Design Features
Part Four
"Well that was a load of fun. What say we find ourselves some demons to fight?" They had emerged from the back of the Fish Tank into a damp alleyway strewn with litter and broken bottles; Spike was wide-eyed and exuding aggressive energy; Avon wondered if he should take some speed to keep up."Where?"
"Anywhere. This way." Spike ran onto the main Dock Road and headed back into town. Avon decided it was best to follow.
"Recognise this place?" Spike had come to a halt in front of another nondescript alleyway. "It’s where you turned up, love. D’you think anyone else’s come through?"
"We’d have heard. The device may have been destroyed at the other end by now." Wonder if Blake blew it up, he likes doing that. What would he think if he knew he’d stranded me here? Maybe he’d be glad to be rid of me. Suppose they might still be looking for me... There was a familiar blue shimmer in the air; Avon had the crossbow in his hand and a bolt notched before the figure was fully visible. He fired and the man fell back into Spike’s waiting arms. Avon hung his head. Am I getting trigger-happy? If it’s... He looked up; Spike’s face had taken on a demonic appearance and he was draining the blood from the neck of a Federation trooper. Avon let out a breath he had not realised he was holding. Spike dropped the corpse and his features returned to normal. He wiped his mouth.
"That was good. Fag, love?" Spike lit two cigarettes and handed one to Avon. "We make quite a team, pity I can’t make you over."
"Can’t or won’t?"
"Can’t. Chip won’t let me. Why d’you think I don’t bite you when we play? Anyway, you’ll only leave eventually either way." Avon could not deny it; why else was he going to an interview in San Diego?
"Who’s to say you won’t get bored first? I’m not exactly your first choice either." Avon had a pretty shrewd idea as to the identity of Spike’s first choice but he was either too polite or too sober to voice his speculations.
"Touché." Spike threw the remainder of his cigarette into a corner. "Fun though, isn’t it? Let’s go home."
*******
"Hey," said Spike when they got back to the crypt. "If you don’t want speed, how about some of this?" He threw a small brown-glass bottle to Avon, who unscrewed the top. Amyl nitrate: could be an interesting evening, although alcohol, poppers and whatever else Spike had in mind were hardly the way to prepare for an important job interview.
His concentration was shot to hell, he found himself on his back on the bed with Spike removing his leather trousers far more roughly than they deserved. Fortunately his body seemed to have far more idea what was going on than his brain did.
*******
Spike sank his teeth into the skin either side of the scar on one of Avon’s wrists; Avon whimpered then raked Spike’s back with his free hand as he felt fangs pierce his flesh."Pervey little sod, ain’t you?" Spike growled pinning Avon under him.
Not usually this perverted... He writhed under the vampire, trying to get as much flesh to flesh contact as he could.
Spike clamped his left hand over the wound on Avon’s wrist and forced their mouths together. He tasted of blood and musk, cigarettes and alcohol.
"Want more?" Avon tried to nod. "Say it... Say it, you bastard!" Spike pulled his right hand back and slapped Avon’s face hard enough to snap his head round. "Well?" Spike drawled.
"Please..." Avon hissed. "Please, Spike, more." He could feel blood seeping out of his wrist around the vampire’s grasp; he couldn’t lose consciousness yet.
*******
Spike swept the lamp and assorted junk off the bedside table, making a grab for one of the sachets of lube Avon had ‘casually’ left there.Avon begged again and again, repeating "Please, Spike" until it became one long word. Spike moved his mouth back to lap the blood pouring from Avon’s wrist, working the fingers of his free hand into Avon at the same time. Avon’s pleas became moans as Spike flipped him onto his belly and drove into him, fangs digging into the flesh over his jugular.
*******
"You still with me, you sick fucker?""It would seem so."
"Good, for a moment there I thought the chip might kick in before I was finished with you. Shouldn’t be able to take as much as you did, must build ‘em tough where you come from." Spike found a roll of bandage from somewhere and bound Avon’s wrist. "Don’t think we should try that again though: looks like there’s as much of your blood on the sheets as there is in either of us."
