Angel,” Buffy said.
“There isn’t an endless supply of hot water in this building.”
It only took Angel three steps
and six seconds to get naked and pull the sliding glass door of the shower
back and join Buffy under the hot jet of water.
“I thought…” he said.
Buffy wrapped a soapy hand
around Angel’s stiffening cock.
"What,” she said. “What did
you think?”
“You said…”
Buffy’s hand began a slow,
steady rhythm.
“What did I say?”
“Life. Yours. Jesus.”
Angel’s head flew back and he
groaned. His ejaculate went the way of the hot, soapy water.
“Better?” Buffy said.
“I don’t understand.”
Buffy smiled.
“Now,” she said, reaching down
to shut off the water. “There’s just that little problem of Spike’s dick.”
*
Buffy stretched out naked on the
virginal white sheets of her bed. Angel stood, a towel slung low on his
hips, on one side of the bed; Spike stood, still dressed, still in sexual
agony, on the other.
“How are we going to do this?”
Buffy asked.
“Do…” Angel said.
“What?” Spike finished.
“This,” Buffy said. She lifted a
finger and played connect the dots in the air. “Us.”
Angel met Spike’s eyes across
the bed.
“What about,” Angel paused,
“T.I.?”
“What about him?”
“Isn’t he your…”
“Boyfriend,” Spike finished.
“You guys really are a team,”
Buffy said. “As it turns out, that actually works out okay. And for the
record, T.I. isn’t my boyfriend.” She giggled. “I don’t think you could
actually call him a boy anything.”
“Buffy, this is…”
“Ridiculous,” Spike finished.
“It’ll be less ridiculous once
you’re naked,” Buffy said. “Trust me.”
*
She wasn’t a robot: that much
was clear. But she wasn’t exactly Buffy either; at least she wasn’t the
Buffy they’d said good bye to all those months before. Angel and Spike,
voracious as they were, could barely keep up with her.
She was liquid lightning, sharp
desires and molten skin, an endless unquenchable desire to be folded, devoured,
pierced.
“Bite me,” she said to Spike as
Angel thrust into her.
“Fuck me,” she said to Angel, as
Spike’s fangs drew blood.
She had no limits.
Hours later, as the sun strained
to get into the bedroom through the shuttered windows, she said: “Would you
fuck each other? I want to watch.”
Her words were enough to shoot
fresh desire through Spike’s languid cock. Even Angel seemed thoroughly
incapable of denying her anything.
“Come here,” Angel said gruffly.
Spike was too tired to argue
about who got to be on top. Buffy’s eyes were luminous; her breasts were
decorated with bloody kisses; the tang of her sex permeated the room. He’d
give her the moon if she asked.
Angel stood behind Spike, put
his huge hand on Spike’s back and pushed him down so that he was propped on
his elbows facing Buffy. Then he pushed into Spike’s arse none too gently
and Spike gasped with pleasure. When he opened his eyes it was to see Buffy
watching Angel’s face avidly. Apparently he was the monkey in the middle.
Still, this peculiar equation was making him hard all over again.
Then she said: “Could you fuck
me, while he fucks you?”
“Jesus, Slayer,” Spike managed
before Buffy slid down the bed and then, surprising him yet again, she
flipped over and, pulled her knees up, offering him her own sweet little
behind.
Spike had to bend his knees a
little and it wasn’t particularly comfortable, but he was fucking Buffy’s
arse, for Christ’s sake! And was Angel working just a little bit harder
back there? The light behind Spike’s eyes began to pop, fireworks that were
echoed in his groin just seconds later. The muscles in his sphincter
contracted around Angel’s dick and that was that. Buffy shuddered her own
orgasm. They tumbled together in a ridiculous heap.
*
There was fresh blood in Buffy’s
refrigerator. The Immortal wasn’t a blood drinker, that was a fact. Spike
slipped a bag into the microwave and set the timer for 30 seconds. Every
single inch of him ached. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this
sexually satisfied. No wait, yes he could: it was the last time he’d fucked
Buffy.
And now all his dirty little
secrets were out because he’d just taken it up the ass with Buffy in the
same room. What next: hand cuffs? Dildos? Whips?
Spike’s cock stiffened and he
returned to the bedroom, blood forgotten.
*
Buffy showered and dressed and
left her apartment. It was early and the sun had not yet begun to melt the
asphalt or coax the smell of shit from the ancient Roman sewers. It was her
favourite time of day in Rome.
