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The Sequel to
Reasons For Living
Headfirst
3 The White Reminder
The bed was cold.
The boat rocked slightly and Buffy imagined the ocean holding the boat the way no one held her anymore.
The door knocked itself. No, that’s not right. Someone knocked on the door. Buffy got up, slipped on a long jacket to cover herself because robes were in short supply on freighters. She opened the door.
Xander stood in the door with a flask and a pack of cigarettes.
“Wanna pretend?”
“Pretend what?”
Xander decided not to falter.
“That we found him. That we could possibly find him. That he’s here?”
Buffy looked away, stepped away from the door. Xander didn’t need the invitation to come in, but he waited for it. She picked at her nails and sighed.
“I don’t ever get to be a normal girl.”
“Second verse, same as the first,” Xander said.
Buffy turned back, laughed inwardly, stuck out her bottom lip in a mock pout. She batted her eyes.
“Poor me.”
“Poor me,” Xander echoed.
“So, how do we play?”
Xander stepped into the cramped room. More a large closet than an actual cabin; those were reserved for the actual crew members on this voyage. Xander’s “room” was actually an empty meat locker, convenient for keeping out the daylight.
He put the flask and cigarettes down on the small table in the corner, opened the door to the adjoining room, went in, shuffled around. Wood knocked on wood. He emerged short moments later with two folding chairs. He arranged them around the table. Sat down in one, pulled a cigarette out of the pack. He lifted the white reminder to his lips and pulled a match from the pocket of his jacket. Struck the match. Released the hated first breath smoke; then inhaled deeply. He unscrewed the cap of the flask and lifted it to his lips, slammed back an unnatural amount of the whiskey.
Buffy stared.
He put the flask back on the table, uncapped. Turned to where Buffy stood, agape.
“Ask again,” he said.
She swallowed. He ran his fingers through his hair, pushed it back, and held it in place, cigarette dangling from his lips. His eyes locked on Buffy. He vamped out. All ridges and yellow eyes and dangerous barely restrained power.
“How do we play?” Buffy said. Her eyes were moist.
“We are playing, luv.”
Spike didn’t look up.
Just followed his senses toward civilization. The smell of smog and faint traces of oil on the water led the way. He knew he was going north because of all the sea beasts busy heading he opposite direction for winter. He didn’t know which ocean he was in.
He would have laid odds on the Pacific. Off the coast of South America, most likely, if his guessing matched up. Either that or he was someplace completely random, if he was being honest with himself.
But if he was looking, and Xander was looking they’d find each other. That was their way.
So Spike didn’t look up. He swam forward, fueled by shark blood and driven forward by love.
Buffy hovered by the door to the room. She looked away from Xander, pushed the door shut and sighed to herself. The sight of Xander, vamped out no less, doing his best impersonation of Spike threw her.
“I’m thrown, Xander.”
He was at her side. One strong hand on either side of her hips pulled her back to his front.
“I’m drunk, Buffy.”
“And here I thought that you only came onto me when you were sober.”
He lifted one hand from her hip, she stood still, smooth and pliant as he brushed the hair from her neck and lowered his head to kiss her. She turned her head, sighed again. I’m not here, this isn’t happening.
Then she turned fast, face to face with hungry lips, ridged brows and sharp teeth.
“You’re not him, Xander”
“And you think you are, bint?” He snarled.
So this is where we are. “You don’t think we’re going to find him, do you?”
“Not here, no. Not tonight. You need him. I need him. Let’s need something together, right?”
He broke away from her. She held her pose, one arm raised on an invisible chest, one arm low on an invisible hip. He sat back down, lifted the cigarette back to his lips and breathed it in. Her arms hung in the air a moment then fell.
Xander leaned in the chair, felt the rock of the water under them. “Spike once said that all we were was boats on the sea.”
“Isn’t that like, a Chicago song?”
He chucked. He was hungry and wondered if there were any bad men on the boat he could finish off. He looked over his shoulder at Buffy, raised the flask back to his lips.
“This is getting tedious, Xan.”
“Let’s un-tedious it.”
And he was in front of her again, covering her small mouth with his, their hunger equal.
Well, this is something. The side of something. A boat. Not a large freighter. Signs of life.
Spike looked up at the lights illuminating the tiny portholes on the sides of the ship. He wondered what time it was. If anyone was patrolling the deck. He clung to the side, swum around to the front, climbed up the chain of the anchor. He pulled himself up on the deck.
