Design Features
Part Two
"So what is this great discovery of yours?" asked Avon sceptically as they walked towards the outskirts of the town. Nothing Giles had told him made any more sense than Spike’s explanations, although this time there was more history and less graphic violence in the stories. Giles was an Oxford graduate, which explained a lot: although Anglia (Polytechnic University) was not, strictly speaking, a Cambridge college, even by Avon’s time, it was still de rigueur amongst Alumni to look down upon persons from ‘the other place’."What we took to be werewolf activity is actually a series of attacks by a group of Lesser Mordrake demons. Quite different really: I should have seen the connection earlier."
"So, when we find these... demons, what then?"
"Oh, we kill them," replied Giles. "Careful, up ahead."
Avon looked; Spike and Oz were facing off against two roughly human-sized beasts. It was difficult to make out details in the available light but they appeared to be standing on two legs and to be entirely covered in dark, shaggy hair.
"As I surmised," whispered Giles, "Lesser Mordrakes."
One of the creatures leapt at Spike; Avon drew his gun and shot it. It fell in a heap and failed to get up. Oz seemed to have disappeared; the other creature was snarling at Spike when a creature of a different species bounded from the bushes and knocked it to the ground. Avon pulled his gun around to follow the fight; Giles stayed his hand.
"Don’t hit Oz." The boy was nowhere to be seen. The first of the fighting creatures gave an anguished yelp and keeled over. The other creature padded towards them, followed by Spike, who seemed totally unconcerned by it. Just before reaching Avon and Giles, the creature paused and its features seemed to blur until a naked Oz stood before them. He turned and disappeared back into the bushes.
"Handy with that, aren’t you," said Spike, looking at Avon’s gun. Avon refrained from pointing out what else he was handy with. "Think that’s the last of them."
"It is," said Buffy, joining the group. "Xander and Anya have gone to the Bronze already, we may as well join them."
"Not me," said Giles, "I want to look into this dimensional portal that apparently opened in Sunnydale last night. Avon, would you be able to help me?" Avon ignored him, taking a cigarette from the packet Spike was holding out; tobacco was uncommon in the Federation. Spike lit the cigarette for him; Avon experimentally inhaled: the head-rush was more intense than he expected but he managed to avoid coughing on the first lung-full of smoke. He wandered over to the bodies of the creatures and tentatively pushed it with the toe of his boot. The corpse promptly disintegrated.
"Tend to do that, Mordrake demons," said Spike, walking up behind him. "Coming to the Bronze with us? I’ll buy you a beer." Avon took a long drag on his cigarette.
"I may as well, I should see as many of the sights as possible before your friend decides to send me back."
"Wouldn’t call Giles my friend," grumbled Spike, "I just help the guy out sometimes, that’s all."
*******
The Bronze was noisy and crowded: far more the type of place Vila would frequent. The chicken wings were as good as Spike had promised on the way over, but the alcohol content of the bottled beer was minimal. A pity since Avon quite liked the idea of getting seriously drunk for once. On the other hand, staying relatively sober in present company could also have its advantages.
"So how does Oz do that?" Avon asked.
"You’ll have to ask him." Spike set a round of beer on the table. "Don’t know how he controls it so well: most werewolves can’t. He’s been travelling a lot, supposedly trying to find himself but I reckon he’s just running away from the Willow thing." Spike held out his cigarettes to Avon. "How about you? What are you running away from?"
"Why do you ask that?"
"Figures," said Spike, lighting Avon’s cigarette, "if you came from anywhere worth going back to you’d be over at Research Guy’s apartment right now, working out how to open another portal leading straight home. And you’re carrying some pretty heavy weaponry so I’d say it’s not very safe there, even by Sunnydale standards."
"Danger doesn’t bother me." Avon was not sure that he had sounded convincing to himself, never mind to Spike. Killing the trooper earlier, and then the creature, had felt far too natural; what he would give for a nice quiet life of computers and crime...
"So it’s something else. Someone else?" Avon wondered whether offering to buy the next round would distract Spike sufficiently. "Been there, done that," Spike continued. "When Dru rejected me and then I got a chip put in my head by a bunch of scientists... well, things looked pretty bleak. But then I got into this whole demon-killing malarkey and things started to pick up a bit."
"Dru?"
"Drusilla. We were together, well, a long time then she up and left me. Said I wasn’t man enough for her. Well, it’s not like I need her anyway." Spike was blatantly going for the sympathy vote.
As good an excuse as any. Avon placed the palm of his hand against Spike’s cheek. Cold, like a corpse, but more yielding. He moved his fingers down to Spike’s neck. No pulse. Avon pulled his hand away, wondering whether to be fascinated or repulsed.
"Yeah, right," said Spike softly, "I’m dead, undead if you want to be strictly accurate. What you gonna do about it?" Avon had read the chapter on vampires in the demonology book, and Giles had given him a lecture on how no matter how human some of them might appear, they were still creatures of pure evil. He said as much to Spike.
"That’s true in general, but I’m on the good guys’ side now. Notice that, did you?"
"It does seem a little at odds with what Giles told me. I think I’d prefer to make my own mind up."
"Good, you’re obviously not about to try and stake me which is a start. You seem to be getting on Giles’ wick too which is another point in your favour. Now, question is, are you really thinking what I think you are?"
Avon was considering an answer when Xander and Anya came over to the table.
"Hi, we were... that is," Xander paused, "are you guys having fun?"
"Never better, "said Spike, "you?"
"Oh, yes," said Anya. "So are you two-"
"-I said we weren’t going to ask them," Xander interrupted.
"But you were the one who wanted-" The remainder of Anya’s sentence was lost as Xander dragged her away.