"Never again?" Avon was prepared to bet that he could persuade Spike otherwise pretty damned fast once he regained motor control.
"Don’t tempt me. Chip’d probably fry my brains if I got any nearer screwing you to death than I just did. And don’t look at me like that, I know just how close you are to passing out." Avon thought that sleep sounded like a very good idea.
*******
Avon slotted the hired Citroen DS (black) between two MPVs in the visitors’ car park of UC San Diego. Giles, who had offered to lend Avon some music for the journey, had looked very wistfully at the car before handing the CDs over. Avon took this as a sign that the DS was in keeping with the image he was trying to put across to the American academics he was to meet with.As he got out of the car he noted the sign informing him that the entire campus was non-smoking. Not a problem: he planned to give up as soon as he left Spike, or rather Sunnydale. The air temperature in San Diego was a little higher than in the town he had just left and he wondered if hiding his scars was really worth the slight discomfort of a long-sleeved T-shirt. Too late to worry about it now. He found the location of the computer department on a map at the exit of the car park and started walking in the relevant direction.
*******
The Computer Science Department was housed in a tall building with windows taking up the major area of the external walls. Avon found his way to an office on the fourth floor where he was greeted by a nervous-looking, slightly unkempt man with long greying hair in an untidy ponytail."You must be Dr. Kerr Avon. Very pleased to meet you. I’ve just been reviewing some of your recent papers: very interesting."
There were some things you could not fake, no matter how many computer systems you could hack and Avon was extremely grateful to have found someone in Sunnydale who could overcome such inconveniences. Next time, however, he was going to find an Arch Mage with a more up to date pricing system (fifteen hundred guineas and your first born child indeed).
"I’ve been staying with a former colleague in Sunnydale, I believe there are several highly promising students at the university there."
"Ah, UC Sunnydale. We sometimes get postgraduate students from there. Not as often as I’d expect though. They must have a high drop-out rate-"
More like a high death rate.
"Now let me show you around..."
*******
"... and this would be your office." The Head of Department pushed a door open at the conclusion of the tour. Plenty of space, sizeable desk, plenty of storage space for back-ups and engineering projects. Avon looked out of one of the windows onto the tennis courts.Ah, mixed doubles... "And the computer?"
"Whatever the incumbent specifies. There is, of course, a state of the art network connection- CAT seven- with full access to all academic and non-academic resources, complete firewall privileges." Things were definitely looking up. All Avon needed now was to ensure he had sufficient funds for down payments on accommodation and transport plus a little in reserve and he would have this lifestyle sorted. He seemed to be picking up a little of Spike’s phraseology but then he needed to fit into the twenty-first century somehow.
*******
"We usually eat here," one of the Post Docs explained, leading the way into a brightly-lit refectory in the basement. "Some of the Grad Students still eat at the Che Café but it’s gone downhill recently and the food was piss-poor to begin with." Avon briefly wondered how many university buildings would get named after Blake if the Federation ever fell. "Are you planning on staying in town tonight? Only a bunch of us were going to have a video marathon: all three ‘Star Wars’ films then whatever else takes our fancy.""I think not," said Avon, who had developed a loathing for science fiction that nearly rivalled his out and out hatred of ‘Passions’ and ‘Dawson’s Creek’. And he could always get to know the more attractive department members at a later date.
*******
As soon as he was on the freeway heading out of San Diego Avon pulled the Citroen off the road and got out. Lighting up a cigarette he reviewed the interview in his mind. It seemed to have gone well, with no obvious faux pas; the department members he had met were a reasonably functional group of misfits; and the workload was nothing to what had been expected of him in the past months. The salary was reasonable, especially as he planned to supplement it by any means he could get away with. That was it then, he had found a way out. His cell-phone buzzed at him..."Avon."
"Ah, good. Giles here. Could you come straight to the Magic Box when you get back to Sunnydale? There are things we need to discuss." Well things had been going well...
