Vampire Love

[shapinglight]

Here's my fic for the nekid_spike Nekid Numbers Halloween challenge. On time this time, unlike last year.

Setting: A Neverneverland BtVS Season 4 (-ish, it's certainly not the same Halloween as the one in Fear Itself)
Pairing: Spike/Giles
Rating: PG13/R (-ish, and only if you consider mere mention of m/m sex rates R).
My Nekid Numbers prompts were: Spike paired with Giles or Darla, object: pumpkin, location: under full moon, kink: hurt~comfort
1700 words of sheer silliness

Vampire Love



"Ouch!" Giles dropped the knife with a clatter. "Bloody hell!"

Spike was slouched in front of the television, flicking idly from one channel to another. His boots, Giles noted with irritation, had left dirty marks on the coffee table.

"I said, bloody hell!" Giles repeated, louder this time. If the annoying little blighter had to inflict himself on Giles, the least he could do was pay attention.

Spike didn't even turn around.

"What's the matter, Rupes? Run out of Darjeeling?"

Giles rolled his eyes. "Oh, never mind."

Could you smirk with your voice, he wondered, glaring in Spike's direction, because he was pretty sure Spike could?

Abruptly, Spike's nostrils flared. "What's that smell?"

A moment later, he was on his feet.

"You've cut yourself, haven't you?" His tone was accusing, as if Giles had done it on purpose.

Once, Giles thought, seeing the notorious William the Bloody approaching him with that sidling, hipshot gait of his - like an under-size big cat stalking prey - would have had him - well, not fleeing in terror maybe, but feeling distinctly nervous. Now, it just made him irritable.

More than irritable. More like at the end of his tether, and with his last nerve in shreds. Spike had that effect on people.

"Yes, I have cut myself," he snapped. "And it hurts, if you must know. Not that you care."

Spike had stalked right into the kitchenette by this time and was gazing at the draining board, where Giles's hand, a large orange pumpkin with a face half cut into it, and a bloody kitchen knife, were all sharing space. Blood was welling from the gash in Giles's palm, and dripping into the sink, despite his efforts to staunch it.

Spike licked his lips.

"Looks delicious -" he said. Then, hurriedly, "I mean, looks bloody painful."

Giles decided he didn't care for the avid look on Spike's face. He stuck his bleeding hand behind his back.

"Nonsense. It's just a flesh wound."

"It's a lot worse than that," Spike insisted. "I can tell." And he smirked his infuriating smirk, just in case Giles should be in any doubt as to why that was. "What were you doing anyway?"

Giles indicated the pumpkin. "It's obvious, surely?"

Spike considered the pumpkin critically for a moment. "Bit crap, isn't it, mate? Doesn't look anything like a Gorgonax demon."

"Gorgonax...." Giles faltered, but Spike carried blithely on.

"All right, so the head's the right shape and colour, but the expression isn't very convincing. Gorgonax demons have more teeth than that for a start."

"It's not finished," Giles protested. He was feeling quite defensive now.

"You don't say." Spike eyed the bloody knife on the drainer. "'Course, you're doin' it all wrong."

"I am?" Giles flexed his fingers, which had begun to feel stiff. His hand was sticky and the cut on his palm was throbbing.

"Yeah." Spike tipped the pumpkin this way and that, pursing his lips, like a handyman examining a shoddy piece of workmanship. "For one thing, you're supposed to perform the spell under a full moon. Otherwise the bloody thing'll never come to life, will it?"

"Spell?" Giles gaped at him. There'd obviously been a misunderstanding here. Knowing Spike, a deliberate one. "I'm not doing a spell, you moron. It's Halloween, remember? This is a decoration. I was going to light a candle inside it and put it out on the doorstep."

"Ooh, right." Spike sneered. "Forgot it was time for that pathetic excuse to rip people off and sell more greetings cards. Why're you lettin' yourself get dragged into it, mate? Not very British, is it? 'Sides, I would've thought you had more dignity."

"Halloween is a big occasion over here," Giles said, crossly. "When in Rome, and all that." He blinked. "Why are there two of you?"

Spike tilted his head. "No idea. Wild guess, blood loss and shock, maybe?"

Then his face rippled, like a reflection in a funhouse mirror and disappeared altogether.

*

Giles recovered consciousness to find himself lying on the living room couch. He could see his feet, minus shoes, raised on cushions at the other end of it. There was a hole in the toe of his left sock, he noted. Also, there was a blanket draped over him, which was just as well, because he felt rather shivery.

His hand hurt too, but when he took it out from under the blanket, he discovered it had been bandaged by someone who evidently knew what they were doing.

"Buffy? Willow?"

One of them must have dropped by, Giles thought, or -unlikely, since it would have involved making an actual effort to be helpful-Spike had called them over.