"You," said Spike, finishing his beer, "are doing my reputation no good whatsoever. I’m still the Big Bad in this town and I don’t want people thinking otherwise just because of the company I keep. How about we split soon? Leave this place to the kids?"
Avon followed Spike out of the club, planning to make a small diversion to the mall on the way back.
*******
"Of course American punk isn’t a patch on British punk," said Spike as he put a Ramones CD into the stereo to replace ‘Never Mind the Bollocks’. "Are you listening to me at all over there?"Avon was sitting on the bed and didn’t look up as he continued to hack another credit card site on his new laptop. Spike had shown no sign of responding to his advances, so he had turned his thoughts to electronic crime. His credit rating was already through the roof and he had five platinum cards but he was enjoying the challenge.
"Look, if you need money that badly you can always do your thing with the ATM again tomorrow night." Spike pressed the play button on the stereo and inflicted a new brand of noise on the cavern.
"I don’t need money, I just like it." Avon replied as the number for his new card flashed on the screen. Time to start looking at other opportunities, he decided, running a search for the Cambridge University Computer Department.
"Surprised you and Anya haven’t hit it off better then," said Spike, walking over to the bed. "Leave that for later." He picked the laptop up and took it over to the sofa, returning with a small plastic bag containing dried leaves and buds.
"Got something new for you to smoke. Bought this really fucked up skunk off a local Bracken demon."
*******
"So you were with Drusilla for the better part of a century?" Avon and Spike were lying on the bed with an ashtray between them. Spike, who claimed he only listened to Lou Reed when he was stoned, had left ‘Transformer’ on continuous-play for the past two hours. He leaned over to pass the joint to Avon; Avon started to lean in closer still, when there was a clatter of feet in the tomb above. A small, inhumanly ugly person (possibly male but it was hard to tell), dropped into the cavern and came to stand at the foot of the bed, looking straight at Avon."You got Bill’s message, right? He wants to know if you’re planning on coming to work for him."
"Couldn’t this wait until morning?" Avon asked. The messenger sat down on the sofa and picked up the TV Guide.
"Don’t mind me, I’ll just watch Paramount while you finish what you’re doing." Spike lobbed a pillow at it. "Well, if you’re going to be like that..." the creature disappeared in a large cloud of smoke.
"You know," said Spike, "I think he just got totally the wrong idea there."
"Surely not," said Avon, trying to recapture the mood. Spike was seemingly becoming more interested but interruptions were hardly going to help matters.
"S’pose it’s not difficult the way you’ve been coming onto me since you got here. But then me, I normally don’t go for guys, ’cept those New Romantic types where you can’t tell the boys from the girls anyway. I think that joint’s dead, want me to make another one?"
"Not just yet," Avon moved the ashtray out of the way and rolled over towards Spike. "Any more right now and I’ll be no use to anyone." The room decided to spin at an alarming rate and showed no sign of slowing down. He made a supreme effort to look into Spike’s eyes and found himself unable to focus properly.
"Think you’re at that stage already," said Spike. "S’pose I’ll just have to put you to bed again."
*******
Avon had woken with his arms tightly around Spike (with all the strangeness of recent events, he was glad not to be alone) and was now contemplating the nature of the undead. If vampires could form pair bonds, then presumably they could have sex, although how that worked when they had no circulation was beyond him and possibly required further investigation. Did that count as necrophilia? Or maybe bestiality, since Giles, at least, regarded vampires as lower creatures? Avon would have expected Spike to have absorbed some of his body heat overnight but the vampire was cold as ever. He had some well-defined arm muscles though; Avon started to trace their shape with his fingers then decided to investigate the rest of this interesting being he had found. Nipples responded nicely to being pinched but Spike himself gave no sign of being awake. Avon continued to explore and found that vampires did indeed come suitably equipped.Only one thing to do about that... oh, yes you like that, don’t you? And that... What we could do for each other if you were just a little more conscious...
"Mmm… that’s nice, hon." Spike was starting to wake up. "When did you lear- Fuck, it’s you!" Correction, Spike was wide-awake. And not entirely happy with the situation; Avon kept his hands perfectly still.
"I thought you were getting to like me."
"I do like you." Spike rolled over onto his other side, "Just I’m not, well, you know."
"Your body would seem to disagree," Avon said with an amused glance downwards.
"Just a reflex response, it’s not like I’d ever do anything about it."
"That wasn’t the impression I got when you were kissing me last night."
"Ah. Remember that, do you? And there I was thinking you were completely wrecked by that point. Anyway, I was nearly as wasted as you were, I wouldn’t do anything like that when I was- ah, well if you’re going to try and persuade me like that..."
"Less talking, more action." Avon pulled Spike towards him. Mouth met mouth. Flesh connected. Limbs and bodies intertwined. Nails raked skin, drawing blood. They rolled across the bed one way then the other, thrusting against each other. It was all over far too quickly.
"Been a long time," they gasped in unison.
"Yeah, and how’d you end up on top?" Spike rolled them both one-eighty degrees then rolled off Avon and onto his back, finding and lighting two cigarettes. "Give me ten minutes and we’ll see what else I can do with you."
"Not just now," Avon failed to spot the ashtray and decided the floor would do just as well. "Some of us are less than superhuman. Besides, I have things to do that require my going out in daylight. Do you have a shower in this place?"
"Second tunnel, first opening on the left." Avon avoided asking why a cemetery had hot and cold running water in its crypts. After a couple more minutes he got out of bed, stubbing the cigarette out on Spike’s chest."
"Bastard!"
Back to Adult Stuff
Back to HQ