Tea Party
Author: Susan (the Neon Nurse) Crites
E-mail: carosue@iguana.ruralnet.net
Rating: Mild R. This story contains verbal depictions of nudity, throes of
passion, and feminine hygiene products. Oh, and also oral sex. If any of
the above are going to distress your morals, your developing psyche or your
gag reflex, please give it a pass. Thank you.
Summary: Don't throw away that blood! There are vampires starving, y'know!
Spoilers: Set more or less currently this season, before "Doomed", anyway.
Disclaimer: This is a fanfic story for entertainment purposes only. The
author would no more infringe upon Joss Whedon's and other copyright
holders' intellectual property than she would eat raw liver. Thank you again.
"It isn't MY fault I can't live like that!" the almost-tearful doofus
protested to the smarmy talk show host.
"Off yerself then, ya yammerin' git," Spike snarled. "I'd help if I
could." He was sprawled on Giles' couch, watching the telly; an almost
totally inadequate substitute for any sort of entertainment whatsoever.
What an unlife.
The doorbell rang, its sound nearly drowned out by the shrieking of the
harridan responding to her erstwhile lover's complaint. He grimaced, but
otherwise ignored it.
To his surprise, he heard the door give a faint creak, and the room
brightened briefly as it opened. He slouched further down, debating
whether to startle the intruder with a fangyface surprise or lie low and
get the drop on them. Then a soft voice called, "Giles? Are you home?"
With a grin, he shifted to vamp mode and popped up like toast. "Boo!"
Willow gasped, and clutched the heavy books she was carrying more tightly
to her chest. Trust one of the bloody librarian's minions to
subconsciously treat a book like a shield. Or a treasure. "Spike!
Uh...where's Giles?"
"'E popped off to run some errands. Don't know when he'll be back." From
the way he'd been muttering, probably several more hours. Like he was so
put upon having a house guest. HE could go out when he liked, couldn't he,
night OR day? No bunch of rotters trying to track HIM down to put him in a
bleedin' zoo.
"Oh. Well, I had some free time and thought I'd bring back these books I
borrowed."
She looked tired and glum, though Spike could tell she was trying to hide
this behind her usual cheerfully earnest exterior. "Anything good on TV?"
she asked as she placed the books on a side table.
"Jerry Springer," Spike told her. Boredom--certainly not loneliness--made
him add, "C'mon and watch--they're about ready to start knockin' heads."
Willow hesitated a moment, but joined him on the far end of the couch.
"What's the show about today?"
"Lovers Who 'Need More Space'," he said, curling his lip in disgust.
"Pretty obvious to me this lot could find all the empty space they wanted
inside their own knobs."
"Huh, need more space, what a cop-out," Willow growled companionably.
"Need an excuse to just think about themselves and nobody else, more like."
"That's for sure," Spike responded. Both of them knew exactly who they
were each not talking about.
Soon they were egging each other on to new heights of snappy insults
pointed at the increasingly acrimonious guests, not forgetting to get good
digs in at the host and some of the audience as well. As they laughed
together, Spike slowly realized he was beginning to feel a certain impulse,
weak from non-use but definitely there. He leaned towards Willow, trying
to be discrete, and sniffed. Underneath her nice smell of scented soap,
posh hair stuff and warm girl flesh was.... "Willow!"
Startled, she half jumped off the couch. "What!?"
"Is that...YOU?" He sniffed openly this time.
"Wha-what d'you mean? My...my perfume?" She edged back a little more.
"No, although of course it's very nice and all that," he said impatiently.
"You've got your...what do they call 'em these days? Your courses."
Willow had thought she was acclimated to Spike's rough ways, but this
simply SHOCKED her. "Spike!"
"Sorry," he said, with that unrepentant grin which showed he was anything
but. Suddenly realizing she was getting ready to bolt, which would leave
him alone again, he ventured a more polite explanation. "Just that it's
been awhile since I was around a gel who...you know. Alive and all." He
sniffed just one more tiny sniff. "Can't blame a bloke for takin' notice."
"I suppose...with vampires it's...only natural." Spike could see she was
struggling to keep her must-be-accepting-of-other-cultures face on.