First stop – the local butcher.
She put in a standing order for fresh blood to be delivered to her
apartment.
Second - the sex shop. She was
no blushing school girl as she chose restraints, clamps, dildos and lube.
Finally, after a quick stop for
an espresso and a plate of fresh fruit and cheese, she went to see T.I.
*
He swung the doors to his
pent-house apartment wide and kissed her on both cheeks.
“Hey,” she said.
“You look radiant,” he said. “Am
I to gather that our plan worked?”
“Like a charm,” Buffy said. She
crossed the room to the tall narrow windows. They opened out onto a balcony
that wrapped around the front of the building and looked down over the
square below. Throngs of tourists, anxious to beat the heat, milled through
the square on their way to any number of famous Italian attractions.
“Those two,” The Immortal
chuckled, “so predictable.”
“Well, you have known them a
long time,” Buffy said. “I did exactly what you said and they didn’t have a
clue what was going on.”
“Indeed,” he replied. “Their
petty jealousies are notorious.”
“Thank you,” Buffy said. “I
don’t know how I would have managed this without you.”
“You deserve your happiness,
Buffy. I am surprised that you think those two capable of delivering it,
but then again I have learned over many centuries that almost anything is
possible.”
“They’d thank you if they knew,”
Buffy said. “I mean if they knew that you helped me get them here.”
“Best we leave it as it is,” The
Immortal said with a smile. “Your vampires will take a while to get used to
the fact that you are no longer a damsel in need of a knight.”
Buffy smiled. “I know.”
“If you require my…services.”
The Immortal paused. He took in Buffy’s flushed cheeks, her erect nipples,
obvious through the soft cloth of her shirt. “No, I think you shall not.”
“Thank you,” Buffy said again.
“No,” The Immortal replied.
“When you have lived as long as I have, it’s always nice to have a project
to pass the time. I shall see you when I see you.”
*
Angel and Spike were sitting
across from each other at Buffy’s tiny kitchen table, which they’d moved
away from the window and the sunlight which streamed in through it
unchecked.
“Perhaps we’ve been
hallucinating,” Spike said.
“Hallucinating!” Angel said
incredulously. “Are you drunk?”
“No! I’m just trying to figure
out…I mean…what just happened?”
“Just happened? You mean for the
past six hours?”
“You’re a ponce.”
“You’re an idiot.”
Spike leaned across the table.
“She had us both,” he whispered.
“Consecutively,” Angel replied.
*
Later, the three of them naked
in Buffy’s bed, she said: “You’ll have to decide what you’re going to do.”
Spike tugged at Buffy’s nipple
with his fingers; Angel’s fingers were stroking the moist slit of Buffy’s
sex.
“I’m actually doing what I’m
going to do,” Spike said.
Buffy laughed. “Angel?” she
said.
“How is this going to work,
exactly?”
“How does anything work?” She
asked. “It just does.” She twisted her head and her eyes met his. “I want
it to, so much,” she whispered. She turned and looked at Spike. “I want it
for all of us.”
“The three of us, all the time?”
Angel said.
“Or any combination thereof,”
Buffy said. “It’s perfect, don’t you think?”
Buffy turned on her side and
snuggled closer to Angel; Spike turned and spooned against Buffy’s back.
“This is the end of the road for
me,” Buffy said into Angel’s neck. “This is what I want.”
*
At dusk, Spike and Angel shared
a cigarette on Buffy’s tiny balcony. The streets of Rome stretched out in
front of them, a crooked map of streets that spread out like veins from a
heart. And if there was a heart, it was here.
“What are we going to do about
Wolfram and Hart?” Spike said.
“I don’t think I give a shit,”
Angel said. “But if we had to, I guess we could handle things from here.”
“Bugger that,” Spike said,
taking the cigarette from Angel and taking one last drag. He dropped the
spent butt over the railing and leaned over a little to watch it float down
to the street below. “You’re not gonna get all broody about this, are you?”
“I’m not broody,” Angel
said.
“Yeah, right.” Spike paused.
“How long will it last, d’you think?”
“Not long enough,” Angel said
quietly.
“And then what?”
Angel twisted his head and
rewarded Spike with one of his rare, genuine smiles.
“I guess then it’ll just be back
to you and me.”
“Well, that’s all right then,”
Spike said.
THE END
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