*******
At the Magic Box he spotted a redhead and a blonde: evidently the witches were back.Cute couple, no wonder Oz is avoiding them... Then Spike looked across at him and the girls clasped hands and smiled. Is it not enough that I have to deal with this farce without lesbians giggling at me? What the hell... He joined Spike, who was sitting on a stool over by the cash register.
"Hello, love, how was the interview?" Spike was doing his best to ignore the fact that the two girls were now whispering to each other. Avon kissed Spike then looked across them.
"You must be Willow and Tara," he said as pleasantly as he could manage. "How was the convention?"
"Oh, we really enjoyed it," said the redhead, "very empowering."
"Yes," agreed the blonde "W-we m-met loads of other witches... and... It was good," she finished nervously. Avon almost felt sorry for glaring at her and turned his attention back to Spike.
"The interview went well. I could work well with the people I met." Willow and Tara now seemed to be deep in a conversation of their own so Avon felt he could safely stroke Spike’s neck without being subjected to further scrutiny. "How about you? What’ve you been doing while I was away."
"Mmm... Not a lot. Picked up some pirate videos, killed a couple of demons, came here to get bored silly. Now just keep doing that and maybe I won’t be so bored..."
The rest of the group trailed in over the next ten minutes, Xander looking very suspiciously at Avon and Spike.
"So," said Giles, polishing his glasses, "now that we’re all here- are you two listening?" Avon pulled himself away from Spike long enough for a ‘what do you take me for?’ look then went back to reacquainting himself with Spike’s mouth. Tara murmured something to Willow that definitely involved the word ‘cute’.
"When you’ve all quite finished..." Giles was getting very irritated.
"I’m listening," Buffy pointed out. Xander and Anya looked up and pretended they had been too.
"I’m quite capable of concentrating on two things at once," Spike muttered, which Avon took to mean he should be more distracting. Giles gave up the idea of having everyone’s attention and continued his lecture.
"I have the relevant texts now and Willow and Tara have said they’ll work on them over the weekend while I am otherwise occupied-"
"Olivia’s coming over," Willow added helpfully.
"Yes, well," said Giles, "that’s as may be. The point is, the new moon is next Friday and we must have everything prepared by then." Avon made some hasty calculations regarding how much money he could transfer to his bank accounts and the likelihood of having heard from UC San Diego in just over a week.
"What’s up, love?" Spike whispered, "not actually listening to any of this, are you?"
"A little. It does concern me."
"Don’t worry about it, the teen witches’ll never get it done in time. You’ll be stuck here at least another month."
"I’m not so sure, Giles seems very confident."
"Oh, he always does. Don’t fret about it. Let’s just go home and have a look at these videos." Spike stood up; Giles gave him a look but said nothing. Spike walked out, closely followed by Avon.
*******
Half an hour later they were sprawled on the bed ostensibly watching ‘Velvet Goldmine’.
"Will you go back?" Spike asked, giving Avon a few seconds to draw breath before beginning Phase Two of the current seduction.
"Not if I can avoid it. What is there there for me, other than certain death? Stay here and within six months I’ll have more money than I know what to do with."
"You could buy a small country," Spike suggested. "No, a large country. A bloody huge country. You’re going away though aren’t you?"
"Same reason. I like being alive."
"No point in being rich if you can’t spend it. What will I do after you’ve gone?"
"Stand under Buffy’s bedroom window every night?"
"How did you- you followed me, didn’t you?"
"I’ve been past her house during the day, someone has spent a lot of time standing there. I surmised it was probably you."
"Buffy doesn’t know a good thing when it’s staring her in the face. At least she’s not going anywhere though." Spike said dejectedly.
"I’m only going to San Diego. You could visit." Avon hoped Spike wouldn’t mention that there was nothing stopping him moving south either. Avon wanted no ties, no responsibilities, no one needing him to look out for them. "You could always tell her, she might be more understanding than you think."
"Speaking from personal experience?"
"Not exactly."
"Then you don’t know anything about it -hang on, we’re missing the film." Spike recovered rapidly from his bout of melancholy.
"Which would you prefer? The film or me?"
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