"Exactly. Didn't mean nuffin by it." They each made a show of settling
back into their respective seats to watch the tv again. But new tension in
the air proved THAT hopeless. Spike looked steadily gloomier. "Bloody
shame...pardon the pun."
"What is?" Willow asked politely, though her wary eyes said plainly she was
not at all sure she wanted to know.
"Well, WASTIN' it like that, a'course! Lit'rally flushin' it down the bog!"
For some reason, Willow looked stricken at his words. "Aren't you...aren't
you getting enough to eat?"
Her concern was comical, but Spike was careful not to show that reaction.
"Oh, sure, pig blood." He shrugged manfully. "Better than nothin', I
ain't complainin'." Of course actually he was happily annoying Giles with
complaints as often as he dared, but he sensed that wasn't the tack to take
just now. "Never mind, you wouldn't understand," he finished with a sigh.
Willow, who couldn't stand to see ANYONE unhappy, pressed her lips
together, then said, "Spike, I'd help if I could, but...." She swallowed
hard. "I mean, you wouldn't REALLY want some...used...THINGIES...would you?"
"Gaah!" He made a genuinely revolted face. "Ta very much, but no."
"I didn't think so." Then Willow's eyes crinkled, though she blushed at
the same time. She pressed her fingertips against her lips in an utterly
hopeless attempt to hide her smile.
"What's so funny?" Spike demanded. He'd thought they'd moved on from the
mutual laughter part of his strategy, and he hated it when new complexities
loomed in the middle of a plan.
"Sorry, I just thought of this dumb old joke--"
"What?!"
"About...tampons being..." she had to force out the words between helpless
giggles, "...vampire tea bags."
"Arr, that's SICK," he cried, with an exaggerated shudder. But certain
mental images insisted on jostling his brain until he couldn't help
laughing too.
Maybe that had actually helped things along, he realized, after they had
both subsided into isolated chortles and loose, sated grins. Spike
delicately brushed Willow's upper arm with the backs of his fingers.
"You'd help me out if you could?"
"If I COULD, sure, but I...couldn't." Her voice trailed off to a helpless
whisper.
"I'd help you out, too," he said suggestively, with a wink. At her
appalled look, he went on, "What, still holding out faithful to your
runaway wolf-pup?"
"No, it's not like that," she denied instantly.
"Oh, *I* see. You just don't want nasty ol' Spike to touch you." He
turned away, offended. "Fine." She looked upset, but didn't speak.
"YOU'VE got plenty, so don't spare a thought for a friend goin' without."
Deep in sulking mode now, he crossed his arms and glared at the tv screen.
"Spike?" He ignored her. "Do you...really think I'm your friend?"
He looked around a little at this, hardly daring to believe he was sensing
a thaw. "You're awright, I suppose. For a human," he said grudgingly.
She gave him a tiny, sad, little smile. "Aw, forget I said anythin'.
Nobody ever said Spike had to force a girl to get some, and they never will."
"I didn't mean to...be mean. But it's so...personal!"
"Oh, and it wouldn't be personal for ME, is that it? I'm just a bloodless
bruiser with no feelin's. Typical heartless vampire, out for what he can
get." This was apparently what Willow did think, since she looked even
more upset, but did not deny it.
Spike sensed this and changed tactics. "It's not like you have anything to
be afraid of."
"You mean because of what those military people did to you?" she asked with
a dubious frown. The expression on her face shifted further, to something
he couldn't quite read, which looked alien on that sweet and innocent
countenance. "Or is it because my friend Buffy the big old mean Slayer
would kick your butt if you hurt me?"
Something going on between the gal pals he hadn't known about before?
Spike filed it away for future consideration, and deftly followed the hint
she'd unwittingly given. "Neither. I was referin' to your considerable
witchy powers--a gel like you can take care of herself."
BINGO! Willow sat up pertly, raising her chin and trying--failing adorably
but trying--to look fierce. "That's RIGHT, I can, and don't you forget it,
buster!" She was clearly quite buoyed up by this thought.
"You wouldn't, ah...there's no chance, I suppose...." Spike mumbled, doing
a rather good imitation of Giles pretending to be diffident, "...you'd
accidentally turn me into a toad or summat? In the throes of passion and
all?"