He smiled to himself. This is definitely something.
Spike walked naked over the deck of the ship. The thought of real, live human blood pumping through him, fueled an erection.
Slime caught Spike’s sight. The slime ran away from what looked like yep, tentacles tentacles attached to a rather sizeable sea-monster demon thing of some kind chained to a vent shaft. The smell was putrid, but somewhere near that smell was another smell, a much more familiar one. A pair of familiar smells.
Spike chuckled lightly, and followed the scent trail around a corner, to a door that led to stairs that led below the deck.
He went down the stairs.
Cool flesh.
Warm flesh.
Tongues, bodies, fuck.
Low light. Romantic like.
Pheramones. Temperatures. Bodies, fuck.
Girl hand pulled boy back down into her, onto her. Harder.
Boy body slammed down slow. Slow slam down into girl body, moaned. Harder.
Legs wrapped around an ass squeezed tight, the human life would be gone. Ass glistening, girl sweat rubbed off. Warm flesh. Hot flesh. Kisses, cunts, cocks, fuck.
Fuck.
Spike stood in the door, they never noticed it open. He stood naked without any scent of his own. His smell washed away by days and nights and weeks in ocean. They never noticed the door open.
He held himself in his hand. Hard.
They never noticed the door open.
Bloody. Fuck.
He squeezed himself, silent. Their bodies slammed into each other harder. Tiny scream. Passion. Desperation. Pheramones, temperatures, bodies. They fucked.
They never noticed the door open.
They both screamed out. No names, just sounds. Guttural sounds.
They never noticed the door close.
4 Unsinkable Heap
Spike stood naked on the bridge of the ship. The bodies of the captain and the navigator barely alive slumped on top of each other in the corner. They’ll soddin’ live. He examined the maps and compass until he made some sense of where they were, near the Baja peninsula, only miles from shore, and took the boat toward land.
He was full. He was angry and he knew they were down there, somewhere deep in the bowls of the ship, sleeping blissful, post-coital sleep.
He steered the wheel in his hand with ease. He was aware of all that he had not been aware of in his time in the sea. The changeability of life on land now seemed like the worst nightmare he could imagine. All he could think of was the strength he’d gotten from his deep sea meal and how he wished he could feel that way forever, even as that strength lessened with each hour since he fed off the beast.
I wish me skin was rough and sharp. Rub against me and bleed. Nah, too much trouble. Teeth’s good enough I suppose. Need to cut my hair though, and shave. I look a bit like Ahab. Only naked. Well, at least I know I can kill my big white whale. Buffy. Slutty. Don’t matter much what she’s callin’ herself, what anyone else is callin’ her. She’s fucked me and mine. Especially the ‘mine’ part. She’s had her goddamned way with mine. That fuckin’ whale. I’ll spear her right. If Xan ever gets his spear out of her bloody blowhole. That’s right. I said her blowhole. Bloody. I am still evil after all these years. It’s kinda novel really. What rhymes with evil? Dead bitch. Yeah, like the sound of that. And then I’ll kill that Medusa looking mother inferior just for good measure.
The boat trudged through the mid-Pacific waters toward shore. The captain stirred with a moan and moved to try to stand. Spike pounced on him, bit him, sucked a little more of his blood, just enough so the captain passed back out, and returned to the wheel. When he could see lights on land, he turned the engine off, steered the wheel to the southern current, and dove overboard, headfirst, swimming for shore.
“We’ll find him,” Buffy said.
“Yeah we will.”
“This was a mistake, Xan.”
Buffy and Xander lay side by side. Both propped up slightly against the wall. Both clutched the sheets to their chests, to their necks. Covered every embarrassing part of themselves.
Xander squeezed his eyes shut. One time, just once. It was all I ever wanted. Once upon a time. Before time stopped being, what, something that could go away. Before all I ever had was time, and Spike. Just once. Had it. It’s been had. Have I been had? What was that?
Buffy tried not to cry more in bed beside Xander. His non-breath hitched and he started crying. Her tiny tremors increased and soon they were holding each other again. Bracing themselves against what they had done. They braced each other against their greatest fear.
“We will find him, Xander. We have to.”
“You shouldn’t have come, Buffy.”
“We’ll never know what that would have been like. This happened.”
“That’s like, everyone’s new motto isn’t it?” Xander said.