He raised his head off the couch arm, expecting to see one or both girls nearby, giving him the 'not again' look they always gave him when he came round, usually after a blow on the head - which was very unfair, as one of these days he was going to suffer major trauma and then they'd be sorry.

But there was only Spike in the kitchenette with his back to him doing...something. Giles couldn't see what.

Giles sat up, then flopped down again clutching his head as the whole room swung dizzily around. "What the devil...?"

"You fainted." Spike was peering over the back of the couch at him, an ever so slightly smug expression on his face. He held a steaming mug in one hand. "Tea?"

Giles reached out and took the mug without thinking. "Thank you." Then common sense kicked back in. He sniffed the tea suspiciously. "What have you put in it?"

Spike quirked his scarred eyebrow. "Nothing you won't thank me for."

Giles took a sip. "Oh." He took another.

"Yeah," Spike said, happily. "Brandy. Great steadier of the nerves, brandy. My dear old nanny swore by it when I was a boy."

"There is nothing wrong with my nerves," Giles protested, but he drank the tea, and afterwards, he had to admit he felt better.

"My hand..." he began, but Spike interrupted him.

"Think nothing of it. Can't feed on the badly bleeding human thanks to this sodding chip, can I, so I thought I might as well patch you up."

"Thank you," Giles said, again. "I think," he added, after a moment. He narrowed his eyes and glared at Spike. "You didn't..."

"Sample the merchandise?" Spike gave him a look of injured innocence. "'Course not. Never let a drop of blood pass my lips. Promise. Finished your pumpkin for you as well."

He brought the pumpkin out from behind his back, the face now fully carved, and glaring at Giles malevolently. Giles had to admit it was a better job than he could have done himself.

"Washed the knife too," Spike said. "Didn't even lick it. Cross my heart and hope to die...er, again?"

Giles rolled his eyes. This was getting ridiculous. "All right, Spike, what do you want?"

Spike pouted. "Don't want nuthin'." He put the pumpkin down on the coffee table and stuck his hands in his jeans pockets. Then he said - muttered, rather,

"Thought maybe there might be something you wanted."

Suddenly, he leaned forward and kissed Giles full on the mouth, before straightening just as suddenly and beginning to examine his nails, from which the black varnish was still flaking (all over Giles's living room carpet).

Giles realised his mouth was hanging open. He shut it quickly."Did you just kiss me?"

Spike shrugged, intent on picking off a particularly stubborn bit of varnish. "Might've done. What about it?"

Giles cleared his throat. "It was rather.....unexpected. That's all."

At this, to his astonishment, Spike stopped picking at the recalcitrant varnish, glared at him, then burst out,

"Unexpected? Bloody hell! What does it take?"

"I beg your..." Giles began, but Spike wasn't listening.

"I spend all these weeks making it bloody obvious how I feel about you, how I worship the ground you walk on, and you still don't have a sodding clue, do you?"

"Er...what?" Giles shook his head, trying to dislodge whatever was blocking his ears and making him mishear things. "What on earth are you talking about?"

Spike only glared at him some more, eyes flicking from blue to yellow and back again.

"I mean, would I go to so much trouble to make your life a misery if I didn't care? Mess up your flat, drink all your scotch, scratch your LPs, tear pages out of your books, make fun of everything you say. I only did it to get attention an' 'cos you're beautiful when you're angry."

"I...see," Giles said, though he certainly hadn't at the time.

"Any fool could read the signals," Spike grumbled. "But not you - oh, no. That's too much to bloody ask from Mr I'm-so-stuffy-I-wear-tweed-in-bed ex-Watcher, isn't it?"

"Spike," Giles said, but Spike still wasn't listening.

"Workin' my fingers to the bone tryin' to seduce you, and do you care? Like hell. Men - and women, 'cos Dru was just as bad - are all the same. Bet you wouldn't even have noticed if I'd tied you up and tortured you for days on end, would you? Bastard."

"Spike!"

"What?" Spike paused mid-rant and blinked at Giles crossly.

"I said, it was unexpected," Giles said. "Not that I didn't like it."

There was a short silence. They stared at each other.

Then Spike's face split into a triumphant grin.

"Yeah?" Leaning over the back of the couch, so they were almost nose to nose, he purred, "Fancy another, do you?"

Giles let his gaze drop from Spike's eager face, to his pale, muscular arms, to the very obvious bulge in the front of his jeans. It was all rather gratifying. Odd - very odd indeed. But gratifying.

"Probably," he admitted. "You'll need to do one thing first, though."

Spike's adoring gaze was hanging on Giles's every word. "What's that, then?"

"Wipe the blood off your mouth, you little liar."

"Oops!" Spike's hand flew to the tell-tale stain on his lips, wiping frantically. He gave Giles a sheepish grin. "Bugger."

Giles grabbed the front of Spike's t-shirt, pulling him in for another kiss. "Oh, I think so," he said. "Definitely."