"No, of course n--throes of passion?" Willow's attention sharpened on him
suddenly. "There are...potential throes of passion involved here?"
"Sweetcheeks, ol' Spike has been inspiring the ladies to throes of passion
since your great-granny was in nappies," the vampire bragged, with a lofty
twitch of his scarred eyebrow. "If he promises throes of passion, throes
of passion there shall be!"
He almost couldn't believe it, but he could TELL she was on the brink of
actually agreeing! He made his move. "We've got a nice comfy couch here...."
"OH, no!" This time she DID jump entirely off it.
He rose casually and came just a step closer. "Not very private, is it?
How 'bout Giles's bedroom then?"
"Giles's---" This time her horrified voice rose to a squeak that headed
for the stratosphere. "I COULDN'T!"
"Right. Better be the loo, then." He extended his hand.
She reached for it slowly, with plain reluctance, but she DID take it, and
inside he capered with glee. "That's not...very romantic."
"Only other room in the house with a lock on the door."
"Good point."
Careful not to let his internal capering glee show, Spike escorted her with
as much dignity as if he were leading her to a limo. With a very
Jeeves-like air, he took a nice fluffy towel off the rack by the tub and
folded it into a thick pad.
Willow, feeling a little faint, pictured herself trying to make off later
with one of Giles's towels, complete with suspicious blood stain, since she
would NEVER be able to face him again if he found it....
Spike lowered both parts of the toilet seat, and made a courtly gesture
towards it. "If you could hike up that pretty little skirt a bit--that's
it, and..." He mimed lowering undergarments--at least she had on one of
her nicer pairs today! "...then have a seat." He placed the towel behind
her back with solicitous care. "Comfy?"
'I am sitting on Giles's toilet, in front of a vampire, with my skirt up
around my waist and my underpants around my ankles, and he wants to know if
I'm COMFY?!' "Yes, thanks."
Spike knelt before her, with as close to a feeling of reverence as he'd
experienced in his long unlife. He gently parted Willow's pale trembling
thighs with both hands. The tender moment was put on pause by the sight of
a string. "Half a mo, let me get rid of this...teabag." Willow hiccuped a
half-hysterical giggle. "Er, what do you usually...."
"Here, wrap it in some paper and I'll flush it after."
"Right-o. Now...where was I?" With the pads of his thumbs, Spike stroked
open the butterfly-shaped flesh. Willow wriggled a bit and made an
inarticulate sound, and he felt some of the tension in her muscles slide
away.
"Just lie back and relax," he advised.
"And think of England?"
Spike laughed. "Why not? England's finest, my dear. You'll see!"
Discarding polite pretense, he inhaled deeply, and almost trembled a bit
himself. Living blood from the sweet center of living girl flesh--the
finest wine in the world was mud compared to this. And it was all his! A
coy trickle of crimson peeked out invitingly, and he leaned in to accept
with a happy sigh.
Willow had been looking around the room, fighting with every ounce of her
strength to remain casual. At least under the circumstances she didn't
have to try to think of anything to SAY, and that was good. She couldn't
help jumping a little when Spike's mouth touched her, and she decided to do
what she did when she had a gynecological exam--think of the states and
their capitals, backwards. 'First, of course, there's Wyoming. Capital,
uh....Cheyenne. That...oooh! That one's easy. Next, ah....ahhhh.
Um...West Virginia....'
Her hands tightened their grip on either side of the seat as all thoughts
of geography vanished. It seemed that for once Spike had been telling the
truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Somehow, she managed to
untangle her feet from her panties, and they wrapped themselves almost of
their own accord around Spike's sturdy shoulders. His arms came around her
tush to give her more support and she slid down, closer to the source of
hitherto unknown ecstasy.
***
With his semi-free hand, which only had two plastic grocery bags hanging
from it, Giles opened his back door, intending to step aside to let a
similarly laden Buffy pass through first. But as he pulled it open, the
pair were horrified to hear a long staccato shriek.
Bolting forward in tandem, they collided in the too-small-for-two
doorframe, and Giles was squished into second place by Buffy's
slayer-powered muscles. Shedding grocery bags that spun and ricocheted as
they bounced unheeded to the kitchen floor, the pair sprinted to the source
of the sound. It was coming from--the bathroom of all places!
Giles grabbed the knob and rattled it, shouting, "What's going on in there?!"
The instant and total silence shocked Giles and Buffy into a matching one.
After an eternity-long pause, a hesitant voice from inside said,
"Nnnooothing."
Buffy's mouth popped open. That COULDN'T be-- "Will?"
"Buffy?!" the voice answered with clear dismay. Buffy and Giles exchanged
puzzled yet deeply disturbed looks.
"You--you're sure you're all right?" Giles prodded.
"Sure. We'll be out in a minute."
"'WE?'" Buffy mouthed at Giles, now even more horror-stricken. They leaned
forward together. Faint whispers of some sort of muttered, flustered
conversation came to them, followed by the flushing of a toilet. In
another few seconds, the door swung open to reveal Willow and Spike, both
looking impossibly innocent.
Other than Spike's hair looking slightly more tousled than usual, there was
no visual evidence of any problem. After a moment, Giles said in a
deceptively mild tone, "Perhaps I'm getting old, but I could have sworn I
heard...screaming...coming from this room a few moments ago."
"I heard it too," said Buffy, her expression boding ill for a certain wily
vamp.
"Yes, and...and--there's a good explanation for that!" Willow burst out,
following with a nervous teeth-baring grin.
"Oh, good," murmured Giles. He paused expectantly.
Willow looked up at Spike, who adroitly took up the reins. "That's right.
Er, y'see--I...." He brightened. "I had a problem." Warming up to his
idea, he waxed voluble. "Can't imagine how it got there, but I felt like
something was stickin' me through me trousers. Dreadful uncomfortable.
And Willow happened to drop by, so I asked her to have a look."
"Oh..OH! Yes! It was...a little splinter."
"It was a BIG one--very irritatin'!" he contradicted. At Giles' look of
total disbelief he began to unbutton his fly. "Right, I'll just show you--"
Giles put his hand up. "That won't be necessary. I feel I can cheerfully
live out the remainder of my days without ever having had a chance to
inspect your...fundament."
"Yer loss, mate," Spike shrugged with his trademarked evil grin, pulling
his waistband up a bit more firmly.
"And the screaming?" Buffy said coldly, not even close to buying this yet.
"Oh, that's easy! I mean--see, we came in here because...the light's better?"
"I wasn't about to get my tender white bum too near a window!" Spike
inserted helpfully.
"And sure enough, it was a big splinter? And when I pulled it out, it must
have hurt--"
"Oh, so that was SPIKE screaming!" Buffy pretended to understand.
"Noooo," Willow replied just as sarcastically. "It hurt, and he turned
around with his vamp face on and it scared me and I screamed." Proud of
her quick thinking, she smiled at Spike and he nodded, as though giving a
tribute. Then she realized the indiscretion of this, and went back to
looking wide-eyed and innocent.
"And the locked door?" Giles inquired.
"Habit. You know, just habit...to go in a bathroom and lock the door. I
always do."
"I see." Giles obviously only saw that he was getting fed a very
amateurish Banbury tale, which he would nevertheless have to accept for the
moment. "Very well, now that that's cleared up, I'll go mop up my kitchen,
which is no doubt awash in spilled milk and broken eggs." He stalked off,
so very, very obviously not happy.
"Right, well then, back to the telly for me--though I probably missed the
row on Springer." Spike winked at Willow. "Thanks for helpin' me out, and
all that."
Willow smiled broadly. "My...pleasure," she nearly purred.
"Anytime you're around the neighborhood, drop in. Specially if it's...tea
time." The only possible description for his expression as he said this
was 'lascivious smirk'.
Stealing a glance at Buffy's astonished face, Willow flipped her hair a
tiny preening bit. "I just might."
Willow's behavior was making Buffy's normal curiosity red-line off the
scale. "C'mon, Will," she said, grabbing her friend's arm to break up the
flirty double-message-fest. "Let's help Giles get everything picked up and
put away. So we can get back to the DORM." The madly suspicious slayer
vowed in her heart no further sleep would take place in their room until
the full truth was told!
She only hoped she could handle the truth.
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