“Whatsamotto with that?” Buffy said. Xander laughed.
“Nothing.” He sighed. “I’m going back to the meat locker.”
“You don’t want to stay. We could…”
“Play pretend some more?”
“Or, you know… gossip,” Buffy said.
Xander laughed again. “Gossip would be good. If I wasn’t afraid we’d just done something, you know, bad.” Xander rose from the bed, naked.
Buffy blinked twice. Looked away from Xander walking away. Looked at the sheet she clung to instead. Knew that below it, below her, was a dry spot that should have been wetter, stickier. Things were not going well.
“Anyway,” Xander pulled his pants up, buttoned, zipped, turned back to Buffy. “I’ll go. When we get to land again. I’ll look for Spike. You should go home.”
Something low beneath the boat heaved, groaned. Then the boat pitched hard to port and Xander and Buffy were both tossed to the side of the ship, the porthole that had before been high above the water, then submerged.
“Fuck,” Xander said.
Buffy scrambled for clothes. She grabbed a shirt Xander’s? and her jeans. And pulled them both on before the boat rolled further and they were standing on the outer wall of the ship, the porthole, cracked and leaking, against the ocean floor.
“This is fucking bad, Buff.”
“And I thought this ship was unsinkable.”
“We’ve got to get off of this heap,” Xander said. If you drown, I can’t…
They made their way through the maze of the ship. Water poured in at the top of the stairs.
They made their way to open water, realized they were near shore, on a reef. They swam around to the front of the ship and Xander looked back, noticed, through the front window the bridge, two bodies, floating limply.
“Shit. Buffy, go to shore. Get help, or something.”
“Where do you think we are?”
“I don’t know. Just start screaming ‘cuidado.’ There’s two more people on the boat.”
“I’m coming with you,” Buffy said.
“You’re really not.”
And he swam back to the ship.
Bloody Mexico. How I despise thee, let me count the sodding ways. Uno, dos, tres… Bugger this. Where’s a cab? Or just a cabbie. Could use some quid and some clothes. Pesos. Is toy money, that’s what. Gimme a Queen’s note any day. The pound. It’s all about the pound.
Spike was alone on the beach. Very naked. If he turned around, he could see that the boat had washed ashore not terribly far away. Far enough. He couldn’t hear what was happening at the wreckage, over the surf. He couldn’t really see anything either, but he knew that it had washed ashore anyway.
I bet they’re so effulgently asleep they haven’t even noticed. Maybe Slutty will drown and Xan won’t be able to do a sodding thing about it. That’d be lovely.
Spike moved past the closed open air restaurants and into the proper of Cabo San Lucas, where he looked for breakfast and a place to disappear.
iLive long enough as a bloody loon, you don’t easily forget how to play the part. Dammit. I should be more guilty.
Spike laughed, frowned.
Spike laughed.
Buffy held the head of the dead navigator in her lap and cried.
The captain leaned on one arm beside Xander. He breathed heavily, but his thick frame seemed hardly worse for the near-drowning.
“Was there anyone else…” Xander asked.
The captain shook his head. Then thought for a moment.
Xander and Buffy both looked closely at the man.
He coughed, then spoke. “Me, him… you two… we were all I knew about. Then there’s this naked man…” Buffy and Xander glanced at each other. “On the bridge… And I think, he bit me…”
Buffy looked down at the man in her lap. She hadn’t looked too closely until then. She turned his head and gasped.
Xander looked over at Buffy, panic large in her eyes.
“And he looked like?”
“Cheekbones, I think. And roots.”
Buffy stared at the still chest below her. Her tears came back in full force.
Xander clenched his jaw. “Buffy, that man you’re holding. He drowned.”
Buffy looked up at Xander. “But, his neck.”
“I know.” Xander’s eyes were dark, even in the nighttime, on the beach, there was a depth to them that Buffy had never seen before. “Both of these guys would be… If that’s what he wanted.”
“How do you know..?”
“C’mon, Buff. Cheekbones. He described the naked man by cheekbones. Who else is it gonna be?”
“Joan Jett?” Buffy said.
“You’re funny. Really. Oh my god. Round of applause.” Xander rose and made his way up the beach. “Go home, Buffy. I’ll deal with this…” He paused. Frowned.
Buffy stared at him over her shoulder, agape. The dead man still in her lap, the tears still flowed.
“I’ll deal with this – whatever this is – however I have to